Last night I heard a song, and the lyrics went something like this:
'...this old body is too tired to carry this soul anymore...'
and I began to think about a friend. He was my friend. A unique friend, a person unlike any other and he died this year. Died by his own hand.
He was thirty when he left us and I often find myself wondering if this was such wrong thing. Indeed, he may have lived more, felt more than many of us could ever handle.
Like most other people I also wonder what it is that I could have offered him that may have kept him on this earth for a little while longer.
I began to wonder about bodies and ages and tiredness.
I wondered if his body was too tired, too worn out from all the pain. Or was it his soul that was tired? Or his heart, or his mind? Or his lungs? His lungs too tired to take another breath of his beautiful yet immensely painful existence.
A while ago I experienced a film entitled Melancholia by Lars von Trier.
I found this film to be disturbingly touching and personally relevant. For me, this film illustrated the depth of emotional experiences and the irrelevance of the external world - at times - when we are lost inside.
To explain to another my experience of melancholia, is to explain wading, nose deep, through a seemingly endless ocean with seaweed tangling my legs and pulling me down, with algae in my mouth, in my hair, in my ears, distracting me, preventing my movement, with lead weights anchoring my legs in place... needing to move, to keep going, to escape the drowning.
Then there is the helplessness and despair experienced by those close by.
It is awful. This must be why families blame the individual for their behaviour, I can see why people would say that a person 'just needs to get their act together'. It's simply not the case.
The moments of relief from the agony of melancholia, as illustrated beautifully below, may be fleeting, hopeful, and also deeply painful for those experiencing them. After all, if one may experience relief from the agony for a moment, why not for an entire hour, or a day, or a week or a year.
I suppose it's times like these when I understand why people have faith, or a faith.
For me, a faith is a kind of new age construct that encapsulates personal responsibility for actions while trusting in a higher power, as yet undefined, or maybe a more Buddhist philosophy of noticing my awareness of the experience, and attempting to experience the sensations fully.
I remember how comforting it was as a small child to be cocooned in my mamma's arms. That's what I wish faith felt like now.
'...this old body is too tired to carry this soul anymore...'
and I began to think about a friend. He was my friend. A unique friend, a person unlike any other and he died this year. Died by his own hand.
He was thirty when he left us and I often find myself wondering if this was such wrong thing. Indeed, he may have lived more, felt more than many of us could ever handle.
Like most other people I also wonder what it is that I could have offered him that may have kept him on this earth for a little while longer.
I began to wonder about bodies and ages and tiredness.
I wondered if his body was too tired, too worn out from all the pain. Or was it his soul that was tired? Or his heart, or his mind? Or his lungs? His lungs too tired to take another breath of his beautiful yet immensely painful existence.
A while ago I experienced a film entitled Melancholia by Lars von Trier.
I found this film to be disturbingly touching and personally relevant. For me, this film illustrated the depth of emotional experiences and the irrelevance of the external world - at times - when we are lost inside.
To explain to another my experience of melancholia, is to explain wading, nose deep, through a seemingly endless ocean with seaweed tangling my legs and pulling me down, with algae in my mouth, in my hair, in my ears, distracting me, preventing my movement, with lead weights anchoring my legs in place... needing to move, to keep going, to escape the drowning.
Then there is the helplessness and despair experienced by those close by.
It is awful. This must be why families blame the individual for their behaviour, I can see why people would say that a person 'just needs to get their act together'. It's simply not the case.
The moments of relief from the agony of melancholia, as illustrated beautifully below, may be fleeting, hopeful, and also deeply painful for those experiencing them. After all, if one may experience relief from the agony for a moment, why not for an entire hour, or a day, or a week or a year.
I suppose it's times like these when I understand why people have faith, or a faith.
For me, a faith is a kind of new age construct that encapsulates personal responsibility for actions while trusting in a higher power, as yet undefined, or maybe a more Buddhist philosophy of noticing my awareness of the experience, and attempting to experience the sensations fully.
I remember how comforting it was as a small child to be cocooned in my mamma's arms. That's what I wish faith felt like now.
