About the Work: Internal Flames

Hell is quite often, here on earth. If it's not manifesting in our external worlds, then it's a long, cresting wave internally that tends to wash over us on its way to the beyond...only to come back again, like tides caught in an amusement park tank. I often think about how different our internal worlds are from one another. Or at least, I theorize as much. I tend to disagree wholeheartedly when conversations begin to paint individuals into corners, where many if not all of their alleged internal strifes are analyzed and categorized. I tend to cringe when I hear people refer to others, especially those who aren't present, concluding: "He's so chilled, so relaxed. Nothing bothers him."

The context of such conversations isn't important. I only take issue with the notion that it's possible to know somebody else, to really know what their internal lives are really like. The Greek philosophers touched on matters like this, and more specifically, on the subject of knowing: A prior and a posterior knowledge. If we are to give the Greeks their due, then how is it that we could know any individual truly, let alone ourselves? It shouldn't come as any surprise then that "know thyself" was an important pursuit for the early Greeks, so much so that it was inscribed in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.

Contrast statements like "nothing bothers him" with news snippets we're all too familiar with, especially we Americans: "He was always so quiet. I never thought he was capable of something like that."

We should strive to understand the internal flames within us before we even attempt to generalize, and by doing so trivialize, those within others. My humble opinion and the inspiration for this piece.