“Goodness Hides Behind Its Gates”
In the last week I’ve gotten more than one comment on my musings about how people miss the “sarcastic” entries. And while it’s nice to know that people are reading these things, I’d never really thought of them as being sarcastic, though I suppose many of them were, which puts me in the awkward position of feeling like I should apologize for not being more sarcastic, as if that were a merit. But given that we collectively praise people whose sole accomplishment is making the world a playground of inequity, pain and ridicule, I suppose by that measuring stick it could be.
More than one friend of mine has been going through some pretty awful inner wranglings of late, and I’ve tried to set my own travails aside and just listen. When I do speak, I offer some of the teachings I’ve learned these last six months, teachings that have to do with trying to be a good person in a world full of selfish douchebags who take every opportunity to make you feel like an insect. It happens all the time. From the urban equivalent of pissing on your head from a higher branch by meeting you and crushing your hand as no eye contact is offered, to the slightly more refined act of reducing your accomplishments to an unimportant footnote to the latest chapter of their dry-cleaning incident, the world is, as a dear friend put it, not a you-niverse, but a me-niverse.
From all this come the knee-jerk reactions of frustration, anger, feelings of inadequacy, and healthy dollops of sarcasm are used to numb them out. Something I’ve succumbed to in this little essay, as attentive readers may be noting. I debated scratching the top of this post and just going for the second-half, but there is no drama without conflict, and also it struck me as disingenuous. Suffering is part of life, and to paper it over is not the point. To acknowledge it, is. So, yes, world, you give me ample reasons to suffer. But, here’s the fork in the road, and I have a choice to make. (Those who want more sarcasm may want to stop here and head for an overpriced cocktail. Make sure to discuss how little money you just spent getting some underprivileged soul to do your menial labor. Bonus points if you don’t even know their nationality.)
Okay, that’s it for now. So, here we go.
I thank you. I am grateful for your slings and arrows. You give me opportunities that I did not understand a short while ago, and I am a better man for it. You have given me the raw materials from which I will make my blanket to keep me warm, erect the walls to give me shelter from the storm, and whatever other metaphor doesn’t quite fit perfectly but that I’m going to use anyway. You wake me up in the night and challenge my sense of self, you land punches to my face that I have to tend to, and you remind me that happiness can never come from anything external, but rather from whatever feelings I cultivate in my own heart. I will undoubtedly still be sarcastic from time to time, like say, oh… now, but at least I might be conscious of it and understand the ramifications. They are many. I will undoubtedly pay for this writing in some form, but that, too, is part of the journey.
I thank you. I wish it were not so, of course. I wish that we could all live in a utopian dream-state of rainbows, warm muffins and foot-rubs, but as it is not so, I thank you. Even spurring me to write this has done more for me than you can know, bitter commentary and all. So please, don’t stop for my sake.
Though I might suggest you stop for your sake. For our sake. I’ll do my best as well.
For the Mineralava Musings, this is Edoardo Ballerini.