Lost In Our Own Worlds: A Philosophical Poem

What happens when the systems we create to organise human civilisation trap us? 

Is there more to reality than perception? 

We are lost in our own worlds,

We wear sunglasses

that protect not from rays insidious,

But from nature.

The frame isn't a tinge of black,

But a sheet of fog,

Like evaporated mist.

Not the mist that decorates valleys

by hiding them,

Evoking childlike suspense.

But the mist of isolated breath.

Air that escapes the nose

to fog vision.

Vision.

A connection to perceived reality.

Reality, as we know it.

A bridge to that faraway island

in the tropics.

The sun shines,

The sands blow,

The trees wriggle and cough to dust away

the sand that settles on green skin.

Savoury sea-salt smells its way to the nose

that smells reality,

As we know it.

Like the human with the lenses,

The world-

momentarily-

a brighter place,

Hardly for the human with the weak eye, without the lenses.

Humankind sleeps.

The island with its human colours sinks

into the abyss of non-existence.

But the dog sees a haze.

The fish scanning the sea

only lives the water.

Can't step outside to 'see'.

A fly circles the island

to see pixels myriad

of what seemed 'one' to us.

Vision

became the bridge of perception

to that faraway island.

Until non-existence as humans

gave way to existence,

Not by seeing reality,

But, by being it.

In the silence of sleep.

Until then

the vision of the island

remains.

But what if we make a parallel world,

Rather a system of parallel worlds?

The might of the head builds creation.

Huts beside rivers.

Ploughing of hard soil.

Chopping away grass as crop.

A bigger golden hut,

Sits inside a woman and a man

with gold on their heads,

A gaze superior and manners meticulous.

A man with wit in his eyes

quickly ruffles away objects of worth

with the epitome of worth -

A strip of fragile paper.

An almost bigger hut,

Hundreds inside. 

A woman speaks with announcing-clarity.

Others bang tables of wood-

Taps-in-disguise-

Announcing approval.

A man stands on a stage of broken metal,

Makes promises grand and many,

The crowd that hears, not listens,

Looks at him with eyes devoted.

Someone creates a funny circular device.

Sticks rotate pointing at numbers.

The world runs at its whims,

Runs on and on.

Humans on earth go round around this device.

Sometimes we forget the earth goes round the sun too.

We eat melons in winter,

Different months world-over for tax-filing,

Too busy we are in our own world.

While the Roman Janus encourages introspection,

When the barks are dry,

When leaves can be touched without having to struggle the height,

Too busy students are in the first month - exams are near.

We are lost in our own worlds,

We wear sunglasses in the winter sun

that protect not from rays insidious,

But from nature.

Season after season,

Nature spins its enigmatic cycles.

Leaves come and go,

Change colours and shapes,

Wrinkle and tighten,

Fruits rot and ripen.

Season after season,

Birds come and go,

Contorting clouds appear to disappear.

There's beauty in transience,

To participate in silent detachment.

On that faraway island,

When the sea winds blow,

They write undeciphered scripts on the shore.

Unreadable letters felt. 

The enigma of reality experienced.

What it means to live discovered.

But if one is too busy digging for hidden treasure-

the ever-eyed gold, the value of which the mind gives-

The treasure of what is, 

Remains unseen.

We are too lost in our own worlds.

Gaurav Chandra Tuli