An open letter to anyone.
I'm not so simple as to lack complex, contradictory influences on every action I take.
I'm not so vigilant as to be able to reason every single step of my decisions.
I'm not so naïve as to remain unbound by a difficult set of priorities and principles.
I'm not so willful as to unwaveringly obey them.
I'm not so cruel as to wish harm on anybody.
I'm not so strong as to be able to prevent harm to everyone.
At every single step of the way, I've given everyone - every single living being I've ever known - the benefit of doubt. I've advocated for their positions. I've attempted to view the scene from their perspectives. They don't have to thank me for it or even return that decency in full; I'll keep doing it because I want and need to.
Stop assuming anything extraordinary about me. Just stop assuming that I am anything, anything at all. I'm a human being, just as you are, and thus I am flawed, struggling, wandering mud - a chemical mess amounting to a waking dream, a fleeting notion, an infinitesimal speck, nothing at all in the illusion of the next moment. I want to be happy with that. I'll continue to want to be nothing until all of us nothings together can be something wonderful.
And if you think I'm calling you mud, calling you nothing as some way of pushing you below any other being... then rest assured that I'm referring to many, many other puddles of mud at the same time - each thinking they're somehow separate - and I want none of them to suffer either. There's just no need for it.
We're all the same sort of mud, and we're all doing our best.
This entry was originally posted at http://electrickeet.dreamwidth.org/21272.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I'm not so vigilant as to be able to reason every single step of my decisions.
I'm not so naïve as to remain unbound by a difficult set of priorities and principles.
I'm not so willful as to unwaveringly obey them.
I'm not so cruel as to wish harm on anybody.
I'm not so strong as to be able to prevent harm to everyone.
At every single step of the way, I've given everyone - every single living being I've ever known - the benefit of doubt. I've advocated for their positions. I've attempted to view the scene from their perspectives. They don't have to thank me for it or even return that decency in full; I'll keep doing it because I want and need to.
Stop assuming anything extraordinary about me. Just stop assuming that I am anything, anything at all. I'm a human being, just as you are, and thus I am flawed, struggling, wandering mud - a chemical mess amounting to a waking dream, a fleeting notion, an infinitesimal speck, nothing at all in the illusion of the next moment. I want to be happy with that. I'll continue to want to be nothing until all of us nothings together can be something wonderful.
And if you think I'm calling you mud, calling you nothing as some way of pushing you below any other being... then rest assured that I'm referring to many, many other puddles of mud at the same time - each thinking they're somehow separate - and I want none of them to suffer either. There's just no need for it.
We're all the same sort of mud, and we're all doing our best.
This entry was originally posted at http://electrickeet.dreamwidth.org/21272.html. Please comment there using OpenID.