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Perhaps the scariest prospect of all is that we simply we accept our fate. If we do not have anything to die for, then we have nothing to live for. That is why we must never give up and continue to fight.
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“The purpose of life, I often wonder what it is. I have come to the conclusion that we live to love. It is not to say that we will always be successful in doing so, however we will attempt to love for as long as we live. People often claim to have grown cold, lose faith in love, yet they fail to notice that they still seek someone to love them. They create opportunities that simply scream out to others that they do, in fact, desire help, want somebody to carry them as their burden, and seek to devote their life to another. I trust few others, however I feel as if I am taking a step towards a better me. With the help of my family and friends, I will rebound from the situation. There will be days when I am unable to see the light, but in the end I know that I can achieve my goals.”
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Shrouded in uncertainty,
I saw no unity of purpose,
No consensus on philosophy.
The only certainty was confusion,
And everything seemed to be collapsing.
I felt paralyzed.
I did not want to die,
But I imagined myself dead.
The smell had soaked into my skin,
And I couldn’t wash it away.
Run,
My instincts were telling me.
Run.
I saw faces from my distant past and future.
Then I’d think, Impossible.
I feared exile.
I feared ridicule.
I feared censure.
My friends,
My family,
My whole history.
Everything that I had been,
Everything that mattered to me.
I held them personally and individually responsible.
By God, yes, I did.
I detested their prideful ignorance,
Their blind, thoughtless acquiescence to it all.
I felt isolated, alone.
Schizophrenia.
A moral split.
The delicate latticework.
Details, not the details.
I couldn’t make up my mind.
Words were insufficient.
I never told the full truth.
I just concentrated on holding myself together.
But the hallucination was as real as anything I would ever feel.
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Love is often perceived as the warm mother who receives her crying child with open arms or the sensual and electrifying emotions exchanged between a man and a woman. In each case, an individual expresses care for another and, in doing so, fosters an interpersonal relationship for which the hunger must be constantly satiated to survive. It is rather interesting to note, however, that the very same affectionate love harbors the capability of imprisoning a woman in a lark’s cage and molding the metal bars together to suffocate her. Feminist Adrienne Rich clearly antagonizes love in her essay “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision,” “[Men] tend to write of Love as the source of [women’s] suffering, and to view that victimization by Love as an almost inevitable fate.” Such a statement clearly reflects the predicament of adulteress Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Trapped by her love for Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the father or her child, she endures seven years of ignominy under the critical eyes of Puritan society.
Within the first chapter, the severity of the victimization love has created for Hester is swiftly mad apparent. Upon the first encounter of Hester at the scaffold, one witnesses the indifferent persona she has adopted so as to leave no source of weakness for the townspeople to strike at: “Her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties of animal life remained entire” (65). While she appears to be immune to the judgmental glares, she cannot help but internalize the pain from being branded an outcast and donning the burdens of both her own and that of her lover. In the following scene, as listeners swoon at the soft caress of Dimmesdale’s constant pleas to Hester to reveal the name of her lover, she continues to shield his reputation by holding her tongue. In essence, the blame has shifted from Dimmesdale to Hester in that his words cry of his lack of courage to step down from the towering pedestal that society has set him upon.
As the novel progresses, Hester displays unwavering strength by accepting her place in the social ladder and further victimization by love in choosing to remain in a society that offers no respect for her. Rage does not consume her when a passerby encourages his children to fling mud at her and Pearl, however such actions leave a heavy imprint on the human soul. Years later, the damage surfaces for all to observe: “Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which has been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate … of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered and lived through, an experience of peculiar severity” (148). In other words, because society has come to shun Hester and only Hester for a sin Dimmesdale is equally guilty of, she ultimately loses what had come to define her as a woman. Hester holds the opportunity to easily break free of her chains by burning Dimmedale’s good name, but she truly becomes the victim of whom Rich writes by staying her hand in the identification of the man who fathered her child.
In observing the mercy Hester Prynne has shown Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and the amount of shame and pain she undergoes to keep his secret, one realizes that she has been entrapped in love’s snare. Despite that, at any point in the course of the novel, the sacrifice of one name would have offered an opportunity for her burden to be eased, Hester remains a victim to her love for Dimmesdale, and it is for this reason that she silently endures the pain.
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Doubts begin to cloud my mind and interfere with my judgment. I won’t do it anymore, won’t expose myself to someone who is irrelevant. It’s not because I am scared but I know that this person specifically has already begun to care. The more you care about me, the more you will get hurt. The fact is, I fail to love myself. I can no longer care, no longer fend myself from the darkness that shadows my mind. I am becoming enveloped and yet I do nothing to stop it. I had feelings for Anthony at some point, but timing is everything. When he revealed his true thoughts to me, I was already gone. It is not to say I am a shell and lacking feelings, because they are bleeding through everything I say and do right now. Rather he fell in love with someone that was not truly me and by the time I displayed my true colors, I had lost my sense of self. Never more am I the person that brims with confidence in that I have softened and lost my immunity to pain. Losing my father broke open the floodgates, and I have retreated into a susceptible persona. I have become weak and self-loathing, yet I do nothing to prevent my gradual downfall. I understand that getting back on my feet requires me to take a simple step, but the after story is what scares me. The fact that I will have to persevere until the situation eases up is a daunting image that bears its fangs upon me. However I continue to fight, to be naive, to desire to make a difference in what matters to me most. I want to change though such a claim cannot be strongly supported by my actions.
Introspection is my strongest skill though perhaps right now it is also what causes me the most pain. To have such a strong understanding of myself has caused me to understand nothing, and I am left with no more than opinions and selfish desires. It hurts so fucking much just to know that I can manipulate a person to such an extent and to hear his words at his realization crushes my soul more than anything. I should just stop, but I continue, this time with another. I fucking love him for his unyielding kindness and thoughtfulness. But I realize now that what I feel is not love. It is not even infatuation. He is always there and without him, a longing bubbles up inside of me. Never have I met someone who cared so little and came to care so much. I do not want to hurt him, yet this time I cannot help but feel that he will be the one to pull me out. He knows the side of me I hide, though it has been only a week since we started to talk. Our relationship is not friendship, nor is it that of lovers. It is of need - my need for him as he gives me the missing pieces to my puzzle.
Loss of identity is a constant issue I face. I am all, then I am none. I exist, then I fail to exist. True knowledge is to accept all points of consideration simultaneously. Why then do I continue to ponder and challenge what has been accepted? I know not. However, I understand that in order to heal I must find one who possesses the capability to mold, manipulate, and ultimately guide me out of the darkness. I ask no one to undertake such a task. Several have done so, and one has already fallen. Pursue me not though deep within I pray that there exists one who is capable of tearing down the barriers I have set in place to protect what is left of me.
I hate myself for who I am, and I rescind back into the darkness.
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The terror of the front sinks deep down.
They have taken us farther back than usual.
The houses on our side have been abandoned.
They laugh and stop to watch us.
We cannot understand.
Habit is the explanation of why
We seem to forget things so quickly.
But we do not forget.
We forget nothing really.
All these things now,
They are too grievous for us
To be able to reflect on them at once.
The days, the weeks, the years out here
Shall come back again.
Out there I was indifferent and often hopeless.
I am nothing but an agony for everything
That is so comfortless and without end.
I stand at the window and hold on to the frame.
I let myself drop into the unknown.
Perhaps a miracle can happen.
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A pencil maker told the pencil five important lessons just before putting it in the box:
