Perhaps the most ironic thing about feeling alive is that it's something of which is only truly aware when the numbness of merely existing subsides. When one's thoughts during the day consist mostly out of reminders of one's duty and unpleasant recollections of previous failures, the world around you will keep turning a shade more grey and dull every moment. When one feels haunted by one's past, more rocks keep getting added to this weight that is slowly crushing one's soul and spirit.
To then be reminded of what it is like to feel alive is both a wondrously amazing and yet exceedingly excruciating experience. While feeling the lightness, colours and happiness flood one's system, it is impossible to not start crying. To release the pain, to celebrate the feeling of being alive and to embrace the warmth of hope and faith. That there is more to this world than duty and repressing past failures and traumas. That life can be a world filled with merry laughter and warmth.
Remembering those moments when one is only distantly aware of the fact that one's body is really, that this world in which this body exists and moves around in is real. What's real, after all?
Haunted by the pain of the past, of being lied to and deceived. One remembers being a boy, only one wasn't a boy. That was all a lie. One remembers being told things by doctors. By psychologists. By random people. One's mind briefly revisits childhood traumas. One tries to remember that although all of it was real once, it is now in the past. It all blends together into this frantic and unrelenting assault on one's sanity. Past. Present. Future. Which way is which again?
Some rare moments I can feel my spirit lifted up and the bleakness of merely existing lifted through unexpected means. Such as through a well-written love story, where the characters truly feel like they could exist and their struggles and relationship feels genuine. Or a bitter-sweet film, where self-sacrifice somehow offers hope to many others. Moments when one can feel the raw emotions welling up inside of one's chest, with nothing in between to deaden or hide it. Suddenly everything all seems so clear and the world so full of life.
It makes one feel that life is indeed worth living. Not out of duty or obligation, but because one is filled with the passion of life, and one is a human being who can experience all of those aspects of life, while sharing those experiences with others.
It's such a difference from living with the bleakness of merely existing and false hope. When the euphoria wears off again, it's all too easy to slip back into the shadows. Feel the warm glow of loving and being loved back slowly cool and fade until it feels fake and forced. Accept that it was all just a play of one's emotions, unrelated to reason and one's humanity. Or was it?
Maybe it are those moments when we truly allow our humanity to shine through, when we are no longer bound by the shackles our minds have created over the years. Accepting this would however highlight the tragedy of most 'social gatherings', which appear to be driven primarily out of duty and obligation, not because it is truly because we want it, or because it makes us feel alive.
Can you feel the pain inside? Can you feel the weight crushing your spirit, even as you lie to yourself? Again?
Are you happy? Do you feel alive? Do you want to cry in rage and pain?
Do you feel like sobbing uncontrollably in joy? Do you feel your heart overflowing with love?
Do you feel human?
Do you exist?
Are you alive?
Maya
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