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