Originally Posted: 3/29/08
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Wanker. Willy Wanker...Willy Wanka. Whatever.
Dreaming again, I’m hallucinating. Too much bubblegum acid. The mind is a strange thing to waste, and for once I think its won the battle. I’m stubborn, but my brain takes the cake. So I’m writing. I’m sitting here in the silence and I’m churning out thoughts like Model Ts on the assembly line. No, that’s not a proper analogy. Not proper because none of my thoughts are identical, just efficient. Maybe its the Jeiger. Maybe its the Metal. Or maybe, just maybe, its the people around me who, I’ve recently come to realize, aren’t all walking vials of filth. I slap that label on too easily sometimes. There are good people in the world, good friends to be had. Careful where your hands wander though, they might come back holding a heart.
I’ve watched stars succumb to death from the safety of my mind’s eye, and wondered if its really all so glamorous. See, Death has never been a bright, fiery thing to me. Its represented the termination of the slow decay we all undergo. Its the end of a long and, overall, largely hopeless road. No matter what you make of yourself during your time here, you will die. Some people take that as an excuse to waste their lives away on trivial things: Drugs, crime, promiscuous and typically reckless sex. And others use that time up being so busy trying to live forever, if only in memory, that they forget to sit back and enjoy it. I’m the grey area. I live like I want to, and I won’t let anyone talk me out of it. So, I want to explore a little bit of our world. Some of its ugly side and some of its beauty.
I’ll start with the good. Its fresh in my mind.
A person is a beautiful thing. There’s so much powerful shit wrapped up in any one of us, so much we can do and express and explore that it would be foolish to call us anything but beautiful. Some of us are more attractive than others. I’ve had friends with minds so awe-inspiring that I can’t help but fall rapidly in love with them. I’ve met people who are so giving, and so vibrant, that they’re immediately like gravity. The kind of person that makes you feel young and foolish and utterly free. A person with a smile so bright it makes you dizzy. I’ve known people who were haunted by the past, or defeated by the future before it arrived, people who live in the present and can’t seem to catch a break on their own. There’s something to be said about being relied on, and its a wonderful thing. I’ve lived alot, and I’ve loved alot of people, and I’ve done the best I could for them. Most of the time. I love it when someone needs my help, or my advice, or just someone to talk to. Its lets me immerse myself in them, lets me explore what makes them so incredible, and gives me the opportunity to show them those things. It also makes one feel supremely loved. To know that there is another person, or several people, who will come seeking refuge with you when the storm outside grows too difficult to endure alone, that’s the best feeling in the world.
But what about the world? If there’s so much beauty in people, then what about the world they live in? Ever seen the mountains? The ocean? The plains? There is a kind of silent, untouched beauty about those places. A serenity that you can’t find anywhere else, but alone on a flat piece of grassy land that seems to stretch forever, or looking out over the blue until you can’t tell where the water ends and the sky begins. There is a peace that can be found wandering the woods until nightfall, with no plan and no destination, and jumping in a river after dark just because you wanted to feel cold water on your skin. Even cities, with their constant motion, the unyielding energy, and the very essence of life that permeates every building, every street and subway. The residue left from the passing of so many. Even cities have their own beauty. But freedom, God, freedom! Wandering those fields and searching for places that man has never seen before is unparralleled. If you don’t believe me, try it sometime.
So what’s the bad stuff? What’s the ugly that counteracts this gorgeous place? Its silence. Not the kind of silence that comes without people, that silence that feels so natural when you’re alone. No, I mean the kind of silence that accompanies crowds of strangers too busy, too lazy, and too arrogant to talk to one another. The silence that defies conversation, that forsakes friendships, and redners love all but impossible. That kind of silence is the ugliest thing you’ll never hear. Greed and hatred and manipulation. These are ugly. They breed descension and they poison the mind.
Want to know what the ugliest thing of it all is? Its exploitation. Especially exploitation of people’s firmly held beliefs for your own gain, or the gain of your organization. Taking faith in something and turning it into a business, turning it into hatred of something different, and using it as a tool or a weapon. That is ugliness. That is what I abhor most.
What I’m saying with all of this, is that there are no intrinsically ugly things in nature. Only ugly things that we do to defy nature. Most of our accomplishments, even the harmful ones, have beauty in them. Whether it is inherited from us, from the world, or whatever is not my concern. The beauty of the thing is what I’m after. So think about that today, and everyday. You’re beautiful, unless you create something ugly out of yourself.
In that, lies the answer to my question. Nature is inherently beautiful. Death is natural. Maybe it is, after all, like watching a star burn out. Brilliant and explosive and impossibly magnificent.
You decide.
With Love,
S. R.
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