Germanicus
Sep 2, 2007, 2:37 AM
Once I was someone else, and before that I was another. But they had to go, so I could go amongst others.
I went amongst them in plain sight. I heard what they heard, saw what they saw, spoke their tongue, believed their ideas, but I went hungry. I went deeper, turned native, and was with them in the light and the dark. I broke bread with them, listened to their tales, laughed with them, and did lay with the great and the good, the low and the mean. I took their life to be my own. I listened to their discourse, read their books, and watched their films. But it did not sustain me, for the real was fake, the authentic was counterfeit, and the meaningful was vacuous.
And I still pushed on. I cursed them for it, and I cursed myself all the more. I chased the wind, but ran out of breath; I chased my tail, but made myself sick with dizziness. I looked for answers and found none. I re-forumlated my questions and changed perspective, but my endeavours came to naught. My answers were wrong, but then there are no answers to false questions. I saw only the want and the desire to believe, and the attendant disappointment arises from the shortfall between rhetoric and reality. They could not convince me otherwise because they were not convinced themselves. And since I would not sacrifice myself upon the altar of an auto-de-fe to prove myself, I was labelled a heretic.
So I left them and went in search of the my first love, she who roused me from my slumbers. For the 4251 days of my exile and inner emigration, I had carried the memory of her in my heart. I had called to her many times, but she had never answered. I went to her, but she pushed me away, telling me to go forth until I met myself coming back. I tramped and traisped the streets looking for the other, thinking he was lost, but he had merely gone on ahead. I felt his presence in cobbled streets and glimpsed him in all the places where he had roamed free. I remembered the things that had become him - sights, sounds, smells, and tastes - and realised that they were all mine. I had found him again.
I went back to my first love and sat at her feet. She did not need to ask, and I had no need to tell. I had completed his epiphany for he had begun mine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acJX_7pXWy4
I went amongst them in plain sight. I heard what they heard, saw what they saw, spoke their tongue, believed their ideas, but I went hungry. I went deeper, turned native, and was with them in the light and the dark. I broke bread with them, listened to their tales, laughed with them, and did lay with the great and the good, the low and the mean. I took their life to be my own. I listened to their discourse, read their books, and watched their films. But it did not sustain me, for the real was fake, the authentic was counterfeit, and the meaningful was vacuous.
And I still pushed on. I cursed them for it, and I cursed myself all the more. I chased the wind, but ran out of breath; I chased my tail, but made myself sick with dizziness. I looked for answers and found none. I re-forumlated my questions and changed perspective, but my endeavours came to naught. My answers were wrong, but then there are no answers to false questions. I saw only the want and the desire to believe, and the attendant disappointment arises from the shortfall between rhetoric and reality. They could not convince me otherwise because they were not convinced themselves. And since I would not sacrifice myself upon the altar of an auto-de-fe to prove myself, I was labelled a heretic.
So I left them and went in search of the my first love, she who roused me from my slumbers. For the 4251 days of my exile and inner emigration, I had carried the memory of her in my heart. I had called to her many times, but she had never answered. I went to her, but she pushed me away, telling me to go forth until I met myself coming back. I tramped and traisped the streets looking for the other, thinking he was lost, but he had merely gone on ahead. I felt his presence in cobbled streets and glimpsed him in all the places where he had roamed free. I remembered the things that had become him - sights, sounds, smells, and tastes - and realised that they were all mine. I had found him again.
I went back to my first love and sat at her feet. She did not need to ask, and I had no need to tell. I had completed his epiphany for he had begun mine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acJX_7pXWy4