Free Speech

“Nothing will ever, ever, be the same.”

Eternal truths light up the sky like wild-fire. Subtle acceptance drifts downwards like ash, floats from its combustion of experience and happenstance, and rains as soot into the valleys of one way thinkers. Smog, a heavy haze, lingers; its recognition forced into every breath. It stings the eyes of the believers, who thank their lucky stars for their good understanding. It kills those who are too old or too young to take to its indoctrination.

But between quotation marks are no doors to eternality. From speech comes the blessed light of a different kind of knowledge: the temporary, the tangible, the real. Its syntax drives the alive, and resurrects the dead. Its very tone is application, not syllogism, and its inflection delivers direct promises about our lives here and now, not indirect insights about the way the world must be.

I have spoken to the Gods. I have told Them that I intended to change my world. They replied with a sardonic grin, changing my world for me. “Nothing will ever, ever, be the same.”


Nothing lingers in the empty space of hospital rooms at 3am in the morning. Your life ceases when you first entered the white walls. It doesn’t continue in a different form like they all said it would. It is in the quiet of the night where those illusions are so obviously laid to rest and the under-circulated, over-sanitized air staggers between you and the clock. 3:07am. There are no visitors at this hour. No one who knows you, to tell you about the world outside the gates. The call button hangs, a giant red herring tied to the bed. What salvation can it bring? No. This is an initiation. This is a cleanse. Who you are is here.

Freedom from distractions is not a torture that one forgets. It extends time excruciatingly in the moment like a physical pain, and it haunts in every moment afterwards, like an emotional one.

But this, the worst of tortures, is also the gateway to the best of bliss. For when one is finally released again, into the open air, they discover all else has burned away. All of the old obligations and ties have felt the heat of an impersonal time. And like all things exposed to such perfection, they did not survive. Worries have been whipped away by the wind.

The skies are clear, crisp and blue. Fresh and perfect. The valleys are cleared and manoeuvrable, finally empty of the jungle that once threatened to trip travellers and choke inhabitants. The sun does not glare or oppress: it invites rebuilding, and subtly offers no other choice. But, feeling the warmth of existence itself, no other is needed. No other is wanted. Who you are is finally clear. Who you are is here.

There is an emptiness this time as well. But it is a robust emptiness, full of opportunity and resource. All the old statues and broken structures offer blue-prints for a new life. All the old connections and histories can be buried or forgotten or polished or cherished. The lakes are not polluted, and the hills are not crowded. Yesterday’s paths lay bare, as examples and memories.

In silence, paradise is revealed. Nothing need ever be the same again.

That’s not a fact. That’s a statement. I’m telling you this. We are released to live again. Everything lingers in the empty space of recovering souls at 3am in the morning. It tastes sweet, and it feels new again. It sounds possible, and it looks exciting. It smells freeing.

I will build.