Princess Story

There. You hear that? The whisper in the trees? The gasping in the wind? It's the tale once told of the lustrous and beautiful princess. Oh. You don't know the story? Of course you do! You lived it! It's hard to explain, and you might not remember. You want to hear it anyway?

You were laying on your bed one Sunday, similar to this one. The blinds were open and sunlight streamed in, lighting up your eyes. You were a little annoyed by the rays, but you let them live on anyway because you were too lazy to stop them. The day was beautiful, and you couldn't have asked for a more perfect morning to relax.

As you lay basking in the light, you began to pick up a smell. The tinge of melancholy tickled your nose and made its way up to the crevices of your brain. You remember the day turning a poignant shade, but you couldn't put your finger on it.

You lay there unmoving and unable to bring yourself to close the blinds. From that moment onward, there was something missing in every interaction. Every handshake and every nod lacked a bit of spirit they once had. In the beginning this bothered you, and you tried to seek to tease out its meaning. Eventually the annoyance would cease and become a normal occurrence. You stopped trying to pick at the seems and stopped listening to the subtle notes. It became a daily occurrence, but you stopped noticing it because it became a part of you. What is it you ask? That's my point.

Now, when you lay on the bed, basking in the sunlight, like you are now, you let the sunlight do what it wants. You take in all the smells and sensations that the day brings to you.

Still a princess, but unable to feel it.

We all start out our life innocent. We view the world with our unfiltered mind, bouncing from experience and experience without a care in the world.

At some point, we get see the reality of the situation. Camut calls it the "Absurd": everything becomes slightly different, almost weird. Life's never exactly the same.

But it doesn't have to be the "Absurd". We have events all the time that change parts of ourselves. To be specific, it's not the events themselves but how we internalize and react to those events that change us.

These changes are noticeable in the beginning, but as they become more and more ingrained, it becomes more unnoticeable. It's simply "you". Like the Ship of Theseus, are we ever the same?

Some thoughts may not be so good for us. Our subconscious warns us about our potentially dangerous thoughts and behavior, but we shrug it off. Eventually it becomes a part of us. Maybe we still shouldn't act that way, but there's no way for us to know: we don't remember.

How can we ever know the extent to which we have changed? The way we viewed the world 5 years ago isn't the same as the way we view the world today.

Hush and listen. We might have forgotten something valuable.