That’s right, the world is full of brilliant madness.
I personally spend a lot of time raging about how terrible things are. I try to make sure I spend a little less time being really torn up about how terrible things are. Rage is easier than sadness, it’s definitely more productive. Sometimes I try to write about what lies at rage’s core, but I can’t do it for very long because being fully open to it rips my heart open and you just can’t walk around like that. Still, it’s always there. It should always be there. It’s why I do what I do, why I write what I write (though I couldn’t organise and write, so now I theorise and enjoy activism without quite so much responsibility. And write. I feel a little guilty sometimes sure, but it’s been good for me and I was no good for anything there for a while). Writing and actually doing things to fight back against an unjust system are the valves that make it possible to bear. Though sometimes it still doesn’t seem possible. Of course, I also live behind a bit of a shell sometimes. To go without it? I just couldn’t walk around like that.
You know what else can’t walk around without a shell? The larvae of the caddis fly. They create protective shells out of anything that’s around them. There’s a new ‘art’ project where someone has made them build shells of gold beads and precious things. A cold, heavy life for a caddis fly larvae. I first read about them in a library book where they were covered with whirls of grass that looked like little huts, others with twigs and fluff. For you, though, I have found something much cooler in the equally cool blog of the zymoglyphic museum, which you can read here.
This is from from Scotland’s Hunterian Museum Animal Architecture Collection (I love the Hunterian!). There is absolutely no metaphor or comparison between this larvae’s shell and my own, it is just an example of the world’s pure awesomeness.
Point is, the world is also amazing. You need a little hope for example? You got Aretha Franklin. You have people to make you laugh and movies to make you cry. You need some air and space and time just to sit?
You can head for the mountains…
There’s the desert…
And there’s are some brilliant madness out there…
And of course the city, the most brilliant madness of all…
I like to wander around all kinds of places with my camera and take pictures, but what I most love is seeing things, really seeing things. Not everyone loves social media, but I do. Every day my stream is full of the weird and wonderful along with the latest politics. All of these things make me happy, glad to be alive.
And perhaps with all of this I’d be happy enough, but really, when it comes to feeling whole and well in the world, I think people are most important.
I managed being single all right, but I have a partner who makes me feel amazing and makes this world such a beautiful place. Friends and family who are there when I need them, who fill the world with laughter and late-night drunken discussions about everything and nothing. Altogether this is somehow a horrible, terrible and amazing place at the same time. So I am always refocusing, facing up to tragedy but spending a little more time on the amazing. And lolcats, but I won’t inflict those on you.
Instead, I will share a video I recently found through a friend’s post on facebook. It’s long, but extraordinary. A good way to step out of yourself a little, and see things in a whole new way.