That Crack In The Windshield

We, humans, are bound to stupidity like a mountain is bound to being immovable. It is written into our daily life. It is what kind of stupid, what flavor of ignorance we follow, that defines who we are.

If you are stupid academically, if you have failing grades or don't exert yourself in classes...people will judge you. They will assume you are immature. You're a damn fool for not trying, not lining up the way they do and writing note for note what "X" is.

If you are stupid with talking, your folks might cast you out. They'll become angry that you don't talk to them, confused as to why you're always sleeping, and hoping you're okay. The friends you have will wonder about you most days. They'll try to incite some sort of spark in you to get you to speak up or talk about how you're feeling. They'll want to know if you're okay..

If you are stupid with sex, you will be in a world of hurt. Sex is an integral part of our being. It's the reason we exist. If you think of it like some sort of game, and play around with the fire it creates between you two....you will be hurt. There are those out there that use sex as a form of part-time entertainment. Going woman to woman, man to man, looking for a thrill. To each his own, ultimately it doesn't affect me. Though, I might question how genuine of a friend that same person is going to be with me. Are they just going to use me for a thrill? Sexual misconduct can be the bird that lands on the car, precariously teetering on the cliffside. It can be the difference between a girl with a couple of male friends, and an attention whore. It can be the difference between lifelong partners and tyrant baboons screaming at each other over missed child support and visitation rights. Treat it like it is, a skeleton key. A key that can open many, many doors. Study the doors, and where they're going to take you.

If you are stupid in love, then you could be blissfully ignorant. Both of you could be that way, and as time goes on there will be many bridges you will cross. Not many of those bridges will be stable. Hopefully, with effort, you won't remain stupid in love. You will grow, and you will become a better partner. This is all assuming that you were brought up well, that you don't have any baggage already dragging you down. As you grow, you will watch them grow too. As they grow, ignorance may give way to regret.

Regret for not saying those things you should have. Regret for not holding her when you had the chance. Regret for not asking what's wrong.

Regret will give way to pain. There are many ways to deal with pain, some are healthier than others. If love is a 4 lane highway, that spans your entire lifetime, she and yourself are two cars. You're both travelling the same speed, going in the same direction, and at first...both of you hope to the same destination. At first, you're both racing to the destination, bolting forward. Both of your cars are shiny, they haven't seen much road and you only see the good parts of your partner. The further you develop, you both gain and miss opportunities. A shinier car rolls by, or a bump in the road comes up that shakes the hell out of you and her. In time, you two find it hard to see what you once saw in each other. With so much dirt on your tires, and that crack in the windshield, it's hard to even see good in yourself...let alone her.

This is where many people have difficulty. To deal with this pain, you can either stop completely, break apart and move into those two adjacent lanes next to yourselves, or continue together on the road. Any way you travel, you're still travelling, and the destination is still there. If your destination was a happy future, its still there. Many people will simply choose to break up at this point and try to start fresh. The pain, the dirt, the crack...they're still there. But maybe if you try hard, the next car won't see them.

You can't remain happy without taking a few rest stops. Clean a car, but don't clean your own. Clean each others cars.

It's one thing to say to yourself that you are stronger than this, that you can be beautiful again, to try and motivate yourself.

It's another thing entirely to hear it from someone else.

Inhumanity

The human eye can be a locked door to so many things. There are thousands of emotions in the spectrum that we can feel. Day by day, we learn to hide those emotions behind a facade of "I'm okay". Why? I've been lied to and stepped on, all the while being shown the welcoming smile of someone who I wouldn't suspect otherwise. Maybe I'm naive.

Some people, most people, believe that as humans we are free. Great as that may sound, I would argue that we are not free. Most of us would say that because we're on the top of the evolutionary system, because we have our cell phones and our airplanes, we don't answer to a master, and we are free.

Humans do have a master, fear. I use that in a very broad sense of the word. When you won't go out in public because you don't like how other people will judge you, you are answering to a master. When you won't stop on the side of the road for a broken down car because "someone else will stop", you're answering to a master.

I try every day to help someone, in some way, because I want to break away from that stagnant chain everyone is being tethered to. I want to be different, and not how a 14-year old might want to be "unique". I want to be kind. That's one thing I haven't been for most of my life, Kind.

For the first six years, I was stupid. I was fearful. I was happy. For the next five after that, I was growing, learning, feeding. When I became a teenager, I became something new....resentful. Resentful of a society that had once had so much shine to it. Now that I understood how things worked, that shine had traveled. 

As I tumbled through High School, much like a ball might tumble down a set of stairs, I started making and losing connections all over the place. People I disliked started to grow on me, and friends I'd had since I was Stupid were now all but gone. I was crawling out of ignorance, hoping to find something a little warmer. Ive never liked cold weather..

I'd say wanting to be kind is inhuman. We may think ourselves advanced, evolved, and above all other species, but...we really aren't. We're still driven by emotion, no matter what toys we surround our time with. We hate, we lust, we hurt, and we act upon all of those things most of the time without thinking. It takes practice to think with logic.

I wouldn't say I'm the shining example of what someone should be. Quite the opposite, actually. I'm still growing, at least...I hope so. Idolizing someone, or making yourself out to be someone that isn't you will do more harm than good. There's a hundred percent chance that person is still growing just like you, and until someone dies, they aren't above you in any way. When someone passes away, they might leave a legacy. Follow their good intentions....not their emotion driven actions.

A person might act upon their "faith". Faith is a funny emotion. It's part compassion, part ignorance, and part greed. There are many theistic people who are really great, compassionate individuals. There are also many of those who are not. I'd like for everyone, theist or otherwise, to be able to act on what helps those around them. Rather that, than acting on what it says to do in whatever "holy scripture" you might follow.

When you follow a religion, you're intentions might be good. You might think you're genuinely helping someone when in reality, you're alienating them because of their beliefs. If you want to worship a dogma, I won't stop you. However, it would be great if you could follow it with perspective. Know what's right, and what's wrong, without having to consult your religion.