Today, I write to you a bit more somber than expected. I gave the feeling as many thoughts as I could give it, and I have arrived at a conclusion: 

It seems I am afraid of what could come of the unexpected. For, our lives are run with expectations. We expect to be at peace, and are unhappy without it. We expect silence in one moment, and loudness in another – but are shocked to hear the two together. We expect to know what to expect, because it is all we have ever expected of ourselves in order to not destabilize our existence. 

We are borne with a set of rules, evolving over time: To hunt is to be human, to eat is to be human, to speak is to be human, to love is to be human, to work is to be human – and yet, what is it that we work for? A piece of paper crafted, painted in green, with an arbitrary number and a face of an important human being, and given a meaning? What was once paper, now leveraged by a device which contains information which tells us the resources we hold to live comfortably while being alive. 

Even better yet, what is to be human? 

That, I cannot answer if I continue expecting what I expect to be expecting – it is only by taking the road unexpected can I find the path to the answer for the question I ask. 

And, when I let this path sink in, the path sinks me right into its shallow road, where nothing can be seen nor has a name; and the space around is as hollow as my grave. Yet I feel surrounded by something, without the sense of touching, but it’s there and I can feel it without the sense of feeling. 

A place where my voice has no sound, and yet I do hear some sounds – even louder now, without the interference of the world about. These sounds are just the whispers in my head, the sources with whom I am familiar, and are familiar with me. For, these sounds are me, and so is this chasm everywhere around. 

These sounds, they ring in my mind’s ear with a melody I’ve come to realize I have heard all along, disguised by my existence while I am alive.  

If I wanted, I could make the same melody so loud that it could color this void with the waves of my sounds as it resonates in the space around. 

First, I must give myself a mouth – with which I can sing and make sounds – I will give the space a function of air which can flow to and from my lungs to carry my sounds. And from the same opening, I can feel textures and taste the fuel that I create to go on, just as I intended. And lest not forget, I must have ears, so that I could hear the sounds which come of my mouth. And I’ll need the eyes to witness the astounding magnificence of an instrument capable of making such sounds which play in my mind, round and round. So that I may see the notes which need to be played. 

And at last, I shall need a place to rest, a chair perhaps, and something to hold me up on it. And I’ll need the ability to be able to hold this piece: to place the strings below my fingers, with my palm pressing up to keep its neck from falling. With the same fingers, I will tune the strings to align with my particular sounds, and feel the frets with which I’ll arrange my melody. I shall need to hug its curves with my other arm, and wrap it around to the front where its strings come to an end, standing over a chamber to distribute the sound. 

And here, I shall require the nails to strum down its bottom round. I shall keep it in my hands and my arms, tethered around my shoulder and my back, to hold it in place, as I lean it against my chest. This chest, so close to my instrument, intended to feel the vibrations of the strings which pluck so valiantly to maintain my form’s most vital functions – created by my mind as the heart emulates the rhythm of the song I play, beating away. 

And so, I will need a ground as well – as there is no purpose of a ground if I cannot put my weight on it. Then, I will need some balance around me, for I cannot be resting on my seat if this ingredient were to be missing: if a gravity were not to ground this mass I am creating. 

And as my arms and hands have proven useful for my instrument, I believe they have the potential to serve a different purpose, were I to have larger, weight-bearing masses just below the parts which keep me on my seat, and it will keep me upright with its connections back up to my spine, which would be fused to my mind. But, no need to assign my feet the same dexterity as hands, given their mere function is reserved for navigation, and play no part in the strum of my instrument.  

I’ll also need a barrier between my heart and my hands, so as to not damage it during my quest of making sounds from this gadget. And so, I give myself the wrap of my body to align with how I’m feeling at this time – And I begin to feel the wholeness of being alive, ready to play. 

But… I have been hearing this tune in my head already – what is the sense of playing it once again, with a physical body, if no one else is in this space to hear it? 

It’s decided – I’ll need an audience. And I’ll need a space around my seat – a stage with some curtains and red ribbons, with lots of seats and as many madams and sirs to fill it. I’ll need some lights so that I may see them, and they may see me. 

I hear their chatter, their trouble, their excitement and eagerness to listen. They are watching, they are feeling the feelings that they need to feel in these moments. Some are humble, some proud, and some standoffish. Some hold reservations and hesitations, so deep that I can feel from which parts of me they were made. I can see it in their actions as they brace for what’s to happen. Some sit close, and some mighty far, for they are afraid to hear it. 

And now the silence: I can smell the taste of the breaths holding. And as I put my hands in place, ready to play, I hear the anticipation in the silence around. And when I begin to strum and open my mouth, I can hear the distance of the space between the sounds I’m creating, and when they hear it. 

One stands up, offended, so outrageous, the obtuseness of my lyrics. Some cry and they scream, as they’ve been rattled in their cages, in their seats. They turn around and look to the doors I have created, towards the sign I have written to say, “Exit” in the language they will read in. 

And another, so ashamed, so disappointed to hear the chords as they’d been written, for her, by me. And for him and for them – it was written to light a fire so unexpected that its gravity would push them to follow one another to leap for the doors – stepping through to exist in a world where they could not have fathomed that the strength and the force of my chords had unraveled these very doors to form their existence. Some sit for hours, some for months, simply listening to the noise of the sounds until the weight becomes too much.

For such a life they would witness alone, yet together, learning the rules of a life created by my very weapon, playing before their birth; haunted by the notes they heard as they were borne into their world, alone, but in a space they would come to call home. 

Some with love, some with joy, some would travel the world to explore and learn more of this chord, which sang in their heads as they circled the earth. Some would watch their breath and listen to the beats in their chests to feel closer to home. They would dream to render their bodies so still that they would silence the sounds of the earth – and in this transition, their waves would drop so low for the doors to open, if only for a moment, and visit me every so often, to be reminded of the sounds that they once heard. 

Some would hurt, some would heal, and some would sit on a chair, holding an instrument on a stage, preparing themselves to emulate the day they were born, so that it may help them feel the feelings of being closer to home. 

Or, some others would simply listen to a choir singing the word of a god: a mirage they have created to disregard the truth that they themselves know – all in order to feel alive by forgetting the song which made them their own. The song which had granted them this time and space simply to prepare them so they may be ready to withstand the show of my melody once more. 

All their suffering, to find their purpose in a life which cowers to the forces of time, measured by my metronome, slipping by with no other intention but to make them feel “alive.” 

They would learn that their purpose was to stop looking for it anywhere but inside them. So, they could listen to the melody in the waves which had created their minds, to hear the sounds of the strings in the order I picked them. To hear their lives in the rings they wear around the fingers I gave them, so they could have the ability to pick the strings in the correct order I initially played them. 

So, over this time, they would learn to expect the unexpected, and they took the road less taken to let this very path sink in – so that the path may sink them to its shallow road, where they come to realize that this life was simply given but from a being just like them, who at one time had sank into the same shallow road of existence. 

The same being, who for the first time, truly heard the tune they were living, understanding that it lied in the seeds of their existence. They, who knew a tune so well with the will to play their song so strong, that they had created their own stage, and audience to hear it.

And others who could not accept that this was life as it was given – to the doors they headed again to reimagine living, only to feel themselves sink once again to hear the unbearable melody they live in. 

It goes again, and again until you are ready to take a quiet moment to listen so deeply and with such patience, that you can tame the waves from the ones which overwhelm your brains, to the gentle white noise of them crashing when they are far away. And once the seas are tamed, you would safely reach the shores of your existence to step from your boat to the grass with the feet you have been given, in order to feel grounded by your own gentle patience. 

For the waves will always be there as a reminder, in one form or another, rising and falling; and you learn that you can only be saved from the troughs of the waves and by the crests of your ability to find the order in the disorder – you learn to revel in this way of being.

And so, the moment nears: In the audience, nobody remains but you – in your chair, in your mind, swimming through the noise still chattering inside you, as you fight the urge to give into the ignorance you had built around you. 

You lift your body to stand, fighting through the noise of your pain to move one leg in front of the other towards the stage. This task becomes increasingly difficult with each step. As the closer you near, the more you hear of the song being played in its true waves, and realize that the gravity is falling away, for it was the distance between you and the instrument being played which had always created the force to keep you from floating in space. 

And now, you float, inching closer with the willpower of your brain. You look down to realize your body is fading away, but your head, it still stands alone in the space. Yet you do not have the hands to feel if it indeed exists in the sense you have come to sense it. 

You feel your heart beat so firmly, not with the form with which you are familiar, but with the rhythm that I play. And you remain much afraid to imagine living without eyes to see humans’ greatest inventions. And ears to hear the pleasant sounds of music, and a heart with which to love and to continue living, and a mouth with which to speak or to taste a memory. 

With each second that passes, more of you fades with the passage of time, which itself fades with each second. When the time is gone, as is your being in the form as you know it. And all is at a standstill, in the dark of the stage where you can still hear the sounds of your brain: The notes of your existence which govern your name.

And in this moment, you have learned through the pain, that which is made by the melody you, too, so desperately need to play. 

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This life, and our world – simply a way for our minds to create and imagine and innovate with the music that we either hear or the melody we play. 

It is a simple matter of courage, whether you have the audacity to take up the stage, or you sit in the audience fearing the name of the one who gave you life with a simple melody, for your purpose: to live and learn the melody, in order for you to play and do the same.

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