Rationality, faith.

"Their's not to make reply,

Their's not to reason why,

Their's but to do and die"

The Charge of the Light Brigade - Lord Alfred Tennyson

***

Coming from the non-religous perspective of my childhood, I am tempted to question everything rationally and logically. It is not in my character to have blind faith, it wasn't instilled in me during my youth, or if so, to an almost negligible degree.

Although my personality has been labelled "idealist", I still find it hard to believe far fetched ideas without logic supporting them. Which surely makes me more of a rationalist? I will believe something harmless and plausible if it entertains me yes, but I suspect my feet are grounded. They seem to be in any case.

***

"A priest is rushing

To my side

Begins to read me

My last rites

Father you're too late

My faith is weak"

The Priest and The Matador - Senses Fail

***

Is my faith weak? Why in any case is faith such a noble trait to have?

I just find it so appaling to accept things which i know not to be true, or which i seriously doubt the truth of, or which defy all rules of known logic.

***

Sometimes however the questions get too much: at what point, if any, should we turn around and say "Enough!" and just accept things for what they are? No questioning, no discovering - we can never know the answers and the searching will surely be the death of us...

***

It is what it is

***

I feel that I would be betraying myself by not finding out all there is to know, all I can possibly conceive and understand and hold within my head. but it seems like I am bringing this confusion upon myself.

What could ever warrant causing pain to oneself? - surely only saving another from pain or to saving oneself from further pain, or as a step in achieving a greater 'good' (for oneself or another..) ? Are any of these achieved by my unwaivering quest for answers?

It is tempting though to give up and block it all out, to forget - knowledge is conflicting, subjective and overwhelming at times. Forget any questions one might hold, forget the need for truth, forget any morsels of knowledge one might have already gained along the way. To achieve what, calmness? happiness? I know not.

We all make mistakes.

---

"Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase of pain. Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes, no heroes..." 1984 - George Orwell

---

Regret you are my evil mistress
I shudder in your wake
My hope my life my love my breath
All of these from me you take

---

"You can't kill heroes" Bracelets - The Spill Canvas

----

every tear that leaves my eye stings
every time my mind lapses my heart falters

For so long i thought i understood
but no comprehension comes without feeling the pain

i welcome sorrow
and abhor fear
but fear is what i'm made of now

i hate feeling volatile
as though i'm so easy to break
but i keep feeling my earth quake

because i can't believe in myself anymore
i need someone to believe in

i deserve nothing less than this pain
i feel exposed and ignored and alone

more than anything i need someone i hate being on my own
someone to hold me and tell me everything will be okay
i won't listen to myself

i can't turn back time
but i can't bear these consequences
we are only strong if we are strong in the face of what makes us weak
so i am left with no strength at all

---

"Last night I dreamt
That somebody loved me
No hope, no harm
Just another false alarm

Last night I felt
Real arms around me
No hope, no harm
Just another false alarm

So, tell me how long
Before the last one ?
And tell me how long
Before the right one ?

The story is old - I know
But it goes on"

Last Night I Dreamt that Somebody Loved Me - the Smiths

Another night, your words keep me warm

But still I haven't realised how I've left you torn

---

"So kiss me hard, cause this will be the last time that I let you.."

Dashboard Confessional - 'The Best Deceptions'

Anger

Anger is a feeling i haven't felt in a while, i realised today. This is a good thing yet it only serves to magnify the severity of the step backwards when one relapses. I'm angry for the original reason of my anger, and additionally, on top of that, angry because of the way i dealt with it - true to my household, with force, aggression and abuse of power.

I'm not proud, especially sitting here and reflecting, realising that my anger was disproportionate because of events I hadn't consciously noted building up inside me too. Now i realise, now i regret. But what's the use of regret, it always comes too late.

Revisited

Two high-school kids

They were

Friends

Lovers

Friends

He spun her around

and when she opened her eyes

He was gone again

She sucked his neck

As though to draw blood

But he didn't know

How her world stopped: crash! halt!

for him

and her breathing was the background music

to his words: her theme song

and everytime she waited

she waited too long

He couldn't quite tell her

What she meant to him

But threw hints that fell like breadcrumbs

And were eaten by birds

And everytime he kissed her forehead

He didn't know she hurt

A little more

She thought it was over

Just like a thousand times before

But the only door out

it was too small

and she couldn't fit

so she waited for her potion

and bit her lip

and he jumped her

for dancing to 60's music

and he called her cute

but she wasn't

she went home wearing him

and he smelt of her

she didn't know how often

she crossed his mind

but guessed none of the time

she was so wrong.

Counting

So many nights

She's still unsure

But heard that noone knows what happens tomorrow

One doesn't agree

.

She stares at the ground

At every step

So she doesn't trip

Two won't catch her anymore

.

A little silence

Can't go unmarked

But she can't pretend

Not to see him sway

He never promised her anything

Three won't stay

.

And she's topless in the bar again

But he doesn't know

That what she's scared of

She won't hesitate to show

Four gave her his jumper

.

She swaps poetry

Between each refresh

And fires questions

To put him to the test

Five isn't wanted

.

Six gave her a chocolate

In return for her smile

Or to stop her from singing

.

He wore stripes one day

And stuck in her mind

Seven barely realises

That she's alive

.

Eight says he'll miss her

As he boards the plane

But with miles inbetween

It couldn't be the same

Not with her memory

.

She tends to be a panthress

And capture her prey

Noone says no to her

But someone will someday

She didn't listen to Nine

.

She giggles as she waits

Just a villager in her cottage

On a lane somewhere

I could tell her what she waits for

But it wouldn't be fair

Number ten.

Second place is first loser

I'm glad that you can forgive. I'm only hoping as time goes, you can forget.

BRAND NEW - The Boy who Blocked His Own Shot

--

I battle with this constant need to be first. I'm trying to understand why second best is so inconceivable to me, why it is so ghastly, so offensive, so repulsed by every living inch of my body.

I tend to turn to a greater sense of "right" and "wrong", or justice in this universe, asking whether my battle is actually because it is "wrong" to be second best, that it "shouldn't be".

How far can you take the concept of nothing being "wrong" or "right", everything just being what it is? Putting oneself second best, to me at least feels like compromising oneself.

I'm just wondering whether it is some shortcoming in me that I need to be first and only, or whether the need is rational. It seems as though I feel it deeper, more urgently than others..

--

'A vision of your face

In my dreams I trace

In my wakefulness I chase

My dreams to have a peek'

Hafiz

To sleep, and dream

"To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come"

Shakespeare - Hamlet

---

I dreamt the dreams of a trapped person, of an unworthy person, of disappointment. If dreams are a warning I have been warned to walk away if I want to avoid hurt. But my mortal self fights my immortal dreams, wishing to believe she is stronger. She accredits herself more strength than she is due for regularly, in hopes that pretence held long enough becomes true. That the mind tricketh the body and the conscious overrides the sub-conscious, when she chooses it to.

I wish these dreams never to be repeated, or to steel myself - I daren't say numb myself, for numbness begs extreme pain to test it - against all which they contain.

---

If what I dream is what I feel

I have to let you go

If living is a waking dream

I think that you should know

How alone I feel when I'm with you

Although my hands do roam

And how horribly I shall miss you

When I'm left on my own

Finding truth

There is no end to truth

--------------------------------------------------------
When hurt makes you feel real, it's easy to cause yourself pain without thinking twice. Surely it's better than feeling nothing, better than being numb?

Any extreme seems to fold at its end, onto itself. Somehow extreme pleasure and pain are equatable..

Who is to say what is good and what is bad? Could it be that there is no good or bad, everything just 'is'...?

I always ask myself what I 'should be' feeling, countless times I rememer proclaiming, "I don't know what I should feel". Looking back, all I wanted was to feel what I 'should have' felt, what anyone else would have felt in my situation, not wanting to be taken advantage of, taken for a fool, or to seem..strange I suppose. Possibly the answer was to feel whatever I felt inside, and if it were nothing then so be it.

So sometimes it is better to be numb..

--------------------------------------------------------

Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air

(...)

I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.

Now no joy but lacks salt
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.

When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,

The hurt is not enough.
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.

---------------------'To Earthward'- Robert Frost--------------

Loneliness

We can't be together, until we learn to be apart.

--

My fear of loneliness is just a symptom of not being ready for a relationship.

----------------------------------------------------

NEVER seek to tell thy love,

Love that never told can be;

For the gentle wind doth move

Silently, invisibly.


I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart,

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.

Ah! she did depart!


Soon after she was gone from me,

A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly:

He took her with a sigh.

William Blake

-------------------------------------------------

Sometimes the best thing to say - is nothing at all

Thoughts on attraction

If we truly attract "what we need" to us, whether by vibrational frequency or the law of attraction.. it means that noone and nothing in our life is a mistake per se. So every experience serves to teach us something.

The difficult part, I presume, is figuring out just what that lesson was, why we attracted that specific turn of events - or person - into our lives.

---

"I'm stone in the eyes of your foolishness"

Funeral for a Friend - Juneau

On bettering oneself

There's really only one thing to do after a fall - you can't better the person who's tripped you - so you better yourself, because most likely you have hurt them too, and you have certainly hurt yourself through your action, inaction, or choices.

And so, as much as I resent him for having broken me, if it took only this to break me maybe I wasn't as strong as I thought I was to begin with.

Bettering oneself has always got to be a good thing anyway, maybe I can protect myself and prevent myself from making the same mistakes..

One can only try.

she couldn't eat

but dreams don't need feeding

and she knew the sun set at night

if you're standing still


the words wouldn't flow

but she knew not why

it wasn't quite what she expected


and it faded, it all did

how long before there was nothing left

not even a memory

for fear is hard to stop

it works with a purpose

if you're scared of the right things


she claimed she never knew a man

till she had seen him angry

so she looked for anger

to love the best

but she knew not what love was


delusional young hearts

who think they know

misguidance just ends in pain

and headstrong stubborness with overcompensation



she sacrificed it all

all in the name of nothing

and remembered why

she was so scared to begin with


a dozen songs

could speak her tongue

her tongue was unemployed

as she tried to disconnect her brain

it is so easy to forget

you're forgotten


but she looked for answers again

where there were none

and instead only found questions

which she could not bear

and could not decide

trying to silence her heart

but logic was ill taken

if she could find it


so she returned

to what she needed less than she wanted

smiling

and going back on her words

never again

but it felt so good

to be wanted and she knew he did


her lungs she gave

only a substitute for her heart

she did not need them if the air she breathed

was not in the name of love

and it wasn't

no it never was


she wished she wasn't mistaken

in all that she had thought

and wondered whether feelings may be wrong

and eyes could lie

and what it felt like to be loved

and to love

she missed being held

in false pretence


to revert to waiting

isn't so bad

but her leg was stinging

and so were her hands



she was collapsing

but she wouldn't stop

because this pain was more real than anything she had ever felt

and it hurt less than confusion


she coughed

as she waited

for their collection of hearts

she would not keep any anymore

as hers was her own

again



she was right to begin with

unfortunately



she had made her mistake

never again would she risk

second place

somehow she knew

this karma not to be true

remembering why she was petrified of being alone

and everything else

wishing she had never given herself to begin with

for being reduced to a page

in an epic



all her fears confirmed

so what had she learnt

not to trust so easily

or not to trust at all


however these doubts did not reduce her

to less than she was before

she was plenty and through it all

nothing

no nothing

nothing had changed