Real inside
There are two qualities that make us what we are. One is a childlike innocence. We're delicate, vulnerable, we feel things deeply, we take things to heart, we are easily hurt.
But this is balanced by another quality, a strength, a determination that is indomitable. The convictions that power us, the drives that make us do what terrifies us, the white-hot energy of creation.
These two things would seem opposite, immiscible, a vast gulf separating the two, nothing imaginable could span it.
But something does. These diametrical opposites, they are what make us human.
But each differently. Each of us has different strengths, different vulnerabilities. And that is what binds us together. We try to protect the beautiful delicacy, avoid letting the cold hard world bruise each other's tenderness. At the same time, we are drawn to each other's fire, impressed by incredible power we don't believe we could ever contain, let alone possess.
Each antinomy unique, each beautiful. Similar but different. We are accustomed to our own abilities and weaknessess, and find them unremarkable. But no two of us alike, we marvel at these supernovae in tissue paper, impossible, compelling, somehow existing in blatant spite of any rationality.
We all start the same way, squalling babes, the side needing protection foremost. But, as we progress through life, we each forge within ourselves, oft unawares, a wellspring of adamantium, a source of limitless power. It frightens us, it surprises us, it fortifies us, it makes us real.
And when we appreciate that duality in someone else, the simultaneous need to protect them and to quiver at the incomprensible force of their being, whether we come upon the realization gradually or are suddenly, shockingly, blinded by its intensity, that is when we know, deep inside, that this other being, what might appear to be just another lump of animated meat, is, in fact, another of our own tribe.
When I am smitten with someone, and gaze at them in awestruck silence, I get back confusion, querulousness, even discomfiture. People think they're undeserving of my admiration. They see not what I see in them. But what I see is real, genuine. I am not being coy or flattering, I'm amazed you exist. I'm somewhat befuddled by what you see in me. To me, I'm just me. But to me, you're the universe. More than the universe.
But this is balanced by another quality, a strength, a determination that is indomitable. The convictions that power us, the drives that make us do what terrifies us, the white-hot energy of creation.
These two things would seem opposite, immiscible, a vast gulf separating the two, nothing imaginable could span it.
But something does. These diametrical opposites, they are what make us human.
But each differently. Each of us has different strengths, different vulnerabilities. And that is what binds us together. We try to protect the beautiful delicacy, avoid letting the cold hard world bruise each other's tenderness. At the same time, we are drawn to each other's fire, impressed by incredible power we don't believe we could ever contain, let alone possess.
Each antinomy unique, each beautiful. Similar but different. We are accustomed to our own abilities and weaknessess, and find them unremarkable. But no two of us alike, we marvel at these supernovae in tissue paper, impossible, compelling, somehow existing in blatant spite of any rationality.
We all start the same way, squalling babes, the side needing protection foremost. But, as we progress through life, we each forge within ourselves, oft unawares, a wellspring of adamantium, a source of limitless power. It frightens us, it surprises us, it fortifies us, it makes us real.
And when we appreciate that duality in someone else, the simultaneous need to protect them and to quiver at the incomprensible force of their being, whether we come upon the realization gradually or are suddenly, shockingly, blinded by its intensity, that is when we know, deep inside, that this other being, what might appear to be just another lump of animated meat, is, in fact, another of our own tribe.
When I am smitten with someone, and gaze at them in awestruck silence, I get back confusion, querulousness, even discomfiture. People think they're undeserving of my admiration. They see not what I see in them. But what I see is real, genuine. I am not being coy or flattering, I'm amazed you exist. I'm somewhat befuddled by what you see in me. To me, I'm just me. But to me, you're the universe. More than the universe.