Any journey in the pursuit of ‘truth’ in a world full of make-beliefs is not easy. It is harder when the journey becomes akin to an artistic quest of creating such ‘truth’ or even embodying such truth when the received narratives about ‘truth’ betray us or betray our inner harmony.  One of the ways in which I conceive my life is as a network of two journeys intertwined with one another—one of them, a quest for Truth and another, for expression. My journey so far has been messy, precarious and full of lows that may cripple my future, atleast I continue to battle with such anxieties on a regular basis, but on one occasion when the hollowness that alternates the highs of anxiety had gripped me, pulling me into a chaotic abyss, I happened to have this internal dialogue with myself:

What do you do with a broken heart as heavy as a giant black hole at the centre of the universe
When in the ever-sinking quicksand of time
You find yourself going down, down, down
into a delirium of sunken emptiness?

Emptiness is an opportunity. It is heaven’s gift of a new canvas for you. Dip your fingers in the colours that life offers and paint your heart away on it. If the borders are defined by the darkness of your loneliness, your words stand out sharper than the rest. You can’t sculpt out the image you carry in your heart from a readymade idol, can you? You can but carve out your form only from the giant piece of rock that lies heavily at the bottom of your heart. And so much the pain will be for the unnecessary bits that need to be chipped away?

Existence appears to be meaningless and it’s chaotic also for a reason— scattered about in bits and pieces, like a collage of disconsolate edges.  Take these fragments and write your own design. Put them in any order you wish! Even if you should choose to scatter them carelessly and tearfully across your sky, you will still make a sky full of stars pouring their glimmer over your sad, sad eyes. You desired it thus, you chose it this way. Why would you receive what is pre-ordained and predestined, store-bought and handed down? Would you be not unhappy even with that? Are you just a character in someone else’s story? A spark might forest to ashes, and droplets carve new rock faces. You, breathing, persisting soul– float away, love, float away down on these waves.