Even without a single beat inside the cranium, the dance of our desires is seemingly endless. Was it perhaps primarily built to move erratically? Or may it pause—out of generosity—to give us a breather from its breakneck speed of wondering? Does our plea have any merit in softening its spirit? How do we navigate the complexities of our minds and the fleeting nature of our experiences? Is our quest for serenity simply an illusion, a mirage in the desert of our thoughts? Seeking answers merely leads to more questions!
Most events and affairs unfold solely in my mind, and every waking moment entangles me. I end up counting with a clock, a calendar, a chart, or a benchmark against the backdrop of my imagination. But many I know stopped doing that at some point, conceding that the behavior of the measuring process has yet to be consistent. But where was the guarantee that our methods were immune from context, time, place, purpose, and our own exploitation? The answer makes us not callous but benumbed with a bigger shock when we wake up to the peculiarities of our own counting strategy! Anomalies had always been around, but we pretended otherwise and sleepwalked with bowed heads—lest the truth from our hearts swell out with a scream! Our painful desperation is palpable as we avoid looking at each other to hide the weightiness of our unresolved feelings and frantic attempts to stay afloat during our contemplations of counting what is precious! All our attempts fail, only to swell constantly on every crease of our appearance. We become drenched in the shame of our stolen sentiments. Our struggle hunts us and makes us incapable of articulating feelings, even if there were anyone to care about listening. Utterly anguished, we conspired ways to move on with impromptu yet impermanent logic for the time being. The mind and body can only last so long before the knee or heart collapses due to the false sense of security we cared about all these times.
Aroma, too, is enmeshed in our lives, much like counting. It changes depending on what we are doing, whether we find ourselves floating aimlessly in the ocean of time or simply pausing even from goose steps—intentionally or from the pull of a constraint. When we care about fleeting moments, a scent could leave an unforgettable imprint in memory. But the precious memento and the smell of our abode—regardless of how small fractions remain now, if they remain—can vanish in a blink. Everything around can become a mere penumbra only in remembrance. When the invigorating smell disappears to the slope of the horizon, we are forced to wonder if our loss of sensorial capacity has anything to do with our unwillingness, our resignation, to count, to entertain possibilities! We are left to plan merely for the moment: inhale, exhale, and repeat the loop—until! The stubborn reality of impermanence shocks the soul. So, it crumples, and the mind erupts into outlandish ideas of the inferno: the disappearance of the sky, the partings of land beneath our feet, or the air becoming thick, heavy, and unbreathable any instant. All is possible, but we have deemed otherwise all these times!
And what if our inability to hold onto sensory experiences is a stark reminder of life’s fleeting nature, a constant loss that we must learn to accept? What if, in our shared struggle, we find solace in the understanding that we are not alone in our impermanence and that our experiences, however fleeting, are part of a larger, universal narrative?
Note:
Salvific meaning: adjective—having the power to save or redeem.