Did you know the word ‘clue’ comes from Greek Mythology?
A clew, C-L-E-W, was a ball of yarn. Ariadne gave Theseus a clew to help him out of the Minotaur’s (a deadly creature half man – half bull) labyrinth. He unraveled it as he went so, he could find his way back.
This labyrinth was designed by Daedalus to contain the ferocious half-man/half-bull known as the Minotaur. Daedalus’ labyrinth was so complex that he, himself, could barely navigate it, and, having successfully done so, Minos imprisoned him and his son, Icarus, in a high tower to prevent him from ever revealing the secret of the structure.
Now, hold on to this for we will come back to it later.
This story in itself is the link to what got me thinking about what will come ahead.
Throughout the entirety of our lives, we mold ourselves based on what comes and what passes. We shape ourselves based on how we think we should be and not how we want to be. That’s a bitter truth.
When asked, ‘Who are you? What is it that you would say when I ask you to tell me about ‘yourself?’
We struggle with an answer. Or at least we don’t have a definite answer. We try to skirt our way around it with the notion that maybe we don’t know ourselves entirely. That we’re still searching for bits of us, exploring parts of us, and are rather at an experimental stage. Maybe we are. Or maybe, we’ve known ourselves all along but just haven’t looked at it the way it should be.
Our lives are a treasure hunt. Ironically, we don’t even know what we are looking for because we look every place elsewhere than within and around. Our truth is scattered and hidden. But like the traditional game of treasure hunt, there have always been clues around to guide us through. Lead us, to us. And that’s where the story at the beginning comes in.
Your clues lie buried in chances you haven’t dared to risk. It is deposited in people who break you and be with you. A trail to tracking down what matters and what should have been kept away ages ago. It’s neatly folded in daily affairs and stockpiled in the most obvious places, where of course our eyes refuse to rest and let the expectations take over. The clues are gently tucked in a blanket of comfort that a place gives us, rested under pillows that soften the blows the days give us, and carried away by the window that watches the dreams with us. It is in the pitch of our silent cries and in the shuffles of our playlists, it is wrapped in the last thing our bed faces and the first visit our subconscious makes. The clue is etched in the art we admire and the chaos we create. It is heard between the laughter we whisper and the cheers we scream. It is found enveloped between the stars we look upon and the sunsets we see down to. It’s in the numbness of the pain and the desire of the mind, in the sewings we adorn and the breaths we measure. In the quickness of the emotion and the residual of a situation. It is sketched in clouds we shape and erased from the dust of our falls. It is marked between the breaks we felt and heard between the sounds we scorched. It is intricately mapped out with conversations that bled the dusk into dawn, in sorrows that fill apologies of ours, and in books that ink out the escapades we dream of. The clues are demonstrated in the words that hide the revelation we let our poems present and dance to the beats that our hearts yearn for. It is laced with metaphors that are layered with meanings and designed with audacious dreams. It is in the blueprint of our struck monotonous mundane routines and in the paintings of our colors with moody swings. It is beside the step of your long-struggled battle and in the leap of your short-filled victory, it is in the touch that makes your heart go for a run and in the texts that make you screech to a halt. The clues to the configuration are a contradiction of your beliefs and in the roofs that you built to concrete your hopes. The encryption is all there. The lost symbol is where you left it. The treasure is a prized possession kept behind the walls you build yourself. It’s not a trick or a test. It’s personalized to your personality and condensed to your characters. These circumstances won’t fit any other image in the mirror or in any emotional framework that is not yours.
Decode, Follow and Unfold.
How far along can you hold the ball of yarn? How long will your breadcrumbs last? It’s a labyrinth of safeguarded secrets, in corners of commas and turns at truths. The long walk with your shadow and the restless tapping of your knee, the adrenaline and the agitation, the wondering and the wailing, it’ll amount amount if you stay faithful to your own self and keep going. For Thesus had to reach to conquer and so do you. But don’t lose yourself in the maze for that’s how the script goes. Hold the thread and return. Come back. Return to what you were. Your treasure doesn’t lie at the end of your journey nor between the clues that you laid out for yourself. It’s beside you. With you. In you. You. Your c-l-e-w is the ball of yarn. And your hunt isn’t for the Minotaur but for the way back the way you entered.
For we are a labyrinth and our clews make us who we are.
When asked, what makes you, you? The answer is not at the end line of the exploration but where it started. In the strength to seek your own self. In the hope to build a heart for you. In the choice to take the ball of yarn to find the way back to what you are.
For, isn’t home simply a return to what we once were?