6 Sep 2024

It was seven in the morning. The room was dark, except for the faint morning light seeping through the gap in the partially open curtains. I pulled them aside, and noticed that the streets below were wet. Long stretches of dark asphalt gleamed under the soft dawn light, cloaked in somber shades of gray. "Damn it, I missed the rain," I muttered to myself.

It had been a while since the city last saw rain, especially one that came at dawn. I wish I had been awake for it. It feels like I missed out on something special. The soft rhythm of raindrops tapping on the window, the howling of the wind through the empty streets. I can only imagine. And it doesn't help that recently, having taken a break from work, I had been spending most of my nights awake. Except for last night, when, for whatever reason, I broke my pattern and went to bed early. Life is funny that way. They say the early bird catches the worm. No worms for me today, I guess.

Do night owls catch anything? I think so. We get to enjoy the silence of the night, with its fair share of peace and solitude. Maybe it's the absence of noise that allows our thoughts to be heard, when we can finally hear the quiet whispers of the soul. "Won't you listen to me?" it asks. It's not that I don't want to; you just need to speak a little louder.

The truth is, the soul does speak up occasionally— especially when we are at our lowest, when we are at our most vulnerable. Despair, fear, loneliness, these are all signs that the soul is trying to make contact. Although it is easy to shrug them off as "life's little inconveniences," nevertheless I think it is more constructive to view them as signs that something is amiss which needs to be addressed. A sense of longing for the past can be a call to revisit old wounds.

I've always enjoyed my solitude. There's a certain comfort and peace that comes with being alone, with not having to worry about judgement or expectations from others. But there are times when the silence becomes deafening, when the emptiness of the room seems to swallow you whole. Solitude had turned into loneliness, and I found myself suddenly longing for the company of others.

The soul had spoken, but what was it trying to say? It's definitely a plea for connection, but what's the deeper message? Is there a need to reframe my perspective on solitude? On social relations in general? Perhaps the reason I worry too much about what others think is because my sense of self-worth is tied to their approval. Maybe I should learn to be more comfortable in my own skin, to be more accepting of who I am, flaws and all. Or maybe I avoid connection because I never felt truly understood, or that I fear others will misunderstand me and judge me for it. But how well have I really tried to make myself understood?

All this soul searching sounds like a lot of work. That's because it is. The language of the soul is not always easy to decipher, for it speaks, not in words, but through emotions, intuitions, memories, and sometimes even dreams. This means that we have to do a bit of extra work to interpret and understand what is being communicated. Sometimes we may misinterpret the message, resulting in confusion and frustration. And we may even give up trying to understand. Fortunately, the soul is insistent, and will keep trying to make itself heard.

It is currently two in the morning. It's dark outside, the streets are quiet, and there's no sign that the rain will come again.