These wriggling squalled worms we call problems. Who hold their heads high these days, with haughty stares; and we are already stooped, ready to lay crowns upon them. Problems—the monarchs of this age! And unlike their butterfly compatriots, these ones drag their feet across the whole world before reluctantly curling into their cocoons. Where they keep the flap open, and spring out with horrible stunted wings the moment we turn our backs. Why do we not seal them tight?
They swarm the world these days. I can scarcely take one step outside my door without tripping over one of them. Cosmic, social, political, local, philosophical, personal—problems multiply all the same. Every one screeching incessantly for solutions! An oppressive wall of noise.
And it seems we are all too ready to join in! Quick to say what is wrong with everything, how it is broken, diminishing, failing. So critically we forget to ever mention what is good, what is joyful—what things we do have! No, no, we must obsess with lack, and instead of putting our hopes to test in reality we do the honorable thing: convince them to fall upon their own swords and be forgotten rather than suffer the disgrace of failure. Because there is really no space for them in a world with so many problems! A world full of potential for hope, kindness, and magic—but a potential that keens so quietly compared to the prevailing screeching “FIX ME.” Because surely we must fix the world before we dream of a better one.
So much time have we to listen, to bask in that wall of noise, I think we start to enjoy it. Reaching back into it with our ears at every opportunity; for a fresh dose of worry to while the time away. Really, I must commend us! Such skill at finding, identifying, and preaching problems is truly a great achievement. A conceptual gardens of Babylon! A beautiful ritual acknowledgement of the need for transformation! Of the ultimate goodness of the cocoon. That most true and treasured part of the human soul: the hope for perfection and better life!
And though that spirit lies buried still, even the outline of its grave is a wonder. The shape of hope, though without action faded quickly as a dream, shining forth from the dirt. But outlined by all these worms!
So we gaze lovingly at the wrong face of our own abilities. We see badness, and instead of finally seeking solution and transformation, we wander astray. Towards hatred and disassociation—towards giving up. All to not have to risk our hearts on caring, appreciation and hope. Those are only for perfection—beautiful, supreme, perfection. In that way we can never be disappointed—as long as we never close our cocoon by combining hope and action. Better to stew in disappointments, to live in the world only as it lacks and never as it could be. But in that pain, that misdrawing of focus, there is the most marvelous thing—hinted at! Transformation and the hope for perfection! But it is a spiky and weaponized hint, that drives away all good things with a spiked pole. That brandishes imperfection as its defense against the world that is. So that a bad world never needs to be accepted enough to change it. Yet still always longing like tantalus to drive that spike home and so set the first corner of a new house, a better world. But never truly capable to do more than bask in the screeches of problems—without that final piece of hope.
And yes it is true that disempowered people who feel they cannot create change will of course cease to hope! That thoughts of a grand scale are winning out over those of smaller scales, guaranteeing each person’s minimal impact! Yes, there are reasons not to hope. Do not regard those slimy notions that suggest you settle for wriggling in the dirt.
But what I mean to say is that our failures are the same as our potential. That they are indicators that we are still the same shining people. With the same great spirit we manifested during the early ages of invention, during times of economic upswell! Now simply unrealized—but still so beautiful! That for all its tarnishing our spirit can shine all the more beautifully.
So do not think the world empty. Consider it instead as space. Remember not problems, but motes of potential destined for transformation. And do not fear you are like the problems, wriggling, hopeless, and unfixable. You are much more like our friendly Monarch. With a lifecycle built on transformation and beauty. Your inching along in the mud is a gathering—of all you will need to one day fly on beautiful wings.
