Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.
– William Faulkner
Something was sleeping.
Dormant deep inside, coerced into slumber by complacency and the monotony of what is familiar.
Like a river dammed by cold hands, energy diverted and devoted to things less beautiful, words cease to flow, eyes focus on feet sunk in the floor.
However, like flint struck to brush, it doesn’t require much to ignite the self inside man, and suddenly the whole world is engulfed in brilliant flames.
And so I let the fire rage through my being, with my world strapped to my back I reached deep within the smouldering embers to the self that had been restlessly sleeping within.
Shaggy hair and bright eyes, with a heart like a vaccum, capable of loving and being loved and consuming the entire world.
That is who I was, that is who I am, that is who I will be.
It took the sleepless restlessness of travelling through inky blackness to ignite the memory, the might of an entire ocean colliding with skin and soul to thrash the believing into knowing, and the knowing into living.
Man is defined by a combination of experiences and decisions, and I decide to experience it all.
I will die ten thousand miles from where I was born. I will set my gaze upon the world and my feet across her borders.
I will be a one man league of nations.