Dear Kafka, happy birthday. Last year I got to meet a tiny glimpse of the world you lived in. But even before that in the intro they had said,“Kafka was an outsider from the start."And it stirred something in me. A thought that aren't we all just outsiders? Don't we all live outside of our own self. Aren't we all even strangers to some parts of ourselves.
When Samsa said,“ How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense."Wasn't that the most relatable thing ever.
But what was more is to read some glimpses of your letters to Milana. How being understood made you fall in love, and yet you said to her that you can never make her or anyone understand you. Isn't that the problem Kafka,to not be understood.
"Everything is exaggeration, the only truth is longing. But even the truth of longing is not so much its own truth; it’s really an expression for everything else, which is a lie. This sounds crazy and distorted,but it’s true. Moreover, perhaps it isn’t love when I say you are what I love the most - you are the knife I turn inside myself, this is love. This, my dear, is love."
Though I loved every word I read, I felt like I was losing a piece of my own being. And when I read that you had written,“ I have spent all my life resisting the desire to end it." It felt like there were no words left. There is nothing more to read and nothing more to feel. Because how often do we all fight this desire to end it all. What is this, that makes us live when nothing remains.What's that makes us keep walking, when we know there's a dead end waiting for us.
The other day, I read a theory. You gave your unpublished work to a friend to burn. But, you never wanted your work to be burnt. That if you really wanted your work to be burnt you would have done that yourself. Because no friend would ever do that to another's whole life's work. And I kept thinking that even while you were leaving you wanted to hold onto something.How strange is this desire to just vanish and yet remain. To be invisible and yet be felt. To die and yet be alive. Though truly the meaning of life is that it stops. But does it really ever stop or it's just us who cease to exist. Are we life ? Or just fragments of life? Tiny fragments completing, complimenting, breaking, tearing apart, falling out and finally vanishing into the unknown. With unsaid, never understanding thoughts, emotions. Do we go into the same darkness when we die which we hold inside our own bodies?
Though everything that was meant to be said does remain unsaid. Thank you for staying in your writing.
With longing!
