When The Old Burns

“I open my heart for you, day and day again.”

“So I can break it in every imaginable way?”

“Yes of course. What else would we open ourselves for?”

“Hand me the lamp.”

“What for?”

“I want to make a fire. I want to burn the sofa. It is taking up too much space and I feel cold.”

“I get it. Here, take it. But it would be faster if you used oil and a lighter.”

“Yeah, but that is too easy. Effort is part of the whole fun. If I fully immerse myself in the act of destruction, there’s a sweet satisfaction when I see the world burn. I feel like I’ve made something happen.”

“You have. You burn those bridges when you get there. But do you walk over first and leave those behind you stranded? Or do you get there just to see them burning right in front of your eyes, cutting yourself off from anything beyond the river?”

“Oh, I don’t burn bridges. I burn monuments, statues, symbols. I don’t care for bridges; they only serve to connect places. I like connected places.”

“They’re symbols too.”

“They’re bridges first. Their symbolic connection is dwarfed by the very real need of getting from one place to another, instead of staying trapped on that island forever.”

“I hear you. So why the sofa?”

“It takes up too much space.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

“And who are you?”

“I’m the Savior, the one true Prophet. I’ve come to announce that all this comfort crap must go to make space for the New.”

“What’s the New?”

“You’ll find out once the Old is disposed of.”

“Ok, go ahead. Burn the sofa.”

“Look, isn’t it beautiful? Can’t you feel a burden falling off? Look deeply into the flames. Can you hear the crisp sounds? They’re talking to us.”

“Fire always speaks.”

“It does. Mostly, people don’t listen though.”

“That’s old news.”

“Precisely. They’re burning in this same fire. You shall see the New arrive.”

“Do you really think it is enough to get rid of the Old to create the New? Isn’t there any difference between burning down and building up? Haven't you seen how a temple that is built over decades can be destroyed in hours? These are not equal forces.”

“You are right in your observation.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Destruction and creation are part of the same force. You can only build when all that was in the way has been removed. You can only break anything if something was built in the first place. You love your distinctions, but there’s no reality in them. It’s an obsession with concepts, nothing else. They don’t matter. They’re appealing mental toys. But go ahead, hold on as long as you cannot fathom how to live without them.”

“Hold on I must. For you are speaking words that reach my ears and are decoded into electrical signals in my brain, but they make no sense.”

“Words are misleading. They can make it seem like a lot was said when it was all empty talk. They can categorize, discretize, analyze, break down. Words hardly build and if they do, it is not in a direct manner. Words are like paintings; except they leave less room. Immense suffering has come from the belief that concreteness is an ideal that the world embodies. It is not. Words often create that illusion. That’s why they’re dangerous.”

“And yet, we must communicate.”

“Yes, words are incredibly useful for this. There’s no form of more efficient interpersonal information exchange. But we must not mistake their power for wisdom, nor their concreteness for clarity.”

“How else would we exchange thoughts, feelings and ideas?”

“Sweet summer child. Can’t you think of anything?”

“Well, I guess music encapsulates and communicates emotions. Pictures too.”

“Indeed. And both can do so much more than that. By only ever communicating through language, through the spoken word, you miss most of the prism holding a shared space of human connection.”

“It’s gotten cooler.”

“Yes, the sofa has turned to ashes. How sad!”

“Sad? You wanted to burn it down!”

“Yes, I did. What do you mean?”

“Well, clearly, if you were going to be sad about its disappearance you shouldn’t have burned it down!”

“Why?”

“Well, so you wouldn’t be sad about it! Isn’t that the most obvious thing in the world?”

“It is obvious if you frame every act in the light of searching for pleasure and avoiding pain. It is not so for me.”

“But you knew before that you were going to be sad?”

“Of course. Sadness accompanies the finality of any destruction. Just like rage and lust accompany the burning down. But that is just a part of me still clinging to the Old. I see it. I notice it. I am not surprised, nor do I try to reject it. It is and it will pass.”

“But it may have never been! You had control over burning this sofa down.”

“That’s what you like to think.”

“I still don’t understand why you would knowingly burn it down if the ashes were just going to make you sad.”

“We’re going in circles. I made space for the New. If you act purely to avoid pain, be it suffering, anger, rejection or whichever other form it takes, you will wither. You will live a meaningless life, dominated by fear of being hurt and shutting yourself off from the possibility of outgrowing the Old. You’ll vegetate on your sofa. That is why it had to be burned.”

“A small part of what you said just reached me.”

“Just stop clinging. It’s all a result of being obsessed with your ideas. An idea is but a form that arises, transforms, falls away again. It is not so very different to a physical motion. It might become a whole dance choreography, mutating and evolving in the process. Some ideas are beautiful, some are useful, some are redundant, some are unhelpful and some are dangerous. Getting absorbed by ideas of a past that was or could have been is dangerous. It is dangerous for yourself and whatever is dangerous for you is dangerous for the world for you are in the world and you create the world each day. If your world is entirely made up of ideas, you live a very constrained life. It is like using only the spoken word to communicate. Expand your horizon a bit.”

“This might be wise talk, or it might just be bullsh*t without essence. I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyways. All I know is that the sofa is gone, it won’t come back and now we have ashes. Clearly, there’s space. Now we can just try to put something better in its place.”

“You are right. And you understand more than you like to admit. Don’t fret about the words. Figure out what’s the New that shall be put in its place. Or if you’d like to see how it feels to have more free space.”