The Happy Feat!

The Happy Feat!

There are certain situations in life which, though harrowing, we cannot walk away from without ruining any possibility of future happiness, for the degree to which our decisions will haunt us will always outweigh the fleeting joys in which we engage to escape the screeching ghost of the past.

But the ghost is not kept at bay by the walls we build, anymore than our castles made of sand will withstand the ebb and flow of the eternal sea.

Yet some do the happy dance with happy feet—the happy feat!—and make endless excuses for why walking away was the right thing to do.

I see it for what it is: a never-ending deflection of responsibility. I know it for what it is because I’ve seen it in myself, not as a ghost, but as a monster which would command my attention so as to distract from my responsibilities.

However, I am no Victor Frankenstein, fleeing my creations in horror.

I embrace the poor creature and together we walk difficult paths.

Sometimes I lead, and sometimes I let him wander ahead as I keep a watchful eye.

It would be redundant to call a paradox strange, but it is, after all, a strange paradox: to find that the monster I created to distract my attention from the responsibility of caring—which is to say, from the willingness to suffer on another’s behalf—was the very responsibility for which I would be willing to suffer to care.

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The Dancer Prances but Doesn’t Know the Answer

Power does not necessarily indicate ethical, moral, or even technical superiority, for it is too often granted, and not earned.

Strength is won through effort and effort alone.

See it there, in the spotlight?

Do you see the monster you’ve created, staring back at you from across the (light)years?

Do you see yourselves, in your weakened state, too fragile to step out of the bubble in which you’ve placed yourselves without having to condition any environment you enter to receive you?

Do you get it yet, cupcake?

Are you ready for the meat grinder?

Did you think the abattoir only for the herd?

The monster is you.

The spotlight is a mirror.

When mirror regards mirror, which is the reflection?