walled in
another thought came to mind, as i drove today. i feel that we often construct mental walls around us, sometimes with justification, sometimes without, but always unhealthily. these walls are made up of fears and dislikes, insecurities, etc. for each dislike we engender, we build in our mind a new wall. for everything we choose to look down upon, to disapprove of, we build a new wall. slowly, steadily, we find ourselves walled in. we leave ourselves very little space to move, and in that little space, we suffocate ourselves, until 1. we take the time to introspect, dig deeper, to slowly deconstruct these walls, or 2. outside forces break them down. the latter is more unfortunate, more painful, but if we chose to, we'd see it as a blessing. the hard work is done for us, in a big way. all we need to do is learn to breathe again, in the open space, without those walls.
it's worthwhile to remember though, that not all the walls may have fallen. and once we learn to cope with those that have, perhaps we could take the cue and try to break the other walls down on our own?
it's worthwhile to remember though, that not all the walls may have fallen. and once we learn to cope with those that have, perhaps we could take the cue and try to break the other walls down on our own?
1 comment:
Gibran can be mined endlessly, it seems, and one is rewarded with new treasures, every time, for doing so. Here's what he says of freedom, and you have captured so beautifully, the essence of it in your post.
"...
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.
And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?
If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.
And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their won pride?
And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.
Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom."
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