“The palace of crystal may be an idle dream, it may be that it is inconsistent with the laws of nature and that I have invented it only through my own stupidity, through the old fashioned habit of my generation. But what does it matter to me that it is inconsistent? That makes no difference since it exists in my desires, or rather exists as long as my desires exist.”
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
And so I have reached my pinnacle, only to discover that it was always destined to be my demise. I have spent my two months of purgatory in New York and am now back in the glorious, languid heat of Lahore. I have also realised the futility of any attempt at trying to be myself; of actively coveting this sad repository of imagination. Many would say ‘I have been found out’ and mayhaps I have. Beentherella has been discovered, brutally raped, publicly ridiculed and put to shame by the vilest of all foes. I am told that my thoughts are offensive and hurtful to those around me and that I must apologise for them to no end. I have done that too…and yet, I cannot help but think them. The thought still persists, it still plagues. I can - in no sincere measure - summon up genuine guilt for this one exercise that has offered me solace over the past five years: writing for an audience. Much like Plath's journal, my blog- this trite, cream corner in cyberspace has been my ‘Sargasso’: my litany of dreams, directives, imperatives and ideal-isms.
Still, my experiences in the past month have taught me the weight and value of a poker face; of the silent spirit and of the repressed thought. Perhaps it was an inexcusable vanity on my part to assume that my feelings and my truths could remain my own. That my idle stream of perpetual procrastination could continue un-interrupted and that my casual corner would be frequented only by complete strangers. It has been the most asinine attempt at self-regression, this perpetual monologue of barely-contained melodrama that I had longed to continue clear of consequences. It was all bound to collapse and so it has.
Beentherella has left the building. And I shall turn once again to scribbling in waiting blank pages and to my type writer that has never betrayed me with delicious illusions of an admiring audience. This, whatever this compulsion is or has been: to be known, read, understood and perhaps even identified with is a whimsical, pathetic exercise at its very core.
It is pure, primitive need.
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
And so I have reached my pinnacle, only to discover that it was always destined to be my demise. I have spent my two months of purgatory in New York and am now back in the glorious, languid heat of Lahore. I have also realised the futility of any attempt at trying to be myself; of actively coveting this sad repository of imagination. Many would say ‘I have been found out’ and mayhaps I have. Beentherella has been discovered, brutally raped, publicly ridiculed and put to shame by the vilest of all foes. I am told that my thoughts are offensive and hurtful to those around me and that I must apologise for them to no end. I have done that too…and yet, I cannot help but think them. The thought still persists, it still plagues. I can - in no sincere measure - summon up genuine guilt for this one exercise that has offered me solace over the past five years: writing for an audience. Much like Plath's journal, my blog- this trite, cream corner in cyberspace has been my ‘Sargasso’: my litany of dreams, directives, imperatives and ideal-isms.
Still, my experiences in the past month have taught me the weight and value of a poker face; of the silent spirit and of the repressed thought. Perhaps it was an inexcusable vanity on my part to assume that my feelings and my truths could remain my own. That my idle stream of perpetual procrastination could continue un-interrupted and that my casual corner would be frequented only by complete strangers. It has been the most asinine attempt at self-regression, this perpetual monologue of barely-contained melodrama that I had longed to continue clear of consequences. It was all bound to collapse and so it has.
Beentherella has left the building. And I shall turn once again to scribbling in waiting blank pages and to my type writer that has never betrayed me with delicious illusions of an admiring audience. This, whatever this compulsion is or has been: to be known, read, understood and perhaps even identified with is a whimsical, pathetic exercise at its very core.
It is pure, primitive need.
I am told (now that I have navigated my own personal minefield of damage control) that no one really has the ‘right’ to tell a truth that is lucid enough to illicit a reaction from another being, any reaction. I feel far too much like a mutilated, dilapidated Howard Roark, for I too ‘have no sense of people’. And I have not yet had the luxury of stumbling upon any treasure trove of ‘harmless, simple, benign’ personal truths that I can convey without fear. I must admit in turn, that I cannot even crave such hollows. In this particular instance I cannot help but agree with Rand, and I refuse to accept 'anything except what seems to be the easiest for people: the halfway, the almost, the just-about, the in-between.' Because Beentherella, despite all her pretty-isms was bold beyond measure in this one capacity: she never lied. I have finally felt the full brunt of ‘Them’ and ‘Their’ ability to cripple even the smallest of self reflections with a finality that both she and I are unable to disregard. So I shall bow out with the last shreds of my dignity precariously intact to once again traverse the pinnacle that is Loneliness.
My lesson remains to return to my former silence. It shouldn’t be too difficult to revisit a state of perpetual placidity, for I was quite adept at it not too long ago. A lesson, I now feel quite foolish for having ignored for so long, in some naïve attempt to tell my truth and finally discover myself. I have wallowed shamelessly in the delusion that harsh lessons gleaned from the past can be discarded in better times for humorous ones. It is always, always, always safer to remain locked. No one has ever paid a price for keeping silent...at least not in public.
So I shall leave you now - friends, foes, strangers, acquaintances and fellow Hobo's to move on to the bitter business of ‘Being’.
Beentherella was the figment.
Maria Amir is the fact.
Don't do it. I had to face the same loss of "public privacy", as I like to call it, when my family and ergo, my boss(es) chanced upon my blog. Now everything, mostly, is challenged. But you have to forge onward; you're a writer and thinker damn it. We are born to write for an audience; it gives us the weight of something that needs to be said, to be expressed.
ReplyDeleteKeep at it. Keep Beentherella alive; she is still needed. Maybe one day she'll realize she and Maria Amir are one and the same, and they're both fantastic!
Hmmm,
ReplyDeleteYou have given me something to think about MP, although I am ridiculously apprehensive about writing now. Have never, EVER felt THAT particular emotion regarding the excercise.
Ironically, now that I have more content than I have ever had, I have lost all courage to put it down. But mayhaps i shall come back to it. And once again, go back to 'contradicting' myself :)
Thank God for piacy settings and the like.
I'm glad I could be of some assistance. Yes, there are privacy settings, but...and this may sound evil, isn't the very idea of freedom of speech, "freedom"? Why allow yourself to be chained by imposing read-only rights?
ReplyDeleteI was considering that at one point also, but you know what? Nobody should have the right to shut us up, not even family. No, especially not family. If they don't like what's being said, they can just avert their eyes and not read it, but your right to write should never be up for question or censor.
Their right to read, however...is entirely up to them. Don't make it easy for them; make it hard. You deserve that much.
Good luck with whatever you do! :) And remember, we at the Lounge will always be there.
Malang, hmm, you lost me half way through the blog..., since when have you cared about public opinion? My position is simple, start an affair, it'll get your mind off these trivialities...,
ReplyDeleteThe Pukhtoon
Thanks again MP. It was oddly enough a really hard, impulse decision to setting the blog on privacy, simply because i was practically 'told' i needed to delete it to avoid causing offence.
ReplyDeleteI do kind of regret it, but i also realise that i have lost what i most coveted on this blog, which was anonymity.
I can't dream of what could possibly cause offense in this blog. It consists mostly of over dramatized humdrum. Mostly caused by the avoidance of facing the prosaic nature of existence. A self defense of perhaps a rather delicate spirit, that could make theater out of mundane happenings of every day life, such as going to the bathroom. But it is writ eloquently, even though weighed down by ornamental jewelery, too heavy for flight. So in the end these words are a dominion of a very small kingdom, perhaps just of a tribal king in a rural village, but a kingdom all the same. Worthy of sovereignty.
ReplyDelete