I’ve heard the song “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” by Procol Harum almost daily recently. They have the radio on in the kitchen at the cafe I frequent, and while many of the usual songs on “today’s top hits” radio are the same hits of the ’60s-’90s they play every day, this one stands out. There’s simply nothing else like it. But more importantly, it reminds me of my late father.
Author: Trance
Artist. Writer. Truth seeker.
For years, I’ve wrestled with the uneasy tension between who I am and who I believed I needed to become. Like many people, I’ve chased reinvention through new environments, ambitions, routines, and ideas, convinced that the next pursuit might finally quiet the underlying sense of restlessness. Yet no matter how far I wandered, I always found myself returning to the same essential nature — the same instincts, curiosities, rhythms, and creative impulses that have followed me my entire life. Perhaps the real challenge was never becoming someone else, but learning to stop resisting who I already am.
You have but a limited time here in this one short life. Is it a trap or an opportunity? What do you really want from it? What are your truest aspirations? Are you willing to see through the fog and learn to accept things as they really are, or is it better to remain mixed up and subsumed in the fakery and delusion?
To me, it makes no sense whatsoever to conform to any religion or nationality because the truth must exist and eternally persist in the space between, where they all meet, where they can all agree, all the time, without question. That’s where I would endeavor to operate.
It behooves us to become aware of the many compromises we are making in our day-to-day living. It is harmful and spiritually depressing to carry on as if everything is alright, relying on coping and adapting to get us through. The world around you is doing it’s best to push you toward uniformity and conformity, and that’s why you’ll feel unhinged, edgy, frustrated, confused, alone, and directionless. That’s the point, so you will forever choose to defer to their authority, their priorities, and their values rather than sitting quietly a few times a day and discerning your own. It’s tyrannical, if not clever. Just pause more often and have a good look at what you’re being, doing, thinking, accepting, integrating, and acting out.