As Simple As All That

The world, as we know it, is not quite as we know it. All is not as it seems, it would seem, and often we are lost quite by accident, despite all our best efforts. In fact, I venture to accuse every human of stumbling upon this phenomenon at least once in their lives, if not slogging through the muck and mire of this truth for the vast majority of their lives. Forget the fact that we don’t know how to ask for what we want, as if we are mute or dumb or stupid or infantile. Even if we found out what we want and how to ask for it, it’s another thing altogether to believe ourselves deserving of it to a degree where we might actually act on those desires.

      Somewhere along the way, someone always makes us believe we don’t deserve it, or that wanting it is some sort of sin, or that it, in and of itself, is a sin.

      So fuck the fact that you’re lost, that you don’t know what you want nor how to ask for it, nor have you ever been led to believe you’re good enough, it’s good enough for you, or it is good to begin with. The first step is the first step, and that is that. Take a step out the front door(or the back, for all I care, I don’t give a shit), maybe walk through the garden or simply down the driveway, and see whatever infinitesimal corner of the world you might happen to stumble into, and once you’re there, if you’re not dead yet, maybe walk a little farther. If you’ve gone as far as you care to go, then turn around.

      But I can guarantee wherever you go, should you choose to keep going, you’ll find yourself more interesting, on the whole, and that will make others around you more interesting. What, will all these lives directly adjacent to our own, it’s impossible for us to not get our splotches and smudges and stains on one another until we are all walking around, blind pieces of abstract art stumbling through the cobbled alleys of wherever we find ourselves like an Irishman on St. Paddy’s Day. If the world is a canvas, then each of us are patches that some lunatic named God decided to cobble together. But rather than the nice, pristine canvas he started out with in the Garden, we form a quilt of patches that are no longer deserving to be sewn into the ripped knees of a small child’s jeans, so instead, we are torn with frayed threads about us and all, and we are half-assedly assembled. Yet somehow, after the muck and the mire and the adversity of it all, we form the perfect background to whatever medium is used to paint over us.

      The best part is that it takes every (literally) stinking piece of each one of us to form that shoddy canvas. What is more, if any of us was pristine and white and flawless, we’d stand out like a sore thumb, because we’re a quilted canvas never intended to be spotless. We were meant to come as we are into this fucked up world, and while alone, we are the most disgusting shreds of undignified, soiled patches. Together, however, you could not have chosen more choice silk fabric, not even in the street markets of Egypt.

      Because together, we’re a little less lost and a little more deserving of our desires and we’re worth just a little more effort. Because together, we are beautiful. And that’s just because we’re meant to be together. It really is as simple as all that.




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Photo by Jené Stephaniuk on Unsplash