It appeared to me on that one morning that the idea of a slow healing of my own internal volatility was far from fruition. That, in fact, the old stories and tales told by the great men long ago were true: the only being to save us from ourselves is, in fact, ourselves. We hold dear the idea that God may lead us to a greater outcome in the days to be, but we choicefully neglect the reality that God bears upon us the tools alone.

And so, here we are on this Sunday to bear witness to the fractals of the mind. A scape for which no man truly understands the rules of the game. However, the language of the mind is one of pure rhetoric and discourse. Knowing this, we may all be confident that by employing our minds in the discipline of its natural inclination, we may better understand ourselves. Perhaps the opponent in the game of discourse may not be another party with a grievance, but rather the subconscious pleading of the self.

The three obelisks stood tall in my metaphorical vision. They were the experience of relationships, expression of emotion, and my own impose self-value. Within my own being, these three were the gods that stood between myself and the almighty. What a way to live, I thought to myself, to be in constant fear of being fully seen. For if God had not formed my own metaphorical buds of my own flower to bloom, what were they good for at all? I did not believe God makes mistakes, yet I continue to sin by neglecting the use of the gifts I have been endowed with. It is a simple chain formed long ago, within the confines of a child’s life, that to be seen is to be vulnerable.

The overwhelming waves of the mass that is social attention can cause disproportionate reactions within the mind of a man. It is early within our lives that we are expected to be able to apply logic to social attention, and failure to do so may result in a man being rendered nothing more than a shipwreck upon the sea. The ruins of a once-sturdy ship imply failure to the caged mind. However, to one mind who may see beyond the superficial boundaries of social customs, a shipwreck may be nothing more than a dormant blueprint, ready to assemble itself again.

But imagine a shipwreck, already fractured to its core, being asked to forget it ever neglected to remember its purpose. It will only blindly float along the water, with no agency in its course or direction. It will then sink further and further as time moves along, until its potential as a ship may be unrecognizable. What for that ship? What for that man? He is one I indeed pity, for he surely had many chances to rise again.

Though for the man who attempts to rebuild himself anew, he embarks upon the path of the insane. There will be no welcome extended to him upon gaining the slightest altitude within the sea, except from those who too once rested upon the floor. Those great healers, those great navigators are to be revered by the sunken man. For when the currents of the water push and pull the man in his attempts to swim back up, those men act as images of remembrances for who we are, and who we are not.

For who we are is a collection of algorithms and chances, ignorant to the fact that we are dependent upon one another for our own actualization. For what we are not is a force of nature never-changing. Because he sees this volatility within the waves, he will react until he learns else what to do, for there is no logic extended to him in his futile struggle. To the one who understands the order of the clouds, the waves may seem as though a hivemind or suppression.

However, the man persists. The ship continues to force its fractured parts into a highly intended unison. The ship is not held together by nails, but rather the man is held together by sheer will alone. That is, the will to see others like him see himself. It is this disconnection with the others around him that lead him to face a crucial pillar in his journey: the fear of authenticity. The others do not understand the man’s intentions, for his are not of this world. Therefore, he will find himself never having belonged with the people he was surrounded by anyway. This is where he made a decision, whether or not to become the people’s beacon.

He may fear his own greatness, and he may fear the potential for loss of that greatness, but his fear is all in vain. He does not have a choice. He does not yet realize this. He will continue to run from this ascension into influence, this ascension to starhood. The further he runs, the further he will sink back down. Eventually he is pushed so far toward the pillar that he cannot run any longer and must fight. He wins the battle over himself. He always would. There was never any other outcome.

However, the man contemplates this change. The mass of people he is encircled by does not show him comfort, despite however much encouragement he may derive from their words. To him, he never will belong, but has at least turned his position from being suppressed by his perception of the masses, to instead riding atop the wave that they are. Never again will he care for harm. Never again will he find himself mourning the struggle of another that the other cannot fathom. Never again will he faithfully simulate universal-rejection.

He is strange. He is seen, but only his actions. His intentions remain obscured by the bizarre manner in which he navigates society. Many times during his false peace below the wave he considered the idea that he may be strange after another had told him so. Now, he embodies that strange. He lives for that strange. Strange does not remain strange. Strange becomes brilliant. This is his new way.

Despite this elevation, ever so little, he still finds himself adopting the practice of old habits. He apologizes for his own existence when his words are twisted, not seeing it was never his own fault. He believes himself to blame for others’ discomfort. He is met with a harsh reality. Or rather, he is met with what he believes is a harsh reality. This apologetic nature is but one of four facades the man may use to feel accepted. He only wishes nothing more than for his life to count, as he cannot yet view the fruits of his labor.

In another strand of defense, the man applies too much logic to his own actions. He tries to express this logic, but it will never be understood. Another strand may be the man’s tendency to remove himself entirely, reverting back to the state he once found refuge in. At any period in which he does this, weeds will grow on top of him which he will mistake for flowers until he cuts himself free. The final facade the man may use is abandonment of a situation entirely. What he fails to consider, however, is that shipwrecks are born only upon the totality of abandonment. These practices are no longer compatible with the man’s position.

The man gains many admirers. They are not the correct ones. They are not the admirers he wishes for. They convey to him messages of admiration which he internal declines, outwardly ignores. He believes the messages are superficial. They are not. He begins to consider this, and so he gradually begins accepting their words with good faith. He realizes that this change makes the others happy, as well as himself. Gifts are meant to be received.

The man assumes he will forget memories of his past as time moves on. He does not, but instead begins to reclaim them. He is granted clarity for the things he could not explain of his youth, not entirely yet, but a significant portion. He begins to give his younger self credit for having been so adaptive. His younger self is the one who determined the necessary skills to survive for such a weak being. When he needed comfort from those who brought him into the world, he was the one providing it. He begins to admire that younger self, no matter how ugly.

He also recognizes that many habits he is shattering around himself are the same ones that he taught himself in that youth. He is not angry. For his younger self did well to postpone the enjoyment of life in exchange for wisdom in youth, and he will not let such a prospect go to waste. He refuses to do so. If anything, he believes such a sequence to be a gift. An increase of potential.

He discovers the existence of another extreme. Finally, he thinks he has discovered the armor he so desperately wished for. This armor is the idea of gluttonous self-interest. The armor is incredibly effective. It is too effective. He is beginning to lose feeling. He panics. It may take him a day, it may take him a thousand years, he shatters the suit but keeps a few pieces. And at this point, he can see the light of the surface.

The suit had him become hardened as to avoid pain. He had never known of the idea of self-interest, and from the time of his youth he believed he never should have defended his wishes against another’s. To do so would be to claim his own desire more important than the other’s, so he thought. In reality, he couldn’t see that the others were so strong in their desires because they had already adopted the armor. Not all of them, but a few of them. They kept the others in line. He witnessed this a great time.

So his game changed. The rules adapted. He overcomes the bounds of social context to realize his blueprint was not his to write. His blueprint was never any man’s to write. Deep within him, at the cortex of his mind laid the plans for which the creator created him. For the longer he ran from his programmed intuition, the longer he postponed an inevitable occurrence. He was meant to be what he was meant to be. Only he knew what that meant. Only he possessed the inclinations which would pave his road. No longer would those playing God play as his god.

For the imbalance of the universe is built upon this ignorance. This unfair exclusivity. All men possess keys to doors which they first must create to be unlocked. For why else create an imbalance in the first place, if not to see imbalance produce imbalance. Such is the shared image of God and man. For as God too invents his own context for sovereignty, each man is endowed this right. For as God too causally exists on an inclination of that which is all, so too is the platform by which man manifests himself into his purpose. We are beings of sentiment.

The man is not ready for that yet.

When the man reaches the surface, he looks back down at his journey. He realizes, however, he has not moved whatsoever. His feet still rest upon the floor, yet he sees above the waves. From the air that passes along the water and envelops his face, he is met with an overwhelming sense of love. He loves himself. That was never his intention. He thinks about himself, for once. He reflects upon himself. Not his actions, but all that is truly him. All the tools he possesses and has possessed. He reflects upon his own blueprint. The muscles in his face involuntarily tighten for so long that he grows tired.

He now feels grass beneath his feet.

He has never moved his entire life.

He has a rope in his hand.

He takes his first steps facing the sea.