In Enschede heb ik twee huisgenoten die aan de kunstacademie studeren/hebben gestudeerd en een daarvan, Nieke Nouws, heeft mij gevraagd om een engelse tekst te schrijven voor haar kunstproject “Ballad of the Conscious”. Ze maakt het voor Expo Etheréalite georganiseerd door Essentia Collaboration in The Grey Space in ’s-Gravenhage. Het project is hier te zien op haar website, en ik wil het nadrukkelijke advies geven om het daar te bekijken. Ik kan hieronder de tekst laten zien, maar in de video voel je pas echt wat de tekst betoogt en wat Nieke je wil zeggen.

Ballad of the Conscious

Am I meant to know why I am here.

I long thought yes. I thought if I just walked the path laid out by teachers, parents and preachers I would find that which would make me whole.

I long thought no. The mechanics of the universe leave little room for such human concepts in their big empty space. We live in it, feel its tremors, but it will never know of us. It will never care for us. And it will never answer when we scream our questions into its void.

Now though, a few years into making the memories that I will look back on when all is said and done, well I’m no closer to answering the question but I don’t think it’s the question I should be asking myself. I don’t want to look back later and realize I left life on the table because I did not know what it all meant. Perhaps the universe does know, perhaps it does not. It speaks a language dimensions above our pay grade so it won’t even hear us asking. But it has given us a lead. Out there, between the rocks and gasses and endless corners of meaningless, it woke us up. It has given us the tools to experience it and know we are doing so. The universe talks in riddles we can’t seem to solve yet but those riddles make up what we are. So shouldn’t we look there instead. Not why am I here, what am I here.

But the tools it gives are a gift easily squandered. I did. We scare easily when we don’t understand. Years I ignored them. Repressed them. Scared of what they would do. Scared they would hurt. Scared they would make me look weak. Most of my life I lived without feeling alive. Exist as society seems to prescribe. And all the while the galaxy’s multidimensional song faded to a single dormant tone.

Then, even that tone I couldn’t perceive anymore. Pushed from my mind by logic and virtue. I had turned numb to the human experience. Knowing the sky is blue, but never blinded by its brilliant shine. Knowing when to laugh, never smiling by myself. Knowing who to love, never caught off guard by their eyes. Knowing, never feeling.

It drove me mad. You can’t control for being human with reason alone, we are unreasonable beings. Something I didn’t realize as much as I was forced to accept. I still find it hard to accept to this day. But attempting acceptance did put that single note back into my head. And hearing the universe play for me once more, that gave me the hope to continue.

Through hard work by me and by others, I started to feel it more and more. I caught myself enjoying things without thinking about it. Things didn’t make sense but it didn’t stop me, it even stopped bothering me. I didn’t know but I didn’t care. I loved the music without understanding the lyrics.

It’s not a battle that ends. We’ve been blessed with a brain which can’t help but ask and when I ask too much I lose the emotion. But it finds its way back now. And some days, I get to take a peak behind the curtain and see the full orchestra at work. It’s not only happy tunes and whistling. There’s weeping waltzes, melancholic melodies, sorrow songs and they all hurt. They can be scary to listen to. They can be too much. But if you don’t listen, you lose what the universe gave you. You lose what makes you a person. You go numb.

It’s better to surrender. Feel everything on offer. Don’t let meaning dictate being. It has taken me to heights I never imagined. It has plummeted me straight down. Helped me back up and did it all again. Pain and pleasure as symmetric sensations. Loving pleasure is easier, but I now too love the pain of being so uncontrollably human.