Writing is a form of art, invaluable to my global experiences. As I traveled across continents of North America, Africa, and Asia, I observed distinctive cultures, ideologies that differ, viewpoints that contrast with one another. It has been a challenging puzzle to unravel the intricacies behind these conspicuous differences. What elements distinguish India, South Africa, and the United States from each other? Are cultures or personal beliefs more influential? Are personal beliefs innate or driven directly from cultures? These questions offer me a sense of bewilderment that I have been reflecting upon through my high school career. However, I realized that despite differences in our viewpoints, humans portray commonality in an essence, which alludes to their inanity and hypocrisy. Therefore, I decided to create a coalition of six poems, known as “Boundless Fascination”, which explains the overarching theme about human peculiarity.
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
– Leon C. Megginson
Boundless Fascination
By: Shawn Khetarpal
Who are we?
Serene seas and ethereal skies
showcase empowering beauty,
an innate apparition of divinity,
a manifestation of God.
His invincible vitality encompasses our souls.
He hurls insurmountable challenges
to quantify our rudimentary patience,
through tests of flaring fires.
Volatile purity dwindles as
protuberant droplets vanish.
He observes the transformation of an innocent new-born
into a materialistic, manly creature,
an unbearable betrayal
as if a prickly pin sliced through His chambers of creation.
The realm routinely shapes our perspective,
not the mirage of Almighty’s impeccable presence.
A source of confusion, a conundrum that lingers in the abyss.
Who are we?
Lost identities,
unsure what resides in the mystical treasures of tomorrow.
Yet, we are ignorant of cemented fates that direct us
to these continuous cycles of birth and reincarnation,
Abiding by erratic social norms,
fearing the cruciality of change,
failing to satiate our ambitious goals,
the yearns of our graceful hearts,
the democratic ideals set forth by our Founding Fathers,
who are humans in essence?
He grants some a virtuous upbringing
and others despairing circumstances.
Yet, we hold no inalienable right to blame our miseries on Him.
Humans holistically recognize indispensable morals
and yet take meandering itineraries to acquire the pragmatic behaviors
and wobble in their upright path.
The bewildering phenomenon is ubiquitous,
pervasive indeed.
We are each a dot on the interminable loops of life.
Our presence tonight exhibits we failed to pursue
distinct drifting dreams, designated to each life,
during the preliminary phase of our everlasting life cycle.
Lost identities, stifled in the struggling chaos.
Who are we?
Till we pursue our passion, our purpose,
salvation isn’t procurable.
Palpably, we move tangential
and vital components fall short.
Key, righteous mechanisms float in the sweeping environment,
but blinded by the motive to achieve utmost success,
we fail to attain the primary purpose of life.
Who are we?
In reality, a holy creation of God,
evolved into a spiteful sphere of mankind.
Peter Wastholm once claimed, “All humans are hypocrites; the biggest hypocrite of all is the one who claims to detest hypocrisy.”
The Perils of our Realm
The peculiar nature subjugates
the susceptible human heart,
and annihilates the fluttering purity.
Malignant creatures of an inhabitable planet,
our sinister shadows stalk silent souls,
quenching their rivulets of cardinal blood.
Dark, despondent pitfalls may evoke a sense of realization,
arousing a series of dazzling, variegated rays,
yet converting one’s capricious core
into a narcissistic demeanor.
These harsh hardships have established
the instinctual creed that our vicious conduct is justifiable,
due to decisive influence surroundings
pose on submissive souls and hearts.
The obstinate hypocrisy resides within aspects of our lives,
impacting our crucial decisions
and everlasting emotions.
The sly manner of infinite wiliness is essential
to climb the rusty rungs of domain’s caustic competition
that symbolize the constituents of an excruciating, stolid wall,
in which elements confront and acknowledge their existences,
progressing in a repetitive, mundane rhythm overtime.
The atmosphere absorbs rife emotions
and gags those who are unwilling to spit these sensations
into unobtrusive, distant galaxies.
Prepared to eradicate our compassionate emotions
and benevolence for concrete achievements,
we elucidate absurdity.
Our enduring, spare emotions agitate and vacillate,
craving for collaboration with the cunning mind
and dogged survival.
We are the perils of our realm and sadly
its victims.
Intricacies of Human Mind
Our souls
reveal profound potential
that our beings fail to decipher.
It is this capacious capacity of perception
that poses threat to human survival,
a path to manipulated misunderstandings,
a route to corrosive confusion,
an itinerary to caustic conflicts and deadly destruction.
The human mind has an innate tendency
to surmise, to over-analyze, to overgeneralize.
The number of endless combinations
in which malleable feelings are expressed through interminable reactions
offers bewilderment,
regarding both foremost events and trivial incidents.
Ruminating upon the idiosyncratic sensations that form in different situations is
stunning.
A single mind is capable of integrating experiences,
distinctive cultural backgrounds,
defiant beliefs,
drifting emotions,
and embedded sensations.
The unification of these rudiments further bases the decisions of one,
and we applaud, vilify, extol, decry, appreciate, and lampoon
these choices through our logic and principles.
The complexity of these ideologies and emotions determines our unique
behavior
and influences the endless, sole world
through our bemusing philosophies.
Is there truly a need for us to consume the mind’s energy
more than necessary?
Let us avoid the extremities,
the imbalances of life.
Let us be ourselves,
the naive form,
candidly maintaining focus
to pursue the path of success.
Are Humans Daring or Fragile Creatures?
We are miniature, protuberant twinkles
in the boundless, murky sky,
but certain emotional established ethics
may stand with greater prominence.
These conspicuous, alluring beliefs may form the basis of the world,
denoting the salient value of these dogmas.
However, for many of us, presiding actions and behavior
in the strident, outside world may oppose these erect, claimed opinions,
indicating deceitful demeanor.
We are profound, perplexing souls who demonstrate mammoth ambiguity
and unforeseen behavior.
Yet, our real-world, rebellious sagacity and applied, intractable rationality
persuade others to perceive the situation through our vision.
The sanity behind our judgement to influence the decisions of others,
resides within the acknowledgement that our hearts
are as vulnerable as anguished plants.
The bombastic core reveals confidence
and depicts itself as a thriving, rich source
with an aim to deliver its palpable, rooted strengths
to the nearby daring competitors.
To make others envious, the sentiment is forced to release the juddering
innocence, allowing a convulsive, permeable door to form,
through which ubiquitous fragments of arrogance transform into winding fear
and terror.
The dominating negativity levels
and forces the delicate heart to experience weakness,
dread and dependency.
A plant may scintillate with assurance,
and strike the surrounding souls,
but as soon as the animated sun,
the sturdy soil,
and rivulets of wholesome water vanish,
the plant withers and grows scrawny.
Outpouring passion submerged in continuous currents of emotions,
strengthens the frail soul and stimulates conviction within the edgy, tense
figure.
Ardent, accommodating sensations enhance valuable knowledge
and alleviate alongside throb to achieve balance between
the voluminous, apprehensive aspects of life.
Let us not make a fool of others;
we become a fool of ourselves,
disruptive and tenuous identities.
Let us amend our mindset,
our peculiar approach,
and strive for what we know is the best.
William Jennings Bryan once claimed, “Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
Is Destiny a Thing?
Emotional bonds straddling on a divine body initiate growth,
and the significance of these mystical shards in the untainted ambiance
is prodigious.
Human inanity represents the immeasurable microbes that constantly
persist.
The more we scrape to assuage the vexation and seek for a solution,
the greater is the tendency to sense exasperation and induce questions
of anthropological immaturity.
Our threatened emotions desired to play a crucial role for the mind,
but these defenseless, lasting vestiges of hope
are positioned on a destructive, tortuous route near death,
due to human insensibility.
We possess a dubious disposition for the future that impedes with the flow of
our existing phase.
Our mercurial, enigmatic destiny reworks the poised nature of one into an
emotional constellation of alarm and anxiety,
in which the blemished creature confronts seclusion,
and becomes vulnerable to adverse energy.
Our eternal fate is determined
and firmly positioned in the incessant ground.
Yet, we consider our routes variable through gallantly noble conduct
and wickedly depraved manner,
as we possess faith in our potential to amend reality,
but acquire ambiguous opacity and insecurity.
Consequently, we claim destiny to be a fickle constituent of life.
When we experience undesirable outcome,
we blame the fundamental origins of life,
and reassure ourselves by asserting that adhesive misfortune and woe were
bound to occur.
Human Inanity
Our rash, imprudent outlook on the central rudiments
situated in the contiguous, fading aether,
exemplifies the unawareness we bring
in both the principled creation of God
and the realistic, convincing zone of the intensifying sphere.
The imperative lessons and chief morals derived from a rambling, jumbled
cluster of ideas recount one, fusing theme.
In the ceaseless domain, the hushed, nifty nature embraces wounded lands,
deceived oceans,
and altruistic, sensational clouds
to ensure assimilation among its indignant building blocks.
Our injudicious, oblivious actions radiate lethal dynamism that distresses the
guiltless nature,
agonizes the self-beast,
and deviates other pervious souls.
The cycle continues and those affected deleteriously,
emotionally impact other lingering hearts.
The stream of negative energy trails,
and reinforces the scientific notion that force of energy is neither created nor
destroyed,
but hinders with the conceptual statement that vibrations of presence endure
transformation.
Those who absorb disturbing reality
and acquire essential values
from forlorn experiences tend to become insensitive.
Many become apathetic
and accept their veracity
and acknowledge similar wretched, despondent situations of others.
Even worse, some depict a contemptuous behavior
at the miserable, dejected circumstances of shattered souls.
The disdainful attitude of these callous hearts is brutal and inhumane,
as the manner portrays a sign of mockery,
and yearns the scrupulous souls to confront dismay
and trepidation that the reformed, ruthless existence once confronted.
The emblem of positivity is omitted from the colossal universe,
and dwindling traces of ethical earnestness appear in the political realm
as leaders demonstrate deference,
but these morsels of morality
direct to a duplicitous demeanor.
In simpler terms,
the paradoxical melody of life delivers the message
that human beings are blessed
with incredible knowledge inside a shrewd, utilitarian mind
and yet, the immense module is vacuous.