I lost the sadness
Which used to fill this room,
And your love –
I lost it’s tracks
Along with yours.
Or have I?
I lost the chimes
That used to call out
Your name in the wind.
Or perhaps I stopped
Listening to their sweetness.
I lost our home
Where we grew up
Or, rather, got lost
On my way back.
Willingly, maybe.
I lost a country
Full of nothing for us
Yet here I am,
Struck with grief,
And it never goes away.
How I miss you:
You, force of nature – You.
The idle days.
The returning sadness
With callous boldness,
The sadness I thought I lost,
Brings with it again and again
The love you always held for me.
You darling boy,
I remember you, always,
And I see you in my dreams.
The fact that we exist at all, not just as matter but as minds, as people capable of reflecting on existence, defies every category of logic. We are the only known species to invent meaning in a universe that offers none. That tension is absurd. And yet, from that absurdity arises something quietly transcendent. We choose to create, to care, to persist. Even though we know we will lose everything. Even though none of it is guaranteed to matter. We take a chance.
This is not a cause for despair. If anything, it is a call to clarity. To live as a human being is to walk into the void with your eyes open. We are not sane because we avoid contradiction. We are sane because we live through it. The courage to love in a world that ends, to build in a world that collapses, to speak in a world that forgets, is not naïveté. It is madness turned into meaning.
On perspective
Camus on Absurdity Albert Camus wrote in The Myth of Sisyphus that the absurd is born of the confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world. Your quote echoes that tension, not as tragedy, but as something strangely beautiful.
Kierkegaard on Faith Søren Kierkegaard spoke of the leap of faith, the irrational, inward movement a person makes when reason reaches its limit. To live with courage, in spite of absurdity, is an existential form of that leap.
Weil on Attention Simone Weil believed that attention, the radical act of looking directly at suffering and absurdity without fleeing, is a form of grace. To live attentively within the absurd is itself an act of sacred resistance.
Oh sleep,
Come at once
And take me dreaming,
For I dread
The closing of light.
The quiet
Conquers me
And I am bound
To the night,
Lovelorn to the day.
I want you
To dare
Dream with me.
I want you to hold me.
Here I am.
The philosophical concept is rooted in the idea that peacemakers, by their very nature, seek to find common ground and reconcile differences. This is often associated with the political philosophy of centrism, which emphasises compromise, balance, and pragmatism.
Centrism is arguably not a conventional ideology with specific political goals, but rather a process or activity that seeks to broker deals and compromises that satisfy both sides of a conflict. This approach is often seen as a commitment to process, facilitating structured dialogue among polarised groups with the goal of enabling participants to come up with new perspectives and solutions that address everyone’s core interests.
The concept of peacemaking as a centrist activity is also reflected in the idea that peacemakers do not commit to one side of a conflict, but rather work to understand and reconcile the perspectives of all parties involved. However, it’s important to note that this concept does not imply that peacemakers or centrists are neutral or passive. On the contrary, they are actively engaged in the struggle to understand and reconstruct the perspectives of opposing camps, and to find a middle ground that can hold the body politic together. This is a dynamic process that requires overcoming cognitive and emotional conflicts between opposing sides to reach a state of justice and peace.
Critics of centrism argue that it can enable extremist and polarised status-quos, and they (centrists) refuse to make radical changes that could benefit the masses. However, proponents argue that without peace, other values – including justice – cannot be realised, wealth and prosperity cannot be achieved, and most personal endeavours cannot be pursued.
The sweetness starts
With a gentle crackling
From my speaker,
Every now and again.
It cracks just like
A vintage record player,
Almost exactly the same,
And it’s possibly endearing,
Definitely distracting me
From the sweet melody
Of something I love
But forgot about.
Something cut abruptly,
Persistent and patient.
Relentlessly passionate:
My longing.
And for a moment,
Every now and again,
I forget about
How much I miss you.
I’ve chased dreams
And flew planes
And dared to
Be crazy brave.
I’ve built empires
And crowned kings,
And witnessed miracles.
I’ve crossed continents
And met people
Who inspired me,
And gods who
Created stars in their hands.
I love them all.
There are so many
Things I love
In this world
And I’ll never
Love any of them
As much as I love you.
We need to normalise
Crying in public.
It’s something very normal,
Very kind – a release.
And not everyone cries
Because they’re sad.
My favourite tears
Are those I cry when
I think of you –
They’re such loving, joyful tears.
They start in my chest
Where my heart is,
Where you are, always.
A knot in my neck at first
And then BOOM.
Pour out, love!
Pour out, joy!
Because it’s
Something very normal
To love in public.
Sometimes
I think you might
Miss me too.
And sometimes
I dream about you
Telling me it meant
Something more to you.
Sometimes
I wish you’d call,
Because if I call
You may not feel the same.
Sometimes I wonder
What it would have been like
If it wasn’t so short;
To have met your friends;
To hold you again;
Sometimes…
Oftentimes, I remember
More than I should,
And things that
Never happened.
Oftentimes, I forget that
Hey, it was great
Whilst it lasted –
Memories are never enough.
And oftentimes
I’m grateful I was, briefly,
Someone special to you.
I’m thirty three
And I’m afraid
Of doing things
Still.
I’m afraid
It will hurt,
It will fall apart,
It will not last.
And then more
And more
I seek the courage
To do more today
Than I did yesterday.
To do –
To be.
And thus,
My darkest fear,
My greatest pain,
You’re in the growing,
Not in the doing.
