A futile something for those who do not read

 “Once, I saw a bee drown in honey, and I understood.” 

- Nikos Kazantzakis

Do you think, at a few weeks shy of forty, one is qualified to talk about how much they’ve seen the world change? Is it old enough to have some authority on such a matter? Perhaps it is still a decade shy of the wisdom we associate with ageing. I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable, but I’d like to begin with “how much I’ve seen the world change.”

It seems to be that, for the most part, these creatures calling themselves human beings have become increasingly less aware of how they cause ripples in a lake. It is a form of selfishness, but it is not deliberate, nor is it intentionally malicious. It is, as I said, a lack of awareness. The result of stupidity and pride fitting together so well. They hold each other at night, kissing one another's necks. Their fingers interlocked, dreaming the same dreams. I recall the time a man at a bar tried to borrow my attention to tell me how dreadful his life had become. How his wife had found out he was fucking someone else. He colored his story with tones of pity and heteronomy. I, at the time, was working long weeks, overlooking the care of six vulnerable adults with severe learning disabilities and autism. During the night, I was on call for the plenty of emergencies that would occur over any twenty-four-hour period. During the day I was on-site; in the trenches. This short time at the bar was my one chance to take a deep breath in months. To fall into myself a little. To process the hospitalizations and fear that danced amidst the unconditional love. This man had no idea how his words sounded to me. Until I told him.

What do you offer? What do you give? And what do you take from the world around you? I ask this because if the answer to the first two is very little, then the answer to the third should be minimal, but it often isn't. We have been conditioned to expect. Our wants and desires are acted out into the world as if they are out of our control. Without consideration of all those tiny ripples that travel outwards, filling the lungs of those whose heads bob just above the water. And at the core of it all, when I truly look around, there is just futile attempt after futile attempt to escape pain. The same pain that is a necessity. The same pain that teaches us where we must tread. The same pain ingrained in every human experience. The very same pain that would, if paid attention to, would move us towards harmony. It is in that pain that we begin to understand one another. 

Over the last decade -perhaps two or three- this instinct to escape pain, and unwillingness to learn from it has manifested itself in some of the most grotesque trends in human consciousness. I will not sit here and put targets on my back for the fringe groups and characters to take aim at. I do not need to call out who I believe to be acting out nothing more than an unwillingness to process discomfort, nor do I need to, because the symptoms -as colorful as they may be- all have their roots in this one disease: Weakness of character.

There is such little substance. There are plenty of claims for it. I can hear their internal monologues as they talk themselves up in the bathroom mirror. These people do not read. They do not write. They do not have any dialogue with themselves other than the instinctual cries of their wants. They have no reason. The arguments they defend their existence with are all based on entitlement. "I do not wish to try." Now, don't get me wrong, I don't particularly care if people feel they are entitled to float through life and be treated as if they possess substance. That is not my concern. What concerns me are the ripples. The noise and unnecessary suffering that swim into the world while they pursue this nothingness that has been marketed to them as freedom. This nothingness that distracts them from the discomfort of slowly becoming nothing.

My three dogs are sleeping in various corners of the apartment. I have been drinking too much coffee and smoking too many cigarettes. Not eating or sleeping enough, but still looking after myself by today's standards. And you are right to call me out, there is no greater merit to be placed on those who move quietly and thoughtfully through the world. The end result is much of the same. I shouldn't be proud that I carefully tread, so as not to distort the organisms around me. It is impossible to measure whether or not one way of living is more or less gracious than another. All I'm trying to say is that, as I look around, just a few weeks shy of forty. Wondering about just how much we have all changed in a short space of time. All I'm trying to say is that I do not like how we look, and I am quickly failing to find reasons to offer 'us' the unconditional love that I worked so hard to be able to provide to the owners of the ripples in the lake.