I prepare for sleep, replaying the images of the day in my mind. A reflection is born within me.
We humans, no matter how far we have drifted from animals in our evolution, no matter how refined our thinking has become, are still ruled by instinct — or perhaps better said, by the subconscious part of our brain. We hold on to traditions, and so we expect them from others. Whoever breaks them risks a loss.
And so today, I too — far too early — found myself pondering the words that would so naturally rise from my lips. Words most people wait for in vain. And I did not speak them… out of fear that they might awaken thoughts, and with those thoughts, a loss.
Why is it that when we feel something, we do not say it if it falls outside the accepted pattern? And on the contrary — later, when we no longer even think about it, when those words barely carry meaning, when we may even use them in place of something that means the very opposite — that is when we say them.
Tonight my reflection carries no pain, no resentment, no other burden. Tonight I simply wonder how easily we let ourselves be guided by such impulses. And how I myself, knowingly, choose to submit to something so profoundly illogical.