And from the ruins.

And suddenly, I was overcome with the urgent need to uncoil myself from the fetal position I had assumed for so long. I was groggy, sluggish. I felt 100 years older. The world around me had rotted away from my neglect. Yet beneath this disintegrated mass of waste, I found that the massive corner beams were still intact; the foundation stood.

My strength returned to me in bursts. My pulse quickened as the blood returned to my muscles.
I was reinvigorated. I cried out within myself "I can rebuild!"

Look up and carry on.

Inspired by: 'Desiderata' by Max Ermann, 'If' by Rudyard Kipling and 'Advice, like youth, mostly just wasted on the youth' by Mary Schmich and adapted by Buz Lurhmann

Keep calm, even as the world around you speeds on with intent. Many do not know what they are doing or where they are in a hurry to. Find a pace that works for you and perfect it

Do not follow the crowd for following sake, nor be a rebel without a cause; you have too much potential to waste in either case; Be like the immovable rock and let society’s whims wash over you to show you for what you truly are.

Let not the principles of others become your mantra without assessing them for yourself no matter how noble they appear to be

Focus on finding your purpose and do not be scared of soul-searching; as brutal as it may be, it is the necessary reality check for finding complete personal satisfaction

Do not tie your hopes and dreams to an occupation; you are an asset to the world, not bound by a title and there are always countless things you can and should do in this life
It is premature to assume you know what you want to do with your life at this age; few people under 40 know this, even fewer still under 25

Never conclude on who you are; you will spend the rest of your life discovering this. So will everyone else. And know that everyone is insecure about something.
Be on good terms with as many people as is possible, but in your heart at least, learn to separate friend from acquaintance, no matter how amicable the relationship – There are only so many true friends a person will make in their life time

But let this not blind you to the infinite circumstances in which friends can be made; true friends come in all shapes and sizes, and not all have the coolest packaging

Be firm but flexible in your beliefs and do what you say and know that it is a lot easier to lie to yourself than to others, and easier to believe your own lies than it is for someone else.

Be sensitive to your senses; they are as important as your mind in perceiving the things of the world; and if it truly exists, heaven also.

Learn to love, but be honest about how many you can love lest you start lying to yourself.

Strike a balance between work and play and keep each day strategically similar, but tactically different from the previous – But be ready to change at a moment’s notice; life is full of eventualities

Come to terms with the fact that people are and always will be hopelessly self-serving, but be aware and embrace the glimmer of hope that is found in the rare exceptions. They exist like stars in an infinite darkness, brightening the void just enough for you to see your own way.

Even if all around you are losing their heads, keep yours – And never start a righteous endeavor with an unethical beginning – The final outcome will lack the true essence it should have possessed.

Find something that you are willing to give all for; even die for, and hone that to keep you honorable. It is infinitely easier to be self-serving like most people, but the reward is infinitely less satisfying.

Whatever the world brings your way, know that it is your inner character and not external circumstance that determines who you are.

Strive to find the best and most contented you that you can be

On the brink

How much time being coiled and spinging back will it take you until you can no longer spring from the last coil?

Or will you rather you never have to test your spring at all?

Do you even care about being able to spring back?

How many disappointments can you abide until you can no longer abide being impressed?

Is it better to be jaded and survive or naive and blissful?

Is it better not to care about anything, or care about everything....

Which would you rather be:

Indifferent or inspired?

Do you believe in accepting the world and being cold? Or being on fire; searching for somewhere you can be happy, and hoping you find it before you burn out

Do we even have a choice? Or is one side right and the other totally unaware about how doomed they all are?

And does this world, or places in it, even merit our feeling.

Or maybe, we are just passing through - Never mind we might not be going anywhere.

The whisper in the wind

The physical world is a lonely park, frozen cold by its own cynicism; covered completely in white snow and ice - a sight that is both hauntingly beautiful and depressingly lonely.

A group of singers, each holding their instrument, a harmonica, an accordion, a flute, stand frozen in place, eyes closed as if meditating, caught in some heart-felt tune.

An old lady sits at the corner of a park bench, her collar pulled up and her gloved hands wrapped around her person as if only asleep. A leash barely visible in one arm extends to a small dog seated obediently, looking up at its master. It too frozen in place.

A coachman sits in his seat caught in a middle of a yawn; eyes closed, mouth shaped in a O, his coach parked on the small road to the left, his 2 horses with their blinders; they appear blank, without feeling - the obedient servants to the old coachman.Snow matters his scraggy beard and heavy coat, even the wisp of grey in his farrowed brow matches his speckled garment.

The girl and her mother can be seen some way - the latter leads with the former, a child no more than 6 stopped in a skip, her buckled shoe and coat bright red, the only sign of colour in an otherwise perfectly white world - but she too is as still as the rest - and why not, for she is as dead everyone here.

Nothing stirs, not a sound can be heard in this winter wonderland.

Nothing lives.

The soul world is in the wind, a biting cold gust blowing through, animating the trees, the shifting snow, even the brief flutter of fibres in coats, from the corner of your eye would appear as life; and the whisting wind playing tricks with your mind. If you wandered that park long enough, you would hear the voice of the mother firmly hurrying the child along, a giggle, a single note from the harmonica, the accordion or the flute... The spirit world, a whisper in the wind, an illusion of life - a sense of something more.

But the truth, the beauty is in the stone cold winter wonderland of the real, and you ARE all alone. The soul of the wind may add personality, a sense of something you can touch, feel, breath - but there IS nothing more in the wind... No spirit, no mystique, no beyond

There never was.

The edge of loneliness

The edge of loneliness is a precipice you stand at, and its monstrous jaws yawns in your face, beckoning you to jump - as if the torture wasn't enough that you were even standing there

There is a crowd gathering behind, stopping to see if you will do it (Stopping to see, never stopping to save your life... Maybe, they are all there in the first place because they came to jump themselves - I mean, are there that many lonely people?).

It is getting embarrassing, because now, people know you have cause - pitiful you

Maybe you pretend you are simply enjoying the scenery. They wont believe that ofcourse, and you know this - But for your own sake, you go on pretending

And you silently hope that when you realize you are too spineless to do it, you will turn around and see her standing there; whoever she is - Its a nice fuzz hope - And maybe that's all it is.

Fuzzy.

Sorry Friend; but You have cancer... It is - bad.

The first victims of a friendship gone bad are mutual respect and faith.

When that happens, you're basically waiting for it give up the ghost.

Positive signs of recovery are fleeting. Something broke and organs will fail.

Do you give it the coup de grace, perform Euthanasia, leave it to die or invest emotion, time and energy to keep it on life support? And for how long?

And is the quality of the friendship at this point worth it, knowing you're just biding time?

How would you want to remember that friendship; forget the person (Illusions of wonder don't help closure) - but how would you like to leave things?

As a wonderful albeit brief adventure, or the agonizing dragged-out experience of watching a once beautiful thing in its final death throes?

Its not easy, but you should've known that going in,

Rather than singing freaking Sunshine Lollipop.

Favor to a former friend

And there she stays, trying hard to hide the smarting hurt bestowed upon her like a slap, her poise countenance so subtly but clearly disturbed by the ground having been suddenly swept from beneath her - She has suddenly tasted her own medicine and try as she might to remain composed, she is flustered.

Yes - Ye-ES! Revenge is Sweet, is it not? I mentally lick my fingers and smack my lips. Our unspoken words a deafening silence - How does it feel being on the receiving end of the shit-stick for a change? How' ya like them apples?!