Kept

The world is centered around what is lost and what is kept mentally, emotionally, or physically. Loss is the basic principle the world seems to operate on. Loss is all around us, loss is everywhere, and loss is everywhere at once. We all share loss; we are joined in it and related by it. Loss is thick and often overwhelming, and through it, we often find a way to keep. The concept of keeping is shadowed by the existence of loss; to keep something, you lose the absence of it.

As Pablo Picasso once said, "Every act of creation is first an act of destruction." That can be understood in many different ways; it can also be reinterpreted in just as many. He believed that to create something new, you needed to first destroy what was already known or believed to make room for what was next. You had to eliminate old beliefs to make room for new creativity. To paint a beautiful piece of art, you must destroy a blank canvas.

Think of a monk,

My favorite example of that being reinterpreted is a quote by Tyler Durden, the narrator's alter ego in the movie "Fight Club:" While on the train and discussing how everyone is sold the image of the Calvin Klein physique Tyler says "Self-improvement is masturbation, now self-destruction..." That quote directly reinterprets what Picasso spoke about, with an added sense of requirement and depth. "Self-improvement" is often seen as adding things to make life better whilst keeping the same mindset and persona that existed while your life sucked. It's reading books and working out while going to the same shitty job every day while having the same arguments with your husband or wife while having the same friends, and the attitude that doing this will improve my life. It's often said you need to hit rock bottom to reach the top, which is a big part of this movie and its message. I understand that to actually improve oneself is to tear yourself down and start anew. You have to be a new person to live a new life. To be a new you, you have to destroy the old you.


We are born kept, the world welcomes our presence and we are kept until death. But loss is an experience, not a state of being. Our mothers and fathers keep us in their hearts; we continue to keep life until death. But we have already lost something, a state of no existence, a state of nothing, born crying, born messy, born without the ability to understand the world around us. Until we are roughly seven years old, it is said we live like a sponge with eyes and ears, a mouth and brain, and the ability to perceive the world we touch. However, our vision is limited, for we haven't lost youth, and we haven't gained a mature perspective.

Something came up, so that's the end of this. Take my random late-night thoughts and give any feedback. I normally stick to poems and haven't done something like this since high school, so I want to improve. Also if anyone can let me know what category this piece falls under that would be a big help I had to put other.