They lay, wallowing in the discomfort from the bed they have made. Sat upon them like a stone, the weight of a weightless world crushes them, and leaves them paralyzed with the fear of their own making. Lost in a whirlwind of uncertainty, they grasp at the roots of their failure believing, somehow, that things will be different this one, final time.
They speak in swollen tongues, writhing from the desperate need to feel secure in their dysfunction. Somehow, in some way, they kneel in front of the altar built upon their failures, often teetering on the brink of something else, yet falling backwards once again onto the pathways of what they know. Regardless of the tears, despite the pain of losing yet again, they drag their inner child behind them. Or, more appropriately, it is their desperate inner child dragging them into some dark abyss which is, despite the darkness, all-too-known to the child and its puppet.
Who are the ones who light the candle in the shroud of those dark corners? Why do some choose the path of hardship that burdens the mind with a lightness of freedom, the heart with the limitless bounds of liberation? Who are those who scratch the surface of their scars just to dive beneath them? Who is it that would growl in the face of something new, and seek that newness with an energy unique to soaring Angels?
They are the Desperate Ones. Souls so desperate to live that the iron chains bestowed upon them fall to the ground. Hearts so desperate to be free that the struggle for realization is so worth the price they’ve paid to find it. These lucky few despise the cages others have wrought upon themselves, and seek the dangerous climbs that will either set them free or kill them. These hearty fucks feign no ignorance in the undertaking. They just rise, stand tall, and snarl their way to the summit.
They are as desperate for life as many are to obey the voices in their heads. The Desperate Ones are as desperate for truth of uncertainty as many are the illusions that they are safe. They are as desperate for the solitude of aloneness as many are for the false security of companionship. They care not about your feelings, your rules, your sanctuaries or your stories, they simply want to live freely without those games you’ll play to imprison them.
Desperate Ones, those stoic souls, shun their needs in order not to become a slave to them. They focus on the wounds that cause them to recoil the most, knowing the treasure the pain and the healing will uncover. They seek not to find comfort where there is none, but discomfort in the spaces that they sleep not out of some gluttony for pain, but simply because the lessons there prove invaluable. When they lay in the bosom of pleasure, of comfort, they do so in a mission of truth knowing full well that these, too, shall pass and when they do, the grief will be short and the pleasure of living magnified.
Come at them, if you will, with trepidation. The games you play will fall away like autumn leaves from an old tree. The mindset you bring will deter them not from their mission, and you will either shrink from your pedestal or rise above it. The altars you have built will either crumble to dust or lift you above the burning embers of old thought. Either way, you will know you have been there and you either seek shelter or have none of it. You will choose. That is the way of things.
Soon it will become evident that the Desperate Ones, those who strive for life, liberty and happiness are not really desperate at all. What they seek flows to them, and though you seek to block the current and belay the tide you will surely fail. What flow to them also flows through them, and when you fail in your mission to reduce them to the muck in which you wallow you will see the glory of that light. You will either stare into it or hide your eyes, and then you will see the truth of where you are.
There is as much truth in blindness as there is in perfect vision. Both the way up and the way down a mountain are equally unforgiving even if the work is different. Neither the start nor the finish are truth until you have achieved them. Remember, my soul, that when you have reached the summit of any climb you still are only halfway to your destination. You are not home until you descend, and you have not achieved your full potential until you are home. No matter how painful each step becomes you will always know where you must go.
Do so love your life, and you joy, enough to defend it with all your strength. Do not surrender to those still hiding from monsters under their bed. Shine brightly in the sky, and those who cannot handle the light will burn away while those who bask in it will flock to the beaches for just one more day. Those who hide may find their strength one day, nothing in this space is forever except the light itself, which will shine eternally in different forms and in different ways.
Find me in your breath, oh Desperate One, and feel your flesh strengthen and your heart soften with resolve. Now go, and live your truth, and surrender it to no one.
Peace.