Well, that’s a pretentious title. But I mean it this way: the world is beautiful. Interlocking pieces and ideas and complex words and agreements and dreams made real. I am not an optimist, but like everyone that looks up at the sky, I cannot help but wonder how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Take a person and see a massive complex organism of nerves and blood. Then consider the internal dreams of a human being. The social connections. I believe in a spirit, a soul, to a person—and that’s another layer.
Street lights and pulled pork sandwiches and cars and dance recitals. Again, this is pretentious, but, please, take a moment and just stare at the infinite interlocking cogs that make up a person, that make up a city, that make up a life.
It’s fascinating. It’s wonderful. Not a single place exists that is without ethereal beauty.
That’s not to say there’s not darkness, too.
I am on the internet a lot, and, when I hear of injustice and such out in the world—I dislike how little I flinch nowadays. How desensitized I am to it. I feel as if I am not the only one who sees the terrible things people do to each other, even in modern day, and cannot muster enough of a reaction.
Who feel like they can’t do anything to stop it.
But, well, there are some things anyone can do. I am not talking charity; I am not talking volunteering—though that is valiant and the people who can and do help are amazing—but something done every day. That even if you have not a moment of time, you can manage to do this.
And cheesy as it may sound, as much a product of a greeting card you might think my words, I do mean them. The answers are not complicated. Simple kindness. Mustering a feeling of wonder. Realizing the work and time and energy that is poured into the making of buildings and books and air conditioning units and candy canes.
The true weapon against apathy is an appreciation of beauty in all things. To see that one’s neighbors are not monsters, that vile venom might spew from some places, but people are not evil.
Do I sound like a hippy? Naïve? Sure. Have I said as such before? Yeah. I have. These words are not words of practicality and technique. They will not stop the bigotry and the pain, the denial of basic humanity for so many people. Words alone do not end wars.
Except when they do.
My only hope is that I can add to the voice of those bigger, those shouting loud that people deserve such respect and kindness. That injustice is not dead, no matter how advanced we might seem as a culture. That we have a long way to go.
But we are making progress.
It’s a new year—and that can be something meaningful.
My words may not be worth shit in the grand scheme.
But I’m also not alone.
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Special thanks to: Bob Gerkin, Collin Pearman, Dylan Alexander, Jerry Banfield, and Michael The Comic Nerd.
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