The weight of being human

My creative practice is varied and runs the gamut from drawing and painting to writing. This is something I wrote today and I want to share it with you. 

Sometimes, the weight of what it means to be human becomes unbearably heavy. It feels as though there isn't a way to live in this world and still just breathe. Despondency can be felt down to the marrow of bone, and it's hard to see the light again. The luminosity of our essence sojourns to a scene we have no access to and lies still to mourn. In our hour of despair when our need to connect as one is deepest we rail against each other and we cry tears of agony in synchronous isolation. 

Race is a poisonous myth 

A name given to an idea born from fear 

A label given to that which differed from the image of the namer 

And such power the stories have held since its inception 

In the name of race

Atrocities abound   

 Hate has found a home 

A culture of war has kept it fed  

Fat and healthy as the day it was sprung 

And violence spreads like warm butter

 to act as a balm against the insidious belief

  That we are the evil we despise 

To soothe the festering wounds of pain and hatred we hold for ourselves 

 We smash the reflection in the mirror that is our fellow man 

and use the name of love claiming to uphold what is right 

In order to give ourselves a reprieve from brawling with our own fear, shame, and helplessness 

Searching for power over the pain of being human 

Because it is easier to project everything bad within us 

onto another and break them in our stead 

Believing we have exorcised the demons that haunt us 

Than to tread onto the unsteady waters of the psyche and 

meet ourselves with empathy and compassion

But it is not until we can do this 

Each one of us 

To meet our selves with gentle and true understanding

that we will be able to do so for each other 

The war fires of race will rage on until we can see 

this word

"Race" 

is an invention 

An illusion that we are separate 

We must embrace ourselves fully 

in order to embrace each other 

Sculpture "Love" Alexander Milov

There is only one antidote in the gangrenous face of hatred. Compassion.