Burning Bright in the Sunlight

Purpose.

That's a really heavy word.
Words bearing the meaning that has been assigned to them by the cognition of an individual.

Part of the pain in learning something new, is realizing the purpose. With purpose, comes understanding...and if you are wise enough: acceptance.

To accept an outcome, path or idea that you don't particularly like and let go of the human ties that bind you, to this world and to your notions about how things "should be", doesn't actually have to be very painful. Often, though, it is very much so.

Separating something that has become a part of you from what is in essence "you"can hurt more than you would have imagined...and more than anyone else may be capable of understanding.

Understanding... I really thought that was the point, the purpose of meeting someone who has the power to change your life.

The truth is, no one has to understand you for you to exist. No one has to understand you for you to grow... because sometimes you really are just beyond them.

A flower that is nurtured by rainfall does not make an impact on the weather... the weather has no understanding or empathy for the state of the flower, it could die and the rain would still come and water that spot. However, the flower, to some extent, understands that it needs water to survive... the rain is essential to its growth in its existence.

I feel that many of the people I love, who are as vital to me as rain is to a flower, pass by me with barely any understanding for who I am and the purpose of my existence.

At times, this makes me very sad...

I realize that I have been conditioned, in my life, to believe that understanding, particularly from the individuals I love, is my true goal. It's the very purpose of meeting people. In fact, having others understand you could be called the meaning of existing- but it really isn't.

Having other people understand you, does not make you anymore real than you could have imagined by yourself. Though it makes the illusion that much more lucid.

I was reading a book that suggested the idea that one knows the life they have chosen before they are even born...in fact, that knowledge is the very reason why you exist in the first place.

I was asking questions to a power that I did not fully understand, and in so doing I found that I knew the answers...and that from some perspective the ones I received were completely wrong.
They were wrong, because I was asking the wrong questions.
I was still very much tied to an idea that was not my own: the idea that there is a specific way to be happy. My interpretation of that idea: there is someone who can understand me... and that person would lead me to happiness.

The truth is, there is no path leading to happiness. It is a state, and thus not achievable through action and thought, but through something deeper. For that reason, no one knows the way there. It's inexplicable. You have to find it in the depths of yourself.
You also don't have to be happy to be alive, obviously. So happiness, in a sense, is not really the purpose of existing either.

So does that mean that you can fulfill the purpose of your existence without being happy?

The greater question I asked myself, is if I can accept that my purpose may not be connected to the things that make me happy... the people that make me feel happy.
I'm still speaking in riddles...

What I'm really asking is: What if I knew, before I was born, that I would not find happiness in another person in this life? What if I knew that I would suffer seeing people achieve an imaginary state of happiness by pairing off and devoting themselves to another person? I would attempt to find happiness, thinking that was my purpose, in others and consistently fail. I would realize that such things as romance and commitment were not meant for me now. I would understand that my purpose, whatever it may be, could be fulfilled without the relationships that society promotes vivaciously. What if I'm supposed to forgo my desire for such relationships, to devote myself to goals that diverge from society altogether? If I knew all of this...

...then what am I doing?

They have set it up perfectly. Each person I felt magnetically attracted to... almost unbearably so... has been able to push me in that direction. Without understanding me or my feelings and desires, they gave me exactly what I needed to further understand and accept the purpose of my existence. They gave me a rainfall.

I don't feel I have really "lived" as other people from the beginning. So it's fitting that I would not "love" as others do...

Each time I felt "I have failed, I have lost again" as they walked away from me seemingly unaffected... I felt so alone. I cried so much. Even when I decided, "I'm not going to do that again, I refuse to let this hurt me", I let myself get carried away. I did not accept that those people are still right here. My feelings have not changed. If I can accept that there is no boundary or relationship to define love... there is no battle to lose or win. There are just people to love and be loved by...

The thought "I will give up a part of myself for you" is the dangerous warning that I keep coming across. In the light of the moon, this seems so lovely and romantic. It's really quite stupid.

I'm fortunate that I rarely see people themselves through "moonlight". I usually see through them almost immediately. Their fears, their hopes, their expectations... a person is almost as easy to read as a book, for me. The relationships I forge with individuals, however, can look so different.

Under the intensity of truth, like the sun, I think I see that romance is really all bullshit.
It's pleasant to convince yourself that it's true, on occasion... but it's still a load of shit.

Nothing untrue is fair to say for the sake of romance. Nothing true is fair to withhold for the sake of love.