A foreword: This is among the first of a series I call Communion. I wrote this in a single moment of inspiration. This one came on in the booth of an underground bar called The Pub near the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at the University of Chicago. I cannot tell you what brought it on, but I can tell you life has been strange lately. Everywhere I look, something is telling me there is more here than meets the eye.
The conversation ensued:
Start by telling me your reason for living.
Why do you choose to live rather than die? It is a choice, after all.
Is love what keeps you here?
How inherently worth it is love?
Is there anything that could happen that would change that?
If so, what?
Or do you, reading this now, already think life is not inherently worth living?
If so, why, again, are you living?
Fear?
Fear of some wretched afterlife?
Fear of discovering how much you really deserved it?
Fear of abandoning those who love you?
Fear of death?
Are any of these reasons to live..?
How is it some others might live with such radiance and vibrancy?
How is it that others know how to do anything at all?
How is it that anyone is happy if all they live for is fear of dying?
We come into this world as an act of utmost creation. We do not yet know every mechanism that underlies this process into conscious beings, but we do know of its importance.
It is fundamental and paramount.
We are born attached to life, craving survival and fearing death.
So what then, pray tell, do you live for?
It cannot be fear, for I simply will not allow it.
You shouldn't either.
You are here, right?
You must yearn for something more, yes? Yes, I'm certain.
Let your yearning guide you.
Desire is much more than the temptations that lead us astray.
It is our guiding force.
In our most pressing times,
it is the light that keeps one foot stepping after another.
And you must clarify your desires.
It is the responsibility of your conscious mind to clarify your innermost desires, and thus, your reason for being.
And no, desire is not just carnal physicality.
Nor is it just your craven patterns of consumption.
It is also the fierceness of a mother protecting her child.
The will of a father to slave at some hated career to feed his family.
And it is the need for an artist to express themselves.
It can be anything, you know.
Love, money, sex, glory, fame.
To change the world or sway a single heart.
But you must know it and know it well to have it held true above the greatest sorrows.
To have it override the conclusions of this world's harshest truths.
In a world full of scientific objectivity and undeniable truths, you mustn't forget or forgo your own.
Know that you live for something.
You're reading this, after all, right?
Then try to understand what that something is.
And if it isn't something constructive and meaningful, derived from desire and yearning, then discover the pest of a motivation that keeps you alive
and
ROOT IT OUT.
For it blinds you to what truly drives you.
And if you find some glimmer of want, of hope, or desire,
then pull at it.
Obsess over it,
for it is your hope.
It is your light.
It is you.
That is your innermost depths, your highestmost calling, and your greatestmost self.
It is calling.
Uproot it. It is ready and ripe.
If you do this successfully, you will feel a pulse.
A pulse of physiological activity which is the ignition of the soul, stirring you to actions and passion and spurning any other part of you that ever held you back.
You might just burst with laughter.
And caught in the flames of these newfound ambitions and passions will be the charred remains of doubt and lethargy.
You will kick yourself, and the world will revivify.
Nothing will be as it was, and you will, at one time or another, wonder if it was all a bout of mania.
It wasn't.
It was your soul aflame.
And it was magnificent.
From nothing but your mind, no drugs or substance or high.
Just you.
Suddenly, you saw a light that never was.
Like the glint of a spider's web glimpsed in sideways light.
Nothing will ever be the same because you now know you will never forget this.
You can never unsee it.
For this is your new Dragon
And it is calling your name.
No end of the earth far enough may you flee.
No cave deep enough to conceal you.
Nor sky high enough to escape.
No, there is nothing you can do.
Naught, but listen.
For it is your heart. It is your soul.
AND YOU CANNOT DENY IT.
And though you may never more ignore the pleas of your soul,
it has granted you a gift:
To defy all determent and those that would deter.
It granted you defiance.
Defiance of Fate.
Of Destiny.
Of God Himself.
And if you should fail,
You will fail most gloriously.
In this moment, you are but a flicker one day to flame.
And so brightly shall it flare that even the blind will feel the warmth of its light shone upon their skin, calling them towards its heat and comfort, pulled from the void of placation.
You, now changer of fates, now revealer of paths,
have changed what cannot be otherwise touched.
You shone for but a moment, and a moment is all it takes.
For any of us.
Someone noticed.
Someone changed.
There is nothing any of us can do, or there is something any of us can do.
This is for you to decide.
Your destiny beckons.
So please,
Tell me your desires.
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