What is Really Going on Here

...or why most of us don't really want to be free

“…and something ignited 
in my soul
and I went my own way,
deciphering
that burning fire
and I wrote the first bare line,
bare, without substance, pure
foolishness,
pure wisdom
of one who knows nothing
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open…”

— Pablo Neruda (from “La Poesia”)

It’s hard to be free. 
The brilliance is nearly too much to bear. 
It’s so much easier to tie your soul down 
with the banal machinations of an unremarkable life, 
to carry burdens never meant for you, 
adopt worries that make you feel important but 
keep your life small, 
than it is to simply be free, 
and to know it.

What are the illusions you have chained to your soul 
to hide you from the terror of living free? 
For freedom is a terror, the very heart of possibility, and 
the inescapable responsibility 
of cutting your own path, 
making your own mistakes, 
writing your own story 
through the profound expanse 
of the Great Silence 
we call God. 

Not many, very few, 
ever summon the courage to do it. 

But you can, if you wish. 
You can.

I'll tell you a secret: 
power and status, 
comfort and sex—
these are all merely games we play 
to distract ourselves 
from the wonder of what we really are,
and the mystery of what is really 
going on here.