Iconoclast

I smash the mirror in which they see themselves. The coating behind is not metal. It’s an element that creates illusions.

I switch off the flattering lights around the mirror, and they are horrified by their own ugliness.

Fear grips them. I’m the enemy. I’m the force they need to crush. I’m the iconoclast.

They conspire to victimise me. They accuse me of being unfaithful, disloyal, non-believer, non-compliant, a rebel, lunatic …. every possible label that diverts the arrows from their reality to my cracked up image.

It happened to Copernicus. It happened to Galileo. It happened to Socrates.

It happened to many others who were stoned to death for speaking they truth. They go unsung. Nobody knows or remembers their names.

Some of them may find themselves prettier than they ever thought of. It is like discovering a goldmine within. They call me a seer, a visionary and credit me for having deep insight.

Deceiving others is a conscious act. Being deceived by yourself and living under misconceptions is quite another.

What do iconoclasts set out to do? Just express a reality they see.

In the process, they destroy someone else’s reality, something the other wants to believe or wants people to believe about them.

Can they co-exist? Yes, if there is no clash of interest.

But clash of interest is real in a quest for power.

There go all the efforts to create clones, to create a mass base of unquestioning followers. Images are enlarged and bathed in a golden glow, statues are built to touch the sky, speakers address masses from high podiums – all efforts exhausted to make the masses feel small, vulnerable who need a god to protect them. Views that show the pockmarks, the scars, the fangs and claws are blocked.

And then comes another iconoclast – with a vision of his own and courage to speak.

The conflict will never end.

The battle will never end.

Because I seek power over you, and there should be only one version of reality – mine.

Poets, seers, artists, visionaries, writers, rebels – all deserve to be damned, or crushed beneath an elephantine foot, as self-constructed Gods walk on Earth.