‘People say, That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But they are wrong. What doesn’t kill you, doesn’t kill you. That’s all you get. Sometimes, you just have to hope that’s enough.’
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones.
Someone I was exchanging emails with asked me what is it I was thinking about, what was occupying my mind. I thought that was an excellent question. I had just celebrated my birthday and as is with every birthday, time was forefront in my mind: the passage of it; the everyday mundaneness of it; and how (this is a recent realization) the major, life changing decisions, the unknown errors in judgement; and even communication happens in seconds. That question forced me to be aware of the myriad of thoughts that occupy my mind, to be conscious of all the places my mind wanders to when I am not busy. This has been a blessing in my attempts to be a creative. I have written before about my monkey mind and the efforts that I have made to try to tame it. Since then, I keep track of my recurring thoughts. It’s been a little psychological test I have done with myself as the subject so my analysis may or may not be as objective as a scientific test should be, but I noticed that what occupies my waking moments has a way of sneaking into my sleeping moments and manifests itself in form of dreams.
I read Tayari Jones’ Silver Sparrow towards the end of last year. Silver Sparrow is one of those books that was on my ‘to read’ pile but somehow I never got around to reading it and then when I finally read it, I asked myself why it took me so long. Anyway, for the two and half months since then, the above quote has been on my mind. On some days, Kelly Clarkson’s What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger) would play repeatedly in my head, and on these days, a part of me would try to deny the truthfulness of the above quote. On other (most) days though, the days when I see on Facebook people trying to console each other with ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ I get this intense desire to tell them how untrue that is without coming out as insensitive to people’s misery, tough times and/or grief. Because what doesn’t kill you sometimes takes you several steps back. Sometimes what doesn’t kill you breaks you into tiny pieces that take forever to put together, sometimes you lose a tiny piece or two in the process of reassembling your broken pieces. Sometimes what doesn’t kill you makes you vulnerable to what may eventually kill you. And sometimes, you just have to hope that what doesn’t kill you, doesn’t kill you.
The title of this post is from the song Let The Flames Begin by Paramore.
True, Raw and Random... 