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Through the passage time, many of us become slaves to indoctrinated conventionalism and intransigent tradition.
We are made to live with unanswered questions (the ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’) and unexplored aspirations that burn the discomfited inner soul within, nagging at hidden crevices of our neglected conscience.
We blindly struggle with our deepest fears, with the foibles that we agonise over to conceal at all costs, with the irrepressible need for acceptance, even if that means to sacrifice those we love the most.
We become strangers to ourselves.
But in the echoing depths of our own quiet presence, something prodigious begins to take place - an epiphany of sorts, a revelation even.
A supernatural silence emerges.
A silence that whispers the truths of the world around us and navigates its troubled waters with dazzling purity, a silence that urges us to love recklessly, to challenge conventionalism, to believe that the most stubborn of obstacles can be conquered if one dares to live like a star, and shine.
Through this brief baptism of silence, we are filled with anticipation at once, eager to see what awaits in the dark, without being afraid of the unknown, just trusting our arms to be strong enough to embrace our fate with every fibre of our being. The ecstasy of surrendering to life’s ebb and flow takes centre stage.
And then, beyond all belief and expectation, the stranger within speaks.
Rising from the ashes of former obscurity, he tells us with endearing gentleness, that we aren’t the things we collect, acquire or consume. We are, through the course of this transient lifetime, only love. Like a mantra in breathless cadence, he reminds us, “we are everything and everyone we love”.
Because there is no earthly paradise. Only a barren land brought to life by the joys and miseries of its inhabitants, and the strangers within.
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Beautiful.