From the day he got burned, to the day he settled (I suspect it is in Ireland), I have been a big fan of Burn Notice. I’ll pause writing for a while, while ya’ll snigger and such.
Pause.
Pause.
Done.
You could have stopped reading this post at the first or the second Pause. But here you are. For all practical reasons it seems that there will be no Season 8. I don’t know if you have followed or are following the serial; if you haven’t this may be a spoiler. So if you did not stop reading at the first or the second pause, stop now.
The last couple of episodes have been very thought-provoking. They have teased and often prodded my ideas about belonging, loyalty, true-love, engulfing darkness, and a death-wish. The emphasis on escape is beyond physical escape. The prisons of our mind are far worse than the emotionless iron bars of a cell.
I don’t care to elaborate on each of these ideas linearly to describe what they meant to me. That would be very academic and boring at the same time. Not everything that is academic is boring. Not everything boring is academic.
Suffice it to say, even an otherwise-non-award-winning-(popular-awards-i.e.) can make you think about things. It can ask you questions that you have never asked before. It can make your jaw drop; when it shows something that is happening with you. Or something that you have imagined for yourself in your lonely corners.
<digression>
Paul often asks questions of bloggers: the popular ones, the ones who promote, the one’s who give advice. Who? Why? What? And such. There’s no such thing as popular bloggers. There are a few who market the content, there are a few who don’t. There may be some shades in between, but these are the only two types of bloggers who are there.
</digression>
What we feel is the ultimate reality. What we want to feel is the ultimate fallacy. Fantasy is great therapy, but like anything else, it is hazardous in high doses. (Notice the H-D-H-D alliteration) Smart, eh? A death-wish is not about death. It is about an exit. Many have it, but will never exercise it. Because they think of it as a mortal conclusion. Their what-if calculation is convoluted. And some folks spend an entire lifetime staring at an MS-Excel sheet doing what-if. Spend your time calculating or spend your time livin’. There is no other way. Call.
Our sense of belonging only to our selves.
Our loyalty is due only to our selves.
Our true love is only to our selves.
Our engulfing darkness belongs only our selves.
Our death-wish is about our exit from that which we do not care about. Death-wishes are not about dying; they are about killing: killing all that we can do without.
What’s you death-wish?
10 thoughts on “(To Everything there’s a Season) Burn! Burn! Burn!”
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Gaizabonts 
Atul, this is quite simply the singularly most thought provoking post I have ever read. I will have to come back tomorrow, and the day after, to read again and savour the sweet majesty of these words.
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Paul, I have received many encouraging and complimenting comments before; I must say this one is unique. Thank you very much for this. I will also admit, I am a bit intrigued that such an abstraction is liked by quite a few readers. It feels good. 🙂
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I’m pleased it feels good. It’s a great post. Love it.
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Now this is a twist on thought. It certainly isn’t something one can read and dash off a quick retort for either. I think I’ll think on it… (great write, btw)
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Welcome to Gaizabonts, SSF. I think the twist occurs due to the missing details, which are often irrelevant. I’ll wait for after you have given it a thought! Cheers and thank you for the ‘end-note’ 😀
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I want to kill the necessity we’re bottle fed that a requirement for contentment revolves around ‘things’ instead of environment – both inner and outer. I’ve been working (forever it feels like) to get back to a simplistic remote lifestyle where sufficiency comes from my hands and my community. I’ve still got about 1.5 years to get that point, and that is if all things hold steady in my life. While on vacation at a friend’s house I watched TV for the first time in years and I was amazed at advertising. It is like feeding a sleeping beast. We must have this or that if we want to be successful, well-regarded, in step with everyone else. But to live anywhere even with self-reliance one still has to have money. I’ve be adjusting and re-adjusting what my ‘needs’ are (Maslow aside). It is difficult to shed one’s cultural inheritance and walk away from the box (squares, a man-made thing and evidence we’ve been somewhere).
As an aside, do you know anything naturally-occurring that comes in a square? This has been on my mind a while now, lol! Thanks for the think.
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Thank you, SSF. I am glad you said “difficult” to walk away from…If you would have said impossible, I would have to write, yet another post. 🙂 While social conditioning plays its role if defining what we should be content with, we are equally responsible if we accept meaning blindly from what is on offer. We have, somewhere within us, the sense and the ability to reject what we do not want. Some may argue that this is a tendency towards sainthood. I disagree. There is a place between a saint and glutton, a sweet spot where peace is possible. We *have* to keep adjusting, even if it takes small moves, to find that happy place. Small exits or something like that.
I thought about the squares and felt like one, when I couldn’t think of one. A search led me to sugar-crystals; they naturally occur as cubes, apparently. Does that count? 🙂
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I love it when I learn new things because of shared q & a! Actually sugar will not count, as they are not actually cubic, but salt would! Sugar supposedly forms into asymmetric hexagonal pillars, but salt is almost always nearly cubic. Yay. New stuff to toss out if we ever appear on Jeopardy or play Trivia 🙂 Thanks for joining me in my quest!
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See? Now I have learnt something new! Double yaay! 😀
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