Mythos & Marginalia

2015 – 2025: a decade of days

etcetera

  • connect with the context

    Is it the sunset you enjoy, or the shadows it casts? Have you stopped for a moment to figure it out?
       In reality, it is how you choose to see it.
       Perception changes, and you with it. It is not the reverse. To shift your perspective requires an influence, but despite what you hear, read or see, the viewpoint of the world surrounding you will come from within.
       Yes, we listen to others: educators, politicians, salesmen or solicitors, and whether we are told that the world is flat, which automobile is the safest, or how a policy will dramatically reduce carbon emissions over the next decade, it is the personal processing of this information that will determine your ultimate answer. 
       We, all too often, rely on the words of others when trying to understand anything around us.   Explanation involves thinking outside of yourself and considering the consequences, values and benefits. In trying to listen to the flood of information coming at you, it is assumed knowledge that will form your opinion.
       What if I told you that when watching a sunset, you are actually paying more attention to the clouds, than you are to the actual Sun? Would you stop for a moment and wonder what you’ve always taken in?
       The Sun never changes (well, not in immediate terms); it burns, full power, 24 hours a day. We see it more or less, depending on where we are located in relation to the time of the year. It is us that moves and not the sun
       The Sun, quite boring really, is always there. Always in the same place. It’s always round, always bright, and generates radiation that is constant, and powerful enough to light up this world and any other star, planet and galaxy in the universe.
       As it appears to dip below the horizon at the end of each day, the Sun setting is not your focus. All those colours and the glorious view you scramble to capture on your camera or mobile device is more the result of the Sun’s light reflecting and refracting through the atmosphere, precipitation or condensation, or the puffy polluted haze of our ever-expanding cities.
       The view is altered, mostly by your perception. It is still the same Sun it was hours earlier, it is still doing the same bloody thing, but somehow it is more beautiful.
       Perception.
       The Sun glows, alters the shade of buildings, the shadows of trees, and even makes common weeds, like dandelions, appear magical.
       Perspective. It is how we see things. More importantly how we see ourselves, and how we connect with the context.
       Our greatest strength should be admitting we don’t know everything and being open to learning what we need to know. Change comes with knowledge, and challenging yourself comes with connecting to your soul, investigating your id and ego and, through the process, discovering your own mythos.
       Seek answers, or self-explanation for who you are, and why you do what you do. Discover solutions, or check your hypothesis for why something didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to, or why success is likely, in whatever area you chose.
       Context.
       You can make things happen, but you need to unearth what is happening and why. Those are answers you won’t get from teachers, lawyers or policy wonks. You may not even find the answers within, but you will be stronger for looking.
       The inner voice is an inner choice.

    ©2017 j.g. lewis

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  • as what will

      Frequently designated a dreamer, in perpetuum, 
    among many other things, he does, he admits, 
    allow little space to plan. 
                                              Rightly or wrongly, 
            this is the path 
                 he has ended up on. Difficult, perhaps, 
                   at times when cracks in the concrete led him astray. 
      Only recently discovered, by accident more than fault, is balance
    maintained in a world cluttered with discrepancies and dogma 
    forced upon him by conspiracy theorists, self-serving henchmen, 
        Jesus freaks and hangers on, black hole believers 
            and Masters of the Universe 
              who continue, ad nauseam, to propagate fear.

      Erstwhile encounters not forgotten, not 
    soon enough, minutes bypass memory, he has clung to details 
          accounted for nostalgically and passionately, 
              each plank of a moral platform galvanized and scandalized.
    He continues, white-knuckle grip, adhering
    to a belief system founded over time; tested, altered, 
    as deemed fit or favourable.
    Fully aware and seemingly appreciative, he has crossed the line 
       from seeing himself merely as a character in this long drawn-out drama 
            to bearing witness 
                             to what happens, as it happens.
    He, alone, will not wait to understand, but,
        carpe diem, record the state of a disingenuous planet.

      Each event, as it unfolds, to be accepted as what will.
    No longer a second-hand story in third-person narrative, 
                         this first-person view could offer confusion at worst, 
    discomfort at least, though instant, authentic, and liberating in ways 
    only he will determine. Tenet nosce.
     Each element of freedom comes at a cost. 
             He will taste the summer ahead, open mouthed, open-minded, 
                   without concern of those in the past, but
                       with a belief not to get too far ahead of himself 
    in the dreams he conjures. 
    Self and the spirit pacified today with the joy offered, 
          instead of looking for what 
                   is no longer there. It is easier that way.

    © 2018 j.g. lewis

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  • just a while

    The incandescent fragrance of lilacs 
    hangs in the breeze, enhancing 
    silence, accentuating the freedom 
    of the sleeping city at 3 a.m.

    A certain stillness, cars rest in suburban 
    driveways; toxic fumes dampened, 
    leaving little to blatantly disrupt the 
    balance of a slightly-starry night.

    Restless romantics lay half-awake, alive
    and questioning all likely answers 
    slipping through the window. For 
    just a while we breathe and sleep.

    © 2017 j.g. lewis

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  • collecting silence

    So much is worth less now than it was even last week, or last year. Do we consciously recall interest rates, the power of the buck, or the sliding scale of humanity? Here we are collecting silence without interest or any semblance of knowledge. Our truth seldom realized, we mainly struggle individually, collectively, anonymously, hoping there is room for prayer in the dialogue we create, the stories we tell, and memories we count on to provide some sort of satisfaction to our give-and-take existence. Emotionally depleted, morally depreciated, we learn (or we have learnt) not to count on politicians, talk show hosts, or even your daily horoscope for answers or admonishment. Do we call this survival or another attempt?

    © 2023 j.g. lewis

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  • all you can hope for

    I have five favorite words. Individually, each is strong. Together, in any order, in any amount, they are powerful.

    Inspiring.

    Life-affirming.

    Peace

    Faith

    Hope

    Love

    Trust
    Five words; words worth waiting for . . . or searching for, fighting for,
or hoping for.

    For many years, the words had become a mantra of sorts, my mythos; so to speak. Not so much an incantation, but more of a statement, or laundry list, of words I believed in.

    Then, it seemed, I didn’t.

    A few years back, in frustration mainly with myself, the word hope lost its power. By circumstance or consequence, I lost my ability to communicate authentically. My words, my thoughts, my actions and aura, were not connecting, as they should have. I didn’t realize this until it was far too late.

    I went numb. I settled into a pattern, and hope never once gave me a nudge. Without hope you are hopeless. I wasn’t. So, I removed the word hope from my vocabulary. It seemed like the right thing to do, at the time.

    It came to me at the wrong time, but I realized there is nothing to hope. Hope it is a useless word. Unlike the other four words, hope has no substance. You can know peace, you can feel love, you learn and earn trust, and you can find faith. But all you can do is hope for hope, and that itself says something.

    Hope keeps you wondering, hope keeps you waiting, and hope keeps you thinking. There is no resolution in the thoughts hope provokes. You just keep hoping, and that is wrong. Or it certainly isn’t right.

    There is nothing tangible to hope. Hope is wishy-washy.

    Hope does nothing but prolong pain, anger, or insecurity and fear. Hope, eventually, does little more than create doubt and disappointment. While hope comes from euphoric thoughts or feelings, there is nothing concrete to it.

    If anything, hoping creates false hope, or it seems as if that is what true hope is: false. It tends to create unsubstantiated ideals for desiring what may be, when instead you should focus on what you have or what you want.

    So I stopped hoping. I began planning.

    I settled into a routine I believed would accomplish my goals and remove the sadness I had encountered, simply by staying busy with my plans. And, for a while, it seemed to work. I planned, and I followed through on my plans. They were concrete, they could be adjusted, or altered, or erased. Plans were made, plans were acted on, or plans were dropped. It seemed easier when I didn’t include hope.

    Hope is a difficult word; it is tenuous, at best. It lacks definition. I, then, lacked definition. I was lost, and there was no hope. I could not even aspire to hope. You can want, but it is not hope. You can dream, no, you can wish, but that is not hope.

    I had stopped hoping.

    What I was doing, I thought, was a far cry from hope. But, as you go, as you grow — as I evolved — I then realized you couldn’t erase hope. No matter how I continued to deny myself, hope was always there. It may not always be bright and shiny, but it reaches out, or occasionally whispers from the shadows. Perhaps it is subconscious, but as you plan, as you accomplish even in small increments, there is this bit of hope that keeps you moving forward.

    You just have to acknowledge it.

    Not including hope in your life is like painting a rainbow without violet; the rainbow is not complete. Life is not complete without hope.

    Hope, as a word, has returned to me. I have allowed it back into my vocabulary, and into my life, though I know it never left.

    I don’t think you ever lose hope, which is not its nature. Hope keeps you believing, I think hope is what drags you through the grief, or giving-up stage, and keeps you looking further ahead. Hope is the root of all planning.

    The thing is, the hope you seek must be self-contained. It’s a lovely thought to hold out hope for someone else, but you don’t really have that power. Hope is internal. In the face of tragedy or despair, I think the greatest hope is how you respond to the situation, and how you deal with the aftermath. Hope is always there, in the back of your mind, or at the core of your being.

    It’s when I stopped hoping, that I stopped being.

    © 2022 j.g. lewis

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