Insane

Soft, long fingers of a gentle breeze caress my hair; its moist lips plant teasing kisses across my face. And I feel very high.

Standing atop a thirteen story high building, I size up an arrowhead of pigeons fast approaching me, contemplating a Keanu-Reeves-look-ma-I-can-fly jump straight into them. But I wouldn't make a difference, would I, if I did that? If I bent my knees and pushed myself off the ledge, straight at them, it wouldn't affect anyone, would it?

For just a brief but seemingly inordinately long moment, some primordial instinct would make me spread my arms and flap them around before I plunge straight down and stain a sidewalk for a couple of hours or so, barely missing a lower-middle class matric-pass government office clerk carrying a white plastic bag with his lunch in it. He would turn around and stare at my smashed remains for a moment.

Maybe he would walk away, maybe he would be the first of a crowd of people who wonder what happened and why I had jumped. They would formulate theories in their empty little heads and hypothesise among each other, the reasons for why I jumped. They would have something to talk about when they meet a friend in the bus, or with people at work. But their lives would not change, and my flight to freedom would only be my escape.

But their lives would not change, and my flight to freedom would only be my escape.

I look up and see this azure blue sky as a ocean of opportunities, an ethereal level of consciousness with ideas swimming about frantically like little fish in the sea, waiting for a tempting thought with implementation as bait to dangle tantalisingly and hook them and reel them in. Ideas of all shapes and sizes: some are small, probably affecting a small minority of living beings with meaningless implications of redemption or happiness. Others I see as large, probably having the potential to transform the world as I see it. It can be huge. I know it is. And there is this one large crazy white idea that I have seen swimming among all these small little gray opportunities. And I know that it is for real because it is distinct. I have seen it all these years, and have meditated unsuccessfully with unflagging resolve to reach out and trap it. Perhaps I want it too badly.

I have a desire, a lifelong want, an unsatisfied need to change this world- to impact every living being that exists. My efforts, sadly, have yielded no result. I have failed. Even now, when I look down, I see cages around people as they go about their mundane lives with planned daily routines. Cages that don't allow these people to think beyond their limitations, cages that prevent them from reaching out and plucking ideas from that orchard of opportunities; doubts and inertia that bind their thoughts. And all I wanted was to destroy these cages- to grab that big idea with both hands and expand the collective consciousness of all alive and dead, to zap their cages and their binds, and free their minds. I have tried, and I have failed. And nobody knows.

Their life has not changed, and my flight to freedom is only my escape.

This ledge that I stand on has grown on me. My bare feet rest comfortably on it, but all things, good or bad, must come to an end. And so, I must take my leave of you and all others who inhabit this realm of consciousness to make my way back home, my goal remaining unattained.

My goal. When I talk to people about it, they look at me strangely, and smile. They agree with me; they nod their heads, look at each other as if they understand what I am saying. Some say that they admire what I am trying to do, before bursting into laughter. That something still plagues my mind: a doubt still persists. So before I take leave of you, I have just one question.