bleeding hearts
What is to be said of a heart that bleeds loudly? No, not profusely. For even the tiniest of drops can make the loudest of noises, causing a ruckus and a ripple in the ponds that are multiple people’s lives. I write here of such drops… be they many or few, a deep mahogany or rich crimson. Blood is blood… and when it seeps out from our metaphysical heart, it leaves deeper stains. Perhaps some that cannot be erased by the strongest of efforts, either from us or from the people around us.
And we try sometimes, perhaps a little too hard. To understand why people bleed on us or why we bleed on others. Yet we will never know. For the veins of who we are lie deep in the heart of endless time. And the arteries flow further than we may ever know. This does not mean we should not try to trace the origins of our cuts. For there is nothing more shameful than a bleeder who knows nothing about what cut them. Or how it cut them. Cuts are certainly from “it”s. Knives, swords, razors, nails, and words. They slash the soft layers on every human heart. Indeed, I have come to know that no matter how tough people may appear, deep down, they are just as soft and squashy as the mushrooms and marshmallows I love dearly.
This is one of the common features we all share. We all bleed when we are cut physically, so what makes you think the same doesn’t happen on a metaphysical level? Surely, if there is a woman or man whose skin does not blister at contact with fire, or give way to the rough intrusion of a blade, or crinkle at the pinch between fingers… may she or he step forward and declare their superiority. There is none. We’re all flung around by life’s sinister essence and to survive, we pretend.
We act like we do not care. Like there is neither word nor deed that can brush up against the still-open wounds of our hearts. Indeed, the human story feels like one long attempt at healing wounds we did not bring upon ourselves. A failed attempt at that. For at any given moment, and this is my sense, we each hold at least one open sore. Either freshly forged… or along the journey of healing, while another part of us cowardly awaits its assault. Yet we pretend…
As if we do not have fears. We tell ourselves, incessantly, that bravery is the opposite of doubt. And we know it’s not. No one needs to remind us of this. Because deep down, we know it. That is perhaps the point here… that we have a mysterious capacity of both holding the truth deep inside of us yet we somehow also do not have the ability to face it for most of our lives. That for most of us, self-delusion seems not only possible but also real… and… it is neither.
What but self-delusion could make one hold either a superiority complex or an inferiority complex? For the difficulty in our self-view lies precisely in self-calibration, the failure of which leaves us broken. Sometimes, beyond repair. And miscalibration is dishonest. Be it by error or precise deliberation. Thinking yourself strong when weak is just as deceitful as thinking yourself weak when strong. They have opposite but equally destructive ends. In one, you are faced with tasks beyond your capabilities, in the other, those below. And you think… well, what is wrong with the latter? Well, what a disgrace it would be if a sword that could cut through diamond was only used to chop tomatoes! It is shameful for both the sword and the tomatoes because they were wrongfully paired. One used below its efficiency threshold, the other violated way above its design.
But why should this mismatch matter? Isn’t the point that the sword cut and the tomatoes were cut? Not exactly. The point is that the sword is used for as specific of a purpose as it was created for. The question then is… must everything that exists have a specific purpose? Yes. Not in the overarching mind-bending sense, no. But rather in a purely functional sense… such that even things that are seemingly created for “no reason”, were created as evidence that some things are created to prove that some things are created without reason.
What then was the human heart created for?
And no… not the pumping fist of myocardial muscles. That one was created for supplying blood. I write here of the heart of your mind. The one that tells your brain that it should tell your tear glands that you have been hurt… and so you should cry. This heart lies at the foundation of all that we do… and it bleeds. And although I know not how to stop this bleeding, I know for one that it is nobody’s duty but your own to find the best cure for the hemorrhaging. That… my dear reader is all I can say of any bleeding heart, including my own.
