On sharing

Holden, from The Catcher in the Rye, said that the more you tell people, the more you miss them. And thus, you shouldn't be telling much to people.

The expansive soul in me couldn't fully fathom what he meant. Of course, it is only but natural that we all are ransom to the human condition... that we must perforce feel the chilly winds of loneliness when torn away from the people who meant so much.

But Holden's slow and contorted ejaculation sparks thoughts of a distant but related understanding. It makes me wonder about the things we say to people and what we don't. Perhaps what we don't share speaks volumes about who we are. Like the garbage we throw away. Like the letters we hide away from prying eyes. Like photographs in our wallets.

Gibran speaks of the wonder of not telling people and truly experiencing something alone. While I have always been the one to revel in the joy of sharing with people, I am, these days, more pre-occupied with fully digesting my experiences, myriad and colourful as they are. And the sanctity of doing so sans judgement as well as the freedom from the impotent joys of validation and affirmation have given me my own crucible of existence. A crucible that I almost selfishly guard, knowing that only a few, if at all, have the right to see and feel what I do.

Which therefore begs the question - is this the end of an era in my life? Or is it the start of a new one, where my own, contorted ejaculations are in the form of bursts of meaning, finding their own in the form of a stray photograph that I put out for the universe to dwell on?

While I can't say I enjoy being aloof from the world these days, I feel a sense of thrill, excitement and quiet passion in being invisible to the searching, judgemental eyes of the world. Only the chosen ones can see me.

They also say that it is these very lines from the complex life and times of Holden that fired the bullets that ended the life and times of John Lennon and even President Kennedy.

I, thankfully, have only my inner demons to fell.