Sluggishly, he walks towards the door that has awaited him every December 31 for several years. Today, he arrives on January 1. He is tired; Not because of any festivities that occurred last night, but because of the absence of a festive vibe that permeated the year.
“Here we go again,” he sighs as he adjusts his mask. The action has become second nature yet produces the same annoyance and discomfort as when it was first introduced as part of the day’s protocol. He pushes the door open slowly with uncertainty about what he will find. He is late. However, the concept of being on time has proven challenging to comply with during the last 365 days because time seemed lost in a barrage of medical mandates, social protocols, a rampant increase in death, and a crippling decrease in living.
“Hello… Is anyone there?” he asks as he enters the room.
Silence responds to him. There is a chill in the room that is rooted not in the temperature but rather in the sensations running up and down his spine. He sits beside the bed in the spot that has been reserved for him over the last several years. Only this time, there is no hand to hold and no eyes to look into while conversing.
“I am late, but has everything truly passed?” he asks out loud, “Should I just leave? Should I have even come at all?”
He stands from the chair that feels inadequate to hold his weight as it has increased because of worry and fatigue. He dawdles to the window where the breeze embraces him. Frustrated, he slams his hand on the wall.
“This is ridiculous!!” he screams, “I should have not even wasted my time coming tonight!”
Suddenly the streets fill with bodies, and the volume of their actions reach deafening proportions. He can hear them, but he can’t understand them. He can see them, but they are blurry. He finds himself squinting, trying to sharpen the features of the people that suddenly filled the street. It works. He gasps. He stumbles back and falls to the floor in fear. The people in the streets are no longer blurry, and he can make out their features. In doing so, he realizes that they are him.
The window suddenly transforms into a mirror and the reflection succeeds in causing him more discomfort, anxiety, and fear. He not only sees himself sitting on the floor, but he also sees himself standing beside himself.
Quickly turning around from the mirror, he seeks to confront whatever is standing beside him. However, he is met by another mirror with the same reflection.
“What is happening?!” he screams, “I don’t understand!!!”
“Exactly,” a voice responds.
The room begins to spin, and he finds his body flirting with the possibility of passing out. Somehow he is now standing and realizes that the room is one giant mirror.
“You proclaim a lack of understanding because you work towards it. You find contentment in claiming access to knowledge but cower at the thought of committing to consistently climbing towards comprehension. You looked for my predecessor in a spot that you have occupied with complacency yearly. Their absence seemed to concern you, or was it the change from what you are used to? Do not attempt to answer, for I am not interested in the preprogrammed responses that flood your vernacular.”, the reflection of himself scolded.
His fear turns to frustration as he feels lost in a farce.
“Where are you?” he asks with annoyance. “Why do you speak to me through a false reflection?”
“You are looking directly at me,” the standing reflection responds. “Your eyes see an image of yourself because that is what your mind needs to construct. You have drowned in the pool of your existence because you sucked from the clogged straw of “knowledge of self” for air. Clogged because you did not want to breathe; you simply did not want to drown. One should ensure the other, but only when executed to understand that knowledge alone is not sufficient. You see yourself in the mirror because for far too long you have not looked close enough into the crevices of your consciousness. You have allowed theories to copulate in your mind so that the offspring produced could populate the cerebral cinema that made celebrities out of others in the community. All the while you ignored the syllabus that your spirit wrote you so that your mortality could be maximized. You see yourself because you refuse to look within yourself. Knowledge of self was but the key to the lock. The act of turning the key and walking into the room is what has been missing. You entered this morning late and justified your tardiness by referencing exhaustion rooted in the absence of a festive vibe. However, you have not showed-up on time for yourself in ages. The lack of festive energy is not a stand-alone occurance. Rather, it is the next consequence of running on the fumes of familiarity and not on the flames of fruition. You see yourself when looking for me because you have always seen such. The difference today is that you are not glazing over your reflection with habitual tactics. Enough has happened to disrupt your routine that you are in a position to realize you trained your stare to disregard stagnation.”
Perplexed, he asks: “So you are me?”
The answer delivered does not seek to provide comfort; it seeks to provide change. “I am not you. I am not knowledge of self. I am not your life path. I, dear friend, am the instrumental ingredient needed for you to bring knowledge of self from the menu of theory to the table of consumption. I am the “Understanding of Self,” but you all will call me 2022.”
©Dr William “King Mission” Ross 2022
