the seven selves

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In the stillest hour of the night, as I lay half asleep, my seven selves sat together and thus conversed in whispers:

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First Self:

Here, in this madman,  I have dwelt all these years, with naught to do but renew his pain by day and recreate his sorrow by night.  I can bear my fate no longer, and now I rebel. 

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Second Self:

Yours is a better lot than mine, brother, for it is given me to be this madman's joyous self.   I laugh his laughter and sing his happy hours, and with thrice winged feet I dance his brighter thoughts.  It is I that would rebel against my weary existence.  

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Third Self:

And what of me, the love-ridden self, the flaming brand of wild passion and fantastic desires?  It is I the love-sick who would rebel against this madman.

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Fourth Self:

I ,  among you all, am the most miserable, for naught was given me but odious hatred and destructive loathing.  It is I, the tempest-like self, the one born in the black caves of Hell, who would protest against serving this madman.

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Fifth Self:

Nay, it is I, the thinking self, the fanciful self, the self of hunger and thirst, the one doomed to wander without rest in searching of unknown things and things not yet created; it is I, not you, who would rebel.

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Sixth Self:

And I, the working self, the pitiful labourer, who, with patient hands, and longing eyes, fashion the days into images and give the formless elements new and eternal forms - it is I, the solitary one, who would rebel against this restless madman.

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Seventh Self:

How strange that you all would rebel against this man, because each and every one of you has a preordained fate to fulfill.  Ah! Could I but be like one of you, a self with a determined lot!  But I have none, I am the do-nothing self, the one who sits in the dumb, empty nowhere and nowhen, while you are busy re-creating life.  Is it you or I, neighbours, who should rebel?

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When the seventh self thus spake the other six selves looked with pity upon him but said nothing more;  and as the night grew deeper one after the other went to sleep enfolded with a new and happy submission.

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But the seventh self remained watching and gazing at nothingness, which is behind all things.

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~ Kahlil Gibran

from Poems, Parables, and Drawings

art by Pema Rinzin

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