still walking and talking
There is only the work.
There aren't a lot of constants in this world. There's the one big inevitability, but other than that, there's not much you can be certain of, and the certainties seem, to be honest, awful. They get looked in the eye, we shudder, avert our eyes, get back to the business of making ourselves a place to be, maybe hope to thrive. We work hard at it--whether we're working to make a grand change for future generations, or we're working to get ourselves to tomorrow. We ask ourselves whether or not it's enough, because we're human, and it's those ridiculous meta-questions that, along with funerals, cooked food and fashion, make us different from the other animals.
This is the wrong question. The truth is, it's never enough, the world is the world, and sometimes you're putting a band-aid on cancer. And these are the facts. Love hurts, family's fucked up, and somebody's always got it worse. It's still worth it. I know this, even though I'm sitting in a puddle of my own snot and tears feeling sorry for myself and unable to get back up and keep going for a while. I know it's worth it and I'll get back to it. "Never enough" is kind of pointless. It is what it is, and has to be.
Sometimes you can't get back up for a while, or at all. Family and friends come and go, because they are only human for all their wonder. Health is ephemeral, and strength moreso. Even the results of our desperate action, our strutting and fretting, are evanescent at the bottom of it. Me, one day I'm making strangers cry with things I say. The next, I look back and realize it's been a year since I've put my feet on the pavement and volunteered. One day people from the other side of the world are thanking you for things you do, and the next you look at yourself and discover that you haven't been what you've preached. And not a word comes out of you, because of all that built-up waiting for the right moment, for the inspiration, for the point of it.
These are the wrong questions. The moment is now. The moment is always now. And we don't get more moments. We don't. And while everything around us will be dust, while all flesh is grass, these are the wrong questions because there is one thing perhaps more constant than death and entropy.
There is always the work. The work is the only question.
The only question is what needs doing, and there is always something. We cannot and should not always agree. We cannot always line up. But there is work we must do, and we must do it together, or see it not done. The only question is what we can do. The only question is how to keep doing it and doing it, because eventually the other constant catches up to us, and we have to hope someone else will do the work when we're gone, because the work will always be there, down every hallway of time.
The question is not whether or not we have done enough. We haven't. There is no "enough." There never will be. There will always be the work. And this looks, somehow, like despair.
I've mistaken it for despair, lately. I look at the pieces my life is in right now and I make despair my breakfast. But despair is the wrong question. The world keeps going, and it does because we keep going. And we do, and we will, because that's how it plays. You just have to love something and stand for it and with it. And sometimes you lose it anyway. So you keep going anyway.
We don't, sometimes. I know this. We are not constant, either, and the work continues without us. But this is not despair. Despair is pretending the work has ended. Despair is pretending that nothing can be done.
It is a distraction. It is a false certainty. There is only the work. It is exhausting, but this is irrelevant, because we insist in thinking it is about us, but this, too, is the wrong question.
It isn't. It's not. Not about us, and never was. We are miniscule, our vast worlds within us, compared to the connections between us.
Those connections make it possible. They give us a chance to do the work. They give us a chance to build the world and put a roof over our hopes when the rains come. Because all there is, is loving something, and standing for it, and doing the work, and the rest of it fades and fails and crumbles as our own bones do, as our hopes do, as our plans do.
What I want is not the point, because I am only one. And any of us pretending we are only one is doomed to crumble without seeing what the work is. It seems like numbing, exhausting labor because it often is. It doesn't go where we planned it to. It doesn't give us back what we thought we were promised. It doesn't let us into the promised land. And the explanations, the equivocations, the attempts to make it sensible are the wrong questions, too. We keep distinguishing our actions from each other, keep trying to make them something distinct, something new, when really, all these details, they fade and ebb, too. Action is far simpler than that.
Love is the only action.
It translates oddly, sometimes. It's hard to see because we keep making the mistake of thinking that love is a feeling. It's not. Love is not an emotion. You cannot draw the face that means "love." You cannot explain where it comes from, what makes it itself, what stimuli will reliably produce it, because it is not a noun, not properly. Love is action. Love is the only action.
We try and force it into the shape where it can be the answer, as though it will solve things, as though it was supposed to have a point. And that's foolish, though I won't stop doing it any more than you will. Love isn't for anything, in any intelligible way. It is, simply, the only action there is.
We can do it, or not do it, which is an action, too, and comes of loving in other directions. It's easy to mistake a lot of things for other-than-love when we set our minds to it, and we do. It's our way.
After all, we're still asking that question--the work. We fail to see that answers aren't the point as much as vectors are. Where, how, how fast, who. "Who" is meaningless; it's always "us." Frankly, the "where" is always "here." And how? "How" is the wrong question. We do what we have to. We do what we can of what needs doing until we can't any more. We keep getting back up until we don't. We love. The work gets done, though it's never over. And then others pick up for us when we've gone to the scavengers.
There is always something that can be done, which is why "enough" is so dangerous. There is always something. Love is the only action, and there is always more of it to do.
There are no endings.
There aren't a lot of constants in this world. There's the one big inevitability, but other than that, there's not much you can be certain of, and the certainties seem, to be honest, awful. They get looked in the eye, we shudder, avert our eyes, get back to the business of making ourselves a place to be, maybe hope to thrive. We work hard at it--whether we're working to make a grand change for future generations, or we're working to get ourselves to tomorrow. We ask ourselves whether or not it's enough, because we're human, and it's those ridiculous meta-questions that, along with funerals, cooked food and fashion, make us different from the other animals.
This is the wrong question. The truth is, it's never enough, the world is the world, and sometimes you're putting a band-aid on cancer. And these are the facts. Love hurts, family's fucked up, and somebody's always got it worse. It's still worth it. I know this, even though I'm sitting in a puddle of my own snot and tears feeling sorry for myself and unable to get back up and keep going for a while. I know it's worth it and I'll get back to it. "Never enough" is kind of pointless. It is what it is, and has to be.
Sometimes you can't get back up for a while, or at all. Family and friends come and go, because they are only human for all their wonder. Health is ephemeral, and strength moreso. Even the results of our desperate action, our strutting and fretting, are evanescent at the bottom of it. Me, one day I'm making strangers cry with things I say. The next, I look back and realize it's been a year since I've put my feet on the pavement and volunteered. One day people from the other side of the world are thanking you for things you do, and the next you look at yourself and discover that you haven't been what you've preached. And not a word comes out of you, because of all that built-up waiting for the right moment, for the inspiration, for the point of it.
These are the wrong questions. The moment is now. The moment is always now. And we don't get more moments. We don't. And while everything around us will be dust, while all flesh is grass, these are the wrong questions because there is one thing perhaps more constant than death and entropy.
There is always the work. The work is the only question.
The only question is what needs doing, and there is always something. We cannot and should not always agree. We cannot always line up. But there is work we must do, and we must do it together, or see it not done. The only question is what we can do. The only question is how to keep doing it and doing it, because eventually the other constant catches up to us, and we have to hope someone else will do the work when we're gone, because the work will always be there, down every hallway of time.
The question is not whether or not we have done enough. We haven't. There is no "enough." There never will be. There will always be the work. And this looks, somehow, like despair.
I've mistaken it for despair, lately. I look at the pieces my life is in right now and I make despair my breakfast. But despair is the wrong question. The world keeps going, and it does because we keep going. And we do, and we will, because that's how it plays. You just have to love something and stand for it and with it. And sometimes you lose it anyway. So you keep going anyway.
We don't, sometimes. I know this. We are not constant, either, and the work continues without us. But this is not despair. Despair is pretending the work has ended. Despair is pretending that nothing can be done.
It is a distraction. It is a false certainty. There is only the work. It is exhausting, but this is irrelevant, because we insist in thinking it is about us, but this, too, is the wrong question.
It isn't. It's not. Not about us, and never was. We are miniscule, our vast worlds within us, compared to the connections between us.
Those connections make it possible. They give us a chance to do the work. They give us a chance to build the world and put a roof over our hopes when the rains come. Because all there is, is loving something, and standing for it, and doing the work, and the rest of it fades and fails and crumbles as our own bones do, as our hopes do, as our plans do.
What I want is not the point, because I am only one. And any of us pretending we are only one is doomed to crumble without seeing what the work is. It seems like numbing, exhausting labor because it often is. It doesn't go where we planned it to. It doesn't give us back what we thought we were promised. It doesn't let us into the promised land. And the explanations, the equivocations, the attempts to make it sensible are the wrong questions, too. We keep distinguishing our actions from each other, keep trying to make them something distinct, something new, when really, all these details, they fade and ebb, too. Action is far simpler than that.
Love is the only action.
It translates oddly, sometimes. It's hard to see because we keep making the mistake of thinking that love is a feeling. It's not. Love is not an emotion. You cannot draw the face that means "love." You cannot explain where it comes from, what makes it itself, what stimuli will reliably produce it, because it is not a noun, not properly. Love is action. Love is the only action.
We try and force it into the shape where it can be the answer, as though it will solve things, as though it was supposed to have a point. And that's foolish, though I won't stop doing it any more than you will. Love isn't for anything, in any intelligible way. It is, simply, the only action there is.
We can do it, or not do it, which is an action, too, and comes of loving in other directions. It's easy to mistake a lot of things for other-than-love when we set our minds to it, and we do. It's our way.
After all, we're still asking that question--the work. We fail to see that answers aren't the point as much as vectors are. Where, how, how fast, who. "Who" is meaningless; it's always "us." Frankly, the "where" is always "here." And how? "How" is the wrong question. We do what we have to. We do what we can of what needs doing until we can't any more. We keep getting back up until we don't. We love. The work gets done, though it's never over. And then others pick up for us when we've gone to the scavengers.
There is always something that can be done, which is why "enough" is so dangerous. There is always something. Love is the only action, and there is always more of it to do.
There are no endings.
posted by little light | 9:27 PM
4 Comments:
Little Light,
You have a magical way of making me feel soothed and invigorated at the same time, and of making me want to do better without feeling crappy about where I've been up to now. I feel led by your words so often, without ever feeling talked at or down to. You really are magic.
how does one come to be so wise in both heart and mind? you must be an old, old soul. everything you say about love is true. and you write of it like someone who knows.
when we reach our next brief resting place - because as you point out we will never "get through this" - i know that more people than just myself will have you to thank for your hopeful words. i hope that there is someone by your side to thank you in person as heartily as some of us out here would like to.
Thank you for this LL. I really appreciated it personally and I sent it to a friend, an ACLU lawyer who is particularly demoralized these days. I'm so sorry you're feeling poorly. You make such a difference. You have no way of really knowing though.
Big strong hug,
Jennifer
oof.
Thank you.
Post a Comment
<< Home