Not a Prophet but Still Thinking

My typical brain chaos / passion with a little bit of reason to balance.

[I’m going to write a lot in a very messy way. But I don’t think editing belongs in a place like this—this is my brain, get used to it or stop reading!]

I finished The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran this morning. I didn’t sleep at all. It happens sometimes—my brain can go crazy if I let it, and sometimes I don’t get to decide if I’m going to sleep through the night or lay awake imagining scenarios in my head. I was wide awake, and at about 7am, I got bored of pretending I was going to fall back asleep and got out of bed. I stretched. I stood on my terrace (my terrace… I’m so lucky). It felt so nice—it was much cooler this morning and the breeze was a welcome change. It was beautiful, although I didn’t have my contacts in, so I really couldn’t see anything. In a weird way that probably no one relates to, I kind of like not being able to see. Before I put my contacts in, the world is just this weird fuzzy blur, and I can feel it, and kind of see it, but really I’m just in it. Then I put my contacts in, and for some reason, seeing so clearly feels sort of…. not real. It feels like I hacked the system in the simulation, when maybe I’m just meant to go through the world sort of blind and feel my way about. But then again, I wouldn’t even recognize my own mother in front of me if I did that. Hmm.

To go on, I was in a good mood. Although, considering I didn’t sleep a f***ing wink (I didn’t curse, mom), I really shouldn’t have been. I used to get frustrated, but now sometimes, I feel more… curious about it than anything else. It makes me feel kind of primal and interesting and human and animalistic when I remember that I can do that—I can stay up all night and survive. I can break all the human rules, I could fast for days, I could stay awake, I could walk around without seeing anything, and I would still survive, and still be just as much as a human as the next person. Sometimes I think we put too much pressure and care into following a routine—not even a specific one, I just mean like, going to bed, waking up, doing the day, etc. We could be nocturnal if we wanted to. Why is no one nocturnal?

I was weirdly refreshed, and I wrote three pages in my journal that kind of looked like the paragraphs above. Then, since I spent the hours of 6am to 7am browsing TikTok (grrrrrrr), I decided it was time to read my book. Be a human! Why is it so much harder than it used to be? Why am I having to put effort into being? It sucks feeling your own brain slip through your skull and out your eyeballs, while you keep on watching and consuming the very thing that’s making it so slippery. I’m still looking for solutions there.

Back to book time: I was reading The Prophet, a book I’ve had on my shelf for years, which I happened to bring to Paris, and one my grandma happened to mention last week, reminding me of its existence. The book is a book of wisdom. A so-called prophet, leaving the town he’s been living in and learning from, gives his final messages to its people who are sad to see him go. They ask him questions, on Love, on Time, on Pain, on Marriage. It’s truly interesting, surprisingly relevant and refreshing (considering it was written in 1923), and written in a way that my brain and heart and body just….. can’t stop thinking about. Let me explain.

On Love:

“For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

… Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart, and give thanks for another day of loving.”

MMMMmmmmmm. Mmmmmmm. I feel sick!!!! To MELT!!!!!! To know the PAIN of TOO MUCH TENDERNESS!!! To BLEED, WILLINGLY and JOYFULLY!!!!!! Oh oh oh oh oh oh ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Can’t speak. Can’t say any more. No more words needed. Just reading, over and over and over and over again. The pain of too much tenderness. I’m nauseous.

On Work:

“And what is to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.”

I want to live and work with that intentionality and care all my life. I never want to lose it. That’s why I have to be careful here, in this cruel world where we looked at rivers and bends and brooks and said:

Goldman Sachs. Ya. Amazon.

On Joy and Sorrow:

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain…

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

Mmmmmmmmm. It’s obvious that I’m a sucker for life and just have so much hope about it within me, which I understand is a privileged view. But doesn’t this just ease something a bit? Sometimes when I’m really sad, I feel really beautiful, in a fragile, eternal sort of way. And when I’m joyful, I feel really sad, knowing that things end, and life is quick, and things change, and I will never be able to slow down or remember everything. Joy and sorrow, two sides of the same coin. Both equally important and inseparable. Both equally beautiful and painful.

On Freedom:

“You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,

But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.”

On Pain:

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding…

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.”

I understand that I did in fact just rewrite the book for you. But I couldn’t bear to leave anything out. And I still recommend reading it in full.

But believe it or not, I haven’t even reached the reason I started writing this. And, it’s not exactly as sweet of a topic as before, but it’s one that I think about often and am weary of sharing out loud. It’s relevant, but it’s an almost blasphemous thought in the world right now.

On Talking:

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;

And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips and sound is a diversion and a pastime.

And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.

For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.”

If I can make a claim, an opinion: I think we’re all—with all due respect and no direct targets and no bad intentions—talking way too much. We’re talking about what we’re eating today. What we did today. What we wore today. We’re filling the silence with our words. Even in our heads, even our thoughts are performed in talk, in a way. Do you ever consider videoing yourself when a thought comes to mind? Something interesting, something funny. You can’t just let it be yours, you need to share with someone, but don’t know who. So you… post it. You film it and you speak it out loud and you post it and there it goes and it feels so comforting. So comforting, that someone is listening! Someone is listening and someone cares. Even before any likes come in, before anyone sees, you felt good right? You felt heard, in a way right? The issue is, I don’t know if anyone is hearing you. I don’t know if anyone is hearing anyone. So we start talking more. The cage of words is too tight and overwhelming, no thought can escape it, no thought can even hear itself loud enough to stick.

Our lives are living out through our lips. Rarely through our actions. Rarely through fully developed feelings, rarely through experiences. Sadly, even through our lips, our words rarely are directed to someone else’s real-life EARS. Why are we more comfortable posting a video than speaking to someone’s face? The most vulnerable thoughts are online with millions of views. I wonder when the last time was—the last time someone confessed their love, or opened up their hurt, with words to ears and eyes to eyes. Would have loved to see it. Would love to witness something like that, once in my life. (I know these moments do happen, but can we all be realistic enough to admit that our generation sucks at it.)

I fear that “I am obsessed with ____,” “Does anyone else feel like ______,” “I’m actually not okay because _____” has taken the space in our brains and bodies where thoughts and ideas and feelings used to be. I fear that everything is machinated through words, processed like math, sorted into sections of the millions of videos we’ve seen and heard and forgot. But we’re storing it all, still, without realizing it, and meanwhile, I forgot the last time I heard some of my friends’ voices.

“And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.

In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.

When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue,

Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;

For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered

When the color is forgotten and the vessel is no more.”

Mmmmmmmmm. Words spoken from the spirit to the ear of his ear. And a soul that keeps the truth of your heart, as

The

Taste

Of

The

Wine

Is

Remembered

When the color is forgotten and the vessel is no more.

Will you remember that? Will I? Maybe if I repeat it in the silence of my head, over and over.

Let

the spirit in you

move your lips and

direct your tongue.

I don’t feel that the spirit in me is moving my lips to speak of what I ate today or what I wore. I don’t think the spirit is moving any of us to talk as we are talking—to empty ears. I don’t think it’s spirited at all. Will the spirit give up if we stop practicing? If we stop listening to it in silence… in the silence… To know what to say? If we don’t stop talking, will we ever speak anything meaningful again? Where will the meaning come from, if not thoughts, if not silence?

[I want to say too that I’m not shaming any of the influencers out there for sharing thoughts and ideas and outfits and what not. I know it’s a lifestyle / career choice now. I’m only warning against the MASSNESS of it, the attachment we are holding onto these words with, the significance we’re giving them.]

I’m no prophet. I don’t claim to be, I don’t believe I am, I think I am very much not a prophet and rather a hypocrite and someone who can’t seem to figure any of it out. But I do have a lot of thoughts. And I do spend a lot of time in silence. And I do hate when I feel the urge to break the silence for empty words. Yet I do it anyways. I am murdering my thinking with my talking. So believe me when I say this is no sermon or judgement. If anything, it’s a bit of fear, and a bit of sorrow. Sorrow for the thing which has been my delight, or is the delight I desire—connection, truth, uninterrupted thought, original feelings, spirited voices.

I grew up thinking we’d talk like in the movies. We’d say our big feelings out loud. When we loved someone, we’d tell them in the sappiest, grossest of ways. When we were hurt by someone, we’d mumble the hurt to them through short breaths and feel the sadness together. I thought we’d say things in the way we love to pretend we say them. The way we write about the way we say things. Dramatically and openly and lovingly and humanly. But we don’t. We’re so scared of it. And everyday, instead of hearing those things, instead of hearing each other, we hear the empty words that are filling up the empty space. We hear an emptiness that is not even silence.

I want to try to be quiet for a while, and to unlock the cage of meaningless words holding my truest thoughts. Thoughts that ache. I’m going to sit with them. I will. And one day I will say them in a different way. I will let the spirit inside of me move my lips and direct my tongue, I will speak the words to the ear of someone’s ear; their soul will keep the truth of my heart as the taste of the wine is remembered when the color is forgotten and the vessel is no more.

I will not let my talking murder my thinking, I will think my thoughts in silence until the spirit inside me directs my tongue. How much softer would the world look like if we all did? Then I think I’d know the pain of too much tenderness. I’d bleed, willingly, joyfully.

The end.

[ Except, I’m footnoting. I have a big fear of being overdramatic, of saying things that make me sound like I think I know it all, or I’m too sensitive. I also have a fear of not being overly sensitive and of not being overdramatic, because if I’m not, who will be? I think we need a little anguish. To stir us up a bit. So this footnote is really an apology for the angsty-ness, and a wish that you realize how much hope and love is in that angst as well. And how much care is coming from these words to the ear of your ear! I do truly care. Also like I’m sleep deprived so leave me alone! Unnecessary disclaimer over:) ]