The Collapse of Certainty.
It is scary to question what you have known almost all your life. It is tiring to watch as the very fort you knew, crumbles into a scaffolding. It is excruciating to know that a corporeal fort willingly surrendered to abstraction. To stand unmoored and lost stings deeper than pejoratives could.
But the truth is, even in the time spent in the fort, there were moments of questions. Moments of wonder. Moments of directionless oblivion. Moments that felt like heckles aimed at the beliefs you held with everything you had – even the space between your fingers.
In reality, you put the fort in your heart. Not in your mind. Intentionally. Because your mind would probe every fissure, every crack, every crevice until the fort falls. Frankly, that would not take long because the cracks were more than the rocks. The fissures more than the adhesives. The crevices stronger than any metal discovered by man. In your heart, the fort's weaknesses were blanketed in trust. Trust and desperation. Trust that the fort was strong. Desperation that was soothed by the knowledge, or maybe imagination, that the heart was never alone.
You knew that your mind was taking over. Slowly but surely. And it scared you. Your heart knew the eventuality, but it built a facade of strength. The facade that issued admonitions to the mind every time it questioned. But frankly, the heart deep down knew that the mind was right to do so. It knew that the mind's victory was fast approaching, but it found solace in denial.
Then yesterday, you were subjected to propositions from a stronger fort. As you listened to those, they went right down to your heart. The very heart that beat until it fatigued. Then it gave up, a concession that even you saw coming. The mind took over. Those fervently thought-provoking, unrelenting questions brought before the heart. The heart broke in fear. In frustration. In questions.
And the mind? It expanded the crevices. It drilled through the fissures. It hammered on all the cracks. Then, there was an eerie stillness. A palpable tension. Soon, as the heart feared, the fort fell.
But alas, under all the dust that danced through the rubble, was a scaffolding. One that could not be brought down. One made of something stronger than anything. It was made up of an ethereal faith “the size of a mustard seed.” That – the mind was not able to bring down. The mind could not fight a bodyless war. So the scaffolding won.
Now, there is only hope that emanates from the scaffolding, that it reforges the fort. Stronger. They say hope kills a man. Not a scaffolding.
You knew that your mind was taking over. Slowly but surely. And it scared you. Your heart knew the eventuality, but it built a facade of strength. The facade that issued admonitions to the mind every time it questioned. But frankly, the heart deep down knew that the mind was right to do so. It knew that the mind's victory was fast approaching, but it found solace in denial😭😭..
Are you talking about me???
...and on dinners like these she trapped her guests with mind pills. Pieces of sentences weaved together, when read, alter normal cognitive function. It was as though her words were a drug, one that had to be done again and again, not for one to develop a liking, or a pattern that could be likened to an addiction, but simply because they were beautiful thoughts. And her guests would come for these dinners, again and again. Prodded more after they have left, than when they had been at her table, reading her, listening, reasoning, agreeing, disagreeing, internalizing - her words.