format credit goes to Genius
Didi, why are the clocks round?
because time goes around it, doesn't it? so, in that definition, it's like a circle, a round with no corners.
why?
because that what circles are like: a curvy never ending single line that meets and ends at the same point.
why?
because someone thought that was a sexy thing to invent: inevitability. beginning and ending being the same? isn't that beautiful? you'd never know if you have made a step forward, because no matter how fast you move, how agile, you come right back here. there's no where else you'd rather be, and that's comfortable isn't it?
why?
because comfort is what people chase, don't they? it's familiar. you sitting with me, isn't it comfortable? to sit and exist in the same place as someone you're familiar with. that's the entire point of life, this search for familiarity. sure, life exists beyond the trenches, but it's nice to know the exact of everything, isn't it?
why?
because that's the pursuit of living: to pretend to be happy without being constantly on the run. that's what my grandfather did. that's what my father did. living and dying in the same grave until the bones of the ancestors frames your wedding bed. so, before you know, you're everyone that has led their life here before and you're no one if not like them, and you don't make sense beyond this brick wall, and although that's scary, it's familiar. although it's restricting, it's comfortable. isn't that peculiar?
why?
because it is so self contradictory! don't you see it? you say you want to leave but your tongue feels too heavy to protest. you're stuck and as much as you hate it, you know it's safe. it's safe to stay mute and blind because colours are blaring and sounds, too bright. it's good to be contained, right? preserved at the mercy of someone higher who, hopefully, knows what's good for you? you know that if you take the road taken too often, the curve will become an arch and an arch, a circle and you're a rat in terms of liberty: liberty to go anywhere as long it stays in the maze.
why?
because it is dangerous, as they say, exist with-out. if not, you might be executed. that's the fragility of life. you abide by the rules, you pray to the chains, you pray for it to end as safely as it could. because if you trangress, you might be threat: to yourself or to...i don't know, someone else. so, it's better to contain, conceal and carry yourself with-in.
why?
because why take a chance? why raise yourself above the camouflage? why die a death of a martyr, when you can die a death of casualty? why die, even? what good does death bring? you shut yourself like a shell, and you rot. what good does living bring? you wake up one morning full of sound and fury, and then out goes that flame and you're a mere performer on the stage, dancing at the music of a soloist, your hands and knee bending with the same design your grandma bent it: you know when to turn the gas off, you know not to let the fish burn. you're a mime of everyone that has once lived, you follow footsteps in the same city your father walked and the same siren your grandpa heard, and you're desentisized to people leaving, because most of them are like birds in the nest: always waiting flight. but you stay rooted: there it is the guilt of having a greater time than being locked up in the nursery chair that doesn't fit in your limb. but, that's the thing about curves, right? always so ahead of the arch, it forms a circle and you return to the same dimly lit room, to darkness, your woeful mother. and you're just someone's daughter. just someone's wife.
why?
because identity is relative most of the time. if you're no one, you're someone's. because you have to be someone, or else, i don't know, you're no one. and they don't like the noones. you either fit in the boxes, or die. there's not a place in this world for people like me and you, who stays like a dead fish on the current. you're a mime, remember? you're to act. you're a performer. maybe that's your identity. you're a byproduct of someone's living and maybe that's why you despise wisdom. the sky looks stretched out on the swarmp of dead bodies and you, stuck with a tunnel vision: to walk and to keep walking until you reach the next turn and the next turn and the next house on the lane and then back at your doorstep. life is a maze and you, my little mouse, are just taking a stroll.
why?
because you're part of it, unfortunately. you're born, and as fortunate it makes me to share a timeline with you, it's undeniable how little coherent each of our individual life is. we are uncountable, my mouse, and, as useless as the stars that live and shine and die. we are incoherent. we speak and it's gutteral, because it lacks anything essential. it doesn't make sense. i open my mouth to utter and enunciate logic and emotion, yet you can grasp nothing, and i cannot make you understand.
why?
because there's a difference between being present and being a presence. i don't blame you for it. you're a docile novice. you should embody confusion, but it sucks that it has to be at my expense. right now, this instance, the only way i can make you understand it if I could tear my vocal cords open and show you the mystery behind the bobbling Adam's apple and gain a grotesque fascination, maybe then you'd listen. all attention that is earned, should be earned at the expense of one's honour, and maybe that is why you're as performative as i am: because, priyo, you are not even real. you're a figment of the moon that has slid down the blue-throated being: you're a cookie, taken a bite from. you're a whore.
why?
because you exist.
why?
because as much as the thought repels you, you crave it. and it's disgusting: this want to live. you exist as a person and that's an insult to life itself. anything made of flesh and blood is humiliating — you're alive, you're seen, tangible, capable of smiling, questioning, at prone to crave. isn't that disgusting? being seen? perceived unlawfully, and it's uncomfortable yet addictive.
why?
because you start liking something after hatred becomes regular. you get bored of hating transgression so you start loving it instead. it's a matter of liberty. on the contrary, it's about availing one of the only two options for survival: you either love it or hate it.
why?
heirloom.
why?
because it's circular! that's why the clocks are round. it's starts at end at twelve, at your age. you either love it and move on. or hate it and move on. you cannot be twelve forever, sitting with the mind full of air and wonder, and wonder why it hurts to sit up or stir in sleep.
why?
because although a significant amount of time has passed between what has happened and what happens now, sits the ill-fated regime of memory. you remember the shadow, the fight, but time remembers it happens — and, as much as you hate it, you do not deny the thrill of being wanted way too young.
why?
because you got bored hating it.
why?
because it made you stagnant.
why?
fear.
why?
because that was your body’s only initial response: to fly away. but you’re stuck, the iron clamps stay clawed. you got bored, so, thought to take the only other option: love. love for the transgression.
why?
because it feels comfortable that way.
why?
because it reestablishes the belief that there is not a soul to blame except you.
why?
because you were there. all the times it happened, you were the common factor, the common denominator, the only safe constant. and, that is scary to accept, so, now you run.
why?
because you have to! even though you know it's up to know good, you have to be on run, even though you know that where exactly the next turn will lead you to.
why?
because stagnation will kill you.
why?
because, time will pass and you'll rot and decay.
why?
because time will pass.
why?
because the clock is round.
why?
because time goes around it, doesn't it? so, in that definition, it's like a circle, a round with no corners.
alright so first of all let me make something clear: you, very poetically — almost like a smarter holden caulfield, misinterpreted my piece a little. you thought i was making a philosophical discussion with a younger me, which i can understand since I’ve been nothing if not narcissistic but in this particular case i was talking to a young kid/baby after having done some bhaang – and i too all he said very seriously which was just the word ‘why’ (i seriously need to stop doing drugs). i noticed this from your comment on my post last time but i didn’t say anything because i found the interpretation so beautiful — also, i don’t really believe in explaining. but the reason i’m bringing this up now because you wrote your piece with that in mind and that’s what makes it so philosophically layered.
i read your pieces and you say you don’t know heidegger or cioran but you weave their talking points in your fiction so beautifully, it’s almost hard to believe. this makes me question if anyone really knows what they’re talking about and it’s just sheer unabashed naked honesty that presents itself as some profound realization to overthinkers doting on a piece (me).
you talk about identity a lot and not having some kinda agency in being born. This is actually what made me think of heidegger’s concept of thrownness — like the human condition is just this lucid reaction to consequences that were never really in our control from the time we’re born. Ontologically, this makes for an argument of absence of free will — and I feel using your younger self to hammer that point in because even though live feels out of our control and unnecessary now in our wasted youth; our childhood really is very dependent on the circumstances of our being. So, there’s like this cute juxtaposition between someone who should have some agency and someone who has none and the one having none is kinda holding the one having some hostage. so when you talk about miming your life away – it’s a very densely packed world of consequences that you hammer on because there is no free will and you’re pretending. maybe I read into it too much. maybe I smoked too much. but good god – it’s good! also, i think i read somewhere that jim morrison was reading heidegger when he wrote “riders on the storm” hence the first line: into this world we’re born, into this world we’re thrown.
and also, the latent horniness — good god sadim, she’s 12!! Running away from you life as to gather some semblance of control. the liberation in excercising libido. this is so densely packed. i love it! will, most prolyl read again and get back to you! but wah puttar! so so well written as always. you took my concept and ran – mine was just cheap jokes. this is an intense meditation. thanks for doing it so well!
'you're a docile novice' that's such a snobby shot, ahahahaha love it.