The Emperor’s Old Clothes

Journal Entry, ramblings on the self

I demand depth for shallow aims and wonder why I won’t put pen to paper: the inner muse, muddled and mute, among the sirens of endless desire. I’ve sought identities to escape myself; accolades to parade myself; and oblivion to erase myself. Every time, I circled back to the mirror without consideration for the one in front of it. An old man gifts a boy a Swiss Army knife with a lighter and later dies of cancer. There is meaning somewhere—and in meaning, solace. I’ll let you find it; make it. I am tired of searching. Why don’t we pathologize pleasure as we do pain?

I will start today, and if not, I will surely start the day after; or the day after the day after. What is wisdom without enjoyment? Perfection is sought in labor, yet only ever actualized at play. The childlike wise old fool conceals the One in the cloak, and teaches through tales, tricks, and epithets. The eastern sage; the Occident demands the self is stripped bare—truth is nakedness—and in it, vulnerability: Achilles’ heel. The cloaked self permeates all it touches, as the night sky drapes over us all; it is less obscured than it is abstract, and contingent on connection.