You can only go so far
With what you know
And who you are
Before you find yourself ringed in
By the mind.
You’ve built yourself to here
With blocks taken from around you
Books
People
History
Lessons
Yet still you come to a wall that you never realised was part of the map
So you cease travelling forward thinking
“How the hell am I going to get over that?”
And you stare at the wall
Walk its length
Fingertips trailing
Cutting yourself on sharp bits
It looks insurmountable
As all walls do when they first appear
And your neck hurts from craning
The sky is blocked out
Then the agile little mind gets to work
Figuring …
Begins to look for doors
And ways around
There must be a path
Yet the problem confounds
And you sit
And you wait
Until the right state appears
Then you drop your arm
A leg
Pile the pieces on the ground
You won’t need them from here
The things you required to walk on
And swing from
Will not carry you
Anymore
And people will say it is impossible to fly
But you’re not listening to people
So why
When everything is stripped back
Dropped
Lost
If you could choose to rebuild yourself
Why would you not
Choose
Wings?
*I’ve been thinking a lot about normal lately. I’ve been thinking about social media, the colour beige and how much people really desire to fit in. I’ve been thinking about clicks and groups and belonging, about oxytocin and approval and people pleasing. I’ve been thinking about tribe and pariah and outcast and weirdo. I’ve been thinking about the walls we sit quietly sweating behind that keep us “socially acceptable”
And I’ve been thinking about freedom
About what is on the other side of that big wall of self defence that people march up to
And many never get over
Everything that is worth anything is on the other side of that wall
And I’ve come up against it a few times because it isn’t one wall it is a series of them
One after the other after the other
But you’re dying
I’m dying
And that wall
That is really just a storm of emotion
Will always be there
As will the choice to live behind it
Or to keep finding the next horizon
You think you’ve done the work and that the answer lies somewhere inside
But if it’s inside
Then it’s still inside
And inside
Is what you know
And what you know can only take you as far as you know
So
Sometimes you just have to go somewhere different, rebuild out of a space age material that doesn’t exist yet and take a leap into thin air
The brain is amazing – it truly does make connections and build wings on the way down
I’ve said it before we are batteries
And we choose the energy that runs through our circuitry
We get to choose our emotions
E/motion
Choosing fear
Is like holding a lightening bolt of adrenaline
Choosing comfort
is like a half used AA from the TV remote
New ideas don’t come from repurposing the same worn out old ones
They come out of the ether
You just have to go there
And wait
So very true!
😊
Great post Kate, makes me want to see the view from the other side 🤔
Everything we want is on the other side of walls like this one, so I have found – the walls don’t go away and we come against them again but once you know what’s on the other side, you take a breath and rise.