The Echo
Behind the Eyes

The Stories We Tell

This Is What Lasts

The journey of life could be seen as a long adventure, a convoluted mystery, a horrific experience, or an absolute comedy. One you walk with others, but experience alone. Externally together, internally apart. The battles we grapple with daily are all dealt by ourselves. The sacrifices, the mental agonies, the thoughts, the art, the perceptions, the victories, the defeats, the rebirths, and the evolutions — all of it — are solitary experiences. What is this to say about our neighbors, or our friends? What is it to say about ourselves?

Here's a question to ponder: What is it about people that alters our states of consciousness and awareness in such a way that forces us to have an experience that forces us closer to God? Whether you see God in a person, or see God in an emotion, an event, or simply a garden. After all, aren't we all god? And made in the image of God? What is it that causes so much variety within our personalities to where the only place to truly find God, and recognize Him, is through quiet, inner reflection? Why close our eyes when we pray? Why are we forced to sleep with our eyes closed? Perhaps it's a reminder that the things that are truly meant to be seen cannot be seen with the eyes that are given to us on our head. It actually points to a more famous phrase: "you can't believe what your eyes tell you."

Optical illusions are very convincing, and our surroundings are nothing more but a tricky, mazed, shattered-glass mirror-house we call "reality." So, if we were born with eyes that cannot see — then what is it we are to rely on?

And if I can't trust my senses, does that mean all this reading, and learning through external sources, and having conversations are unnecessary? Is this also another veiled mirage? Some monks vow to a life of silence. Is it because they find divinity in their words? Or they understand that their tongue's contributions can't hold the gravity in which the weight of truth requires. Words are like math, or science. It's a conception we have created through observation, but it's not the observation itself. It's what we've experienced, not the experience itself. It's but a derivative of the event, and not the event in its entirety. Explaining an event in its entirety would require me to be able to explain God. And if I can't explain God — then what gives me the audacity to try to explain this, what we find ourselves explaining to others.

And if words aren't true — for they can't be true, no matter how accurate we try to make them — I believe the monks have made a point in saying that, due to this, they aren't even worth telling. And I respect that. Then we must ask: what is the value of words? Because even if it's not pure air, air is all we have. I can still survive with bad air. It may not be the most healthy existence, but it's all I know. Similarly, although words form a picture of a distant reality from the truth, and the eyes can only see the deceit of the veil, they're all we have — and "all we have" is a very powerful resource.

Underneath a building lies mulch and dirt; it's the foundation's foundation. Words are the blocks humans use to comprehend reality. God says "I am the Word." Proverbs 10:19 says "too much talk leads to sin. Be sensible and keep your mouth shut." "Set a guard over your mouth" — Psalms. "The one who guards his mouth preserves his life" — Proverbs. "A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit" — Proverbs. So, okay — perhaps, sure, words don't describe exact reality. But were they ever meant to? What if the point in having words is for us to realize the separation between explanation, observation, and truth — and then to use our words as a tool to decide what the story of the experience will be. After all, what's more powerful? The experience, or the story of the experience?

Let me reframe the question: Do you know the experience of the people who were enslaved? Or the stories of the people who were enslaved? What about significant world events? Do you know the exact experience, or do you know what's been told to you? In other words, it's not the words themselves — for yes, we can understand they are distant from reality — but it's the combination of words, the stories we tell about the realities we experience, which is the most important. The most vital contribution we as humans have.

This is what lasts.

The Moth's Manifesto

Stories are powerful. They move — to tears, anger, fear. They embolden. They are alive! Stories are, after all, the best teacher. The most earth-shaking event you know has been told or experienced to you in a story format, and then, to connect and share, you told somebody else that story in an attempt to move them as well. Think about your favorite stories: Narnia, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X. These stories inspire. They move you, and you resonate with them. Not just you though — they resonate with the masses. There is nothing more pervasive to the human psyche than a story. Lessons stick.

Perhaps the idea of courage (Willy Wonka), or standing up to "authority" (Malcolm X), left an impact on you, and as you journey along, you then resonated with another story which allowed that idea within you to grow and develop.

Perhaps that's what stories are: lampposts in a dark voyage. We find the light and we zip to it like moths — feeling the warmth and connection of knowing that I'm not alone, or perhaps that somebody has already been here before, that this area is safe — giving them the courage to push on. Maybe a story isn't supposed to be the end of the story, but perhaps a checkpoint to those who are searching for a way.

So if stories are landmarks on the human journey, there's something missing. Because what ignites us to take the journey in the first place? Why do we choose to leave our comfort zone at all? Why must we take this voyage in the dark, vast, and open landscape, seemingly blind and without direction? Why is comfort so boring, and what is it that shakes us so deep to our core that we yearn to travel, experience, grow?

Alone with All

Let's take a step back. If Truth is hidden behind the veil of the similes and metaphors, and under the bricked foundation of stories told are the simple words that aren't designed to capture truth, but moreso to captivate movement of the soul through stories — does this mean that the answers to all of nature are natural? Are the answers to our questions already within us? And if so, what is that thing that's answering us? What's that thing that's asking, and always listening?

Perhaps it's something else completely. What if we all have a personal guide within us, walking with us, talking to us. The devil on the right and the angel on the left, sure — but there needs to be something from which they debate over, and that something is delivered on a platter by The Guide: the one who is always with us, witnessing, watching, and listening, right behind the eyes. What if it's a human consciousness — something that guides us all.

So, perhaps we never are truly alone. When we are "alone," that is when we see the world through the eyes of our Guide. Perhaps that's why people hate being alone so much. It's a foreign territory, because the Guide doesn't utilize nature's eyes — you know, the ones that words relate to. Its eyes pierce the veil, and its language is one that can't be spoken, or heard.

Perhaps our Guide is the true matrix breaker: the eyes that can see through the fog. Then does that mean the veil only covers our eyes when we reach civilization, surrounded by other humans? Why do humans attract the veil? What is it about civilization that makes the veil such an impenetrable, and yet comforting, force that people choose to be blinded by it?

Perhaps people choose the veil because they don't know the comforts the Guide brings — and that's because in order to perceive the world with pure eyes, the Guide must first see you with pure eyes, and that's quite the detoxifying process. It's like we're addicted to the drug of deception and falsity, and to sober us up, we must detoxify from ourselves first. Or perhaps they just don't know the power that lies within themselves, and through isolation, through the temporary discomfort, cocoons a deeper, more insightful, more wise individual. Perhaps it's those who are alone who were chosen to be alone — to navigate the waters, and to help others find their deeper self. After all, the Guide is the guy behind the eyes: the most aware, and yet the most alone. But he's the Guide. The Guy. The God.