“And it was very good”

For some individuals, life, living, being only becomes significant when things are difficult. The difficulties they search for, they yearn for are not the daily mishaps and shakeups, it’s not the traffic or the loud neighbors that so often cloud the mindset of even the most positive thinkers. No, these individuals look for the greyness, the looming sense of disorder that seems to flow just beneath the ordered life. They embrace a certain, undefined sense of suffering, nothing too bad, nothing that threatens the practical aspects of life, but just enough melancholy to make them feel like their lives are different, as if they grasp something that everyone else seems to just miss. These prophets of doom, the ones who never truly let themselves experience joy, or lightness in the fear that they may be dishonest to their mission, often mistake their heaviness, the somatic fatigue with depth, with true understanding. They cast their judgments on all those who appear happy, or peaceful as simple minded folk, as those spared from carrying the burden of true, authentic recognition. When asked why they search for the darkness, why they live on the brink of a self-created abyss, why when dancing their eyes appear solemnly closed, as if keeping a promise to never forget the sadness that binds them at their feet, they silently reply with a deep sigh, a penetrating gaze. As if to say, do you in your simplicity really think language can capture how I feel? Do you think that I can put into words the hurt and the burden that lays upon me as a human being?

Sometimes, if the time is right, these individuals catch sight of a smile, or a friend, a child, and they feel something strange, an alien emotion. The barriers and coverings they have so thoughtfully, deeply placed on their lives to maintain their image shatter and break. They feel for a moment that all is good and right. They let themselves feel the simple joy of being. They say yes to the world, to people and to themselves.

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