Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The Shackles of your Mind

Look carefully now
Inside your own head
Look and you'll find
The shackles of your mind

Each word you've borrowed
Each thought you've read
Is a link in the invisible chains
That bond and hobble your brains

Those words are the easy way out
Each time that you're plagued by doubt
You let someone else's morals decide
And forget how to take your own side

But what can you do
Oh, what can you do
It's so easy to not be you
To just live your life by the rules
To be a part of this or that school

The formulas of fear that you spout
Instead of working things out
Are a much easier way to go
It's easier to stay stunted than grow

But those chains are so tiny, so frail
If you just examine them in detail
You can snip them with almost any thought
That your own mind has forged and wrought

So if you actually start to think
Be honest with your heart and head
And not fall back on easy things
On the words and thoughts that you've been fed

To your own surprise
You might just find
You've slipped the shackles of your mind

3 comments:

Kasturi said...

Amazing!
Reminds me of Howard Roark's (Chief protagonist of Ayn Rand's Fountainhead)dialogue:
'Never ask people , not about your work'

This is one of your best i think, till now.

Nivedita said...

Deesh...! Who would better know how these lines feel and mean ...than me...
The formulas of fear that you spout
Instead of working things out
Are a much easier way to go
It's easier to stay stunted than grow ...

Here in Mumbai. just arrived, to make a mark n name for myself... this daily mortal battle of jostling with giants of my own fears and limiting thoughts... and not letting myself remain stunted but grow... grow ...out of mortal pain... a fatal battle of the mind... that often leaves the body exhausted...
Oh yes, The Shackles of Your Mind... are they really so small and easy to snip? Would love to snip and slip them off...
Beautiful read... Keep penning more for us... :)

Madhu said...

Mind blowing!

Absolutely agree with Kasturi--the philosophy of Ayn Rand is so well reflected here.
We, all of us... tend to find a paradoxical security in these chains, we bind our thoughts as we are afraid of pain, of the unknown.
We limit ourselves and stay small.
Fear is the key, rather the lack of it. Fear of less-trodden paths, fear of the unexplored..fear of "chaos"...

You have put into words..fragmented ramblings, abstract ideas floating in the course of my thoughts.