Pareidolia
[Epistemic status: neither an essay nor a poem.]
She who lies to others will lie to herself; he who's violent to himself will be violent to others. Whoever is trained in hating evil cannot now love good; whoever is trained in loving good cannot now muster hate. We are not type-safe.
We interact never with other people but with our models of who they are, which are based on how we understand ourselves to be. Imagine a thing gets done. Only a hateful person will understand it was done in hate; only a loving person will understand it was done in love. All our actions tell us who we are; all actions are, in truth, becomings. Ask the wise man how one should treat others, and you will be told that there are no others. We are not type-safe.
Try not to do a thing — you will be primed to do it. Try not to mess something up, and you will do worse. Trying to be good feeds the fear you mightn't be; trying to be bad makes your goodness shine through. In doing good, you are shaming others; in doing evil, you set them free. Show yourself, and people will miss you; hide yourself, and people will see. We repeat our parents' choices because we pondered them too much. Negation simply summons its subject; light but creates shadow. We are not type-safe.
By nature we are people, rendering nature, people, too. The sun is your great creator; its light, your food; without it you'll hunger. The earth is the womb that birthed you; one treats it like one's mother. A much-thumbed book is a friend; a familiar face calming the heart. An ant is a hard worker; now that's personal, somehow. A film can surprise you because to show and to watch means to talk and to listen: you're having a conversation where your responses were predicted, which is to say they were heard. Sometimes a tale fails to listen to you; a monologue that drags on and on without end. Conversations are moreover sexual in nature; they push and they pull, with force, with delight. Who takes the action of being receptive? Who surrenders to taking action? Both speech and silence communicate much. All eyes do is dance.
An object shares its essence with the heart of its creators; without ever meeting, you now know each other well. You wonder why living embarrasses you? It's because everything shows you you are seen. To live is to be shown naked, all of the time. Least of all your own heart could be cloaked from your eyes.
All things prove their makers, so God is real. Whence else your heart? Nature's punishment inspired us to punish ourselves further; witness how we made ourselves in our image of God. We found this image in the skies, the lands, the very seasons; in the life we found, in forests, deserts, the deep seas. As kids we watched animals to learn how to be human; our deepest human heart is found in our animal selves. Your parents were monkeys, your parents were tigers; birds, hyenas, elephants, cats. Did they teach you, too, the names of all things? As though not all things are really all things? Groups too have hearts; they move, fight, mourn; they love and protect; they fuck, betray, die. Any great multitude of people must be unknowable, yet we understand them well. The plural of people is a person again.
We can't see the world without gazing upon it; already in seeing we are witnessed ourselves. What is your essence beyond your own senses? The world can't surprise you unless, somehow, you surprise yourself. You will, if you expect it. They say God is all of us, hiding that we're God. They say surely God would talk to us; in this they do the talking. You cannot lie to yourself without saying who you are. Nothing could hide God from you that would not itself show God.
All words intend to carve up the world. It remains whole and can never be broken. All understanding is also a reframing, both of what's seen and of who is seeing. Nothing is describable; all names are misnomers. Things cannot be known, but are by all things changed. Does that remind you of someone right now, who you've always been mad you couldn't figure out? The world is a person; each person, the world. You're always changing. Somehow you're still you. Someday you'll die but you'll live everlasting. You're within me. I'm within you.