So I went to the beach yesterday; and I said I was going to think about deep stuff, but I kind of just ended up writing poetry about rocks… Not gonna lie, one of the most enjoyable days I’ve had in a long time. If you haven’t written poetry about rocks, I suggest you write poetry about rocks. There’s something magnificent about noticing the complexity of a single rock. I don’t think many people ever take the time, though. I mean, when’s the last time you picked up a rock and looked it over for twenty minutes? As a child? It was probably as a child.
The point is, rocks are super interesting. I realized yesterday that rocks are even more interesting than phones, because there’s more mystery to a rock. You know what a phone is. You know when it was made, what it does, what happens when you touch your stupid finger here or there. But a rock… a rock may have traveled the world and touched upon things unimaginable. It has a story. A real story. One you’ll never fully understand. And that’s fucking incredible.
I found this one rock, and I can’t for the life of me understand what the hell is going on. It’s a small rock, kind of a reddish color. On the surface, however, is a gray pattern that looks like a small plant of some sort. When I flipped the rock over, I noticed almost the exact same pattern on the backside. Then I noticed the pattern actually runs continuously from front to back. There had to have been a small plant compressed onto that rock for a very long time. Crazy.
Anyways, I’ll be posting the rock poem to my Patreon page on the first of the month if anyone wants to read it. It’s subscriber only content, so it’ll cost you at least one whole dollar. Expensive stuff, I know.
While you ponder that major decision, here’s one of the other little poems I wrote at the beach:
There’s a teeny tiny bug
in the crease between pages
it pitters along
on six
maybe eight
fragile little legs
maybe it’s looking for a word
or a letter
to make its home.
I wrote this other poem about redemption, but it’s not finished yet. IT’S NOT FINISHED! Jesus, stop pressuring me. I’ve been thinking about redemption lately and how it ties into our culture’s wish to categorize people as either good or evil. Did I talk about that here? I know I talked about it on Instagram. Whatever. The point is, there seems to be this common thought pattern upon humans where they believe other humans are either categorically good or evil. This is particularly insane for several reasons, the main one being that we are all quite obviously influenced by both good and evil, constantly toeing the line. Toeing… What a weird word.
Anyway, I’m concerned about these particular humans who seem to believe in a strict good/evil binary. Why, you ask? Well, I’ve noticed that these people really enjoy pointing out those who they consider to be evil. It usually goes something like: this person is nothing like me, they are evil. I, being the opposite of them, am good. They don’t actually say that, but that’s what they’re getting at.
Jung said: “Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people.” So yeah… it’s important to recognize the evil within, or at least the potential evil within. I think when people fail to recognize this, they can act evil and still convince themselves they are good. And well… that SUCKS. We’ve all met that person who thinks they’re a great person and constantly treats others like a shit rag. So yeah, in order to not treat others like a shit rag, we have to understand that we, ourselves, could be the shit rag.
Okay so I think this ties directly into redemption, because I’ve also noticed a common wish for people to be cast off forever, banned forever, or whatever forever. “Oh my God, he should never be able to perform again bla bla bla.” Oh god this is deeper than I thought, because this is totally how we treat prisoners. And drug abusers…. It all stems from this thinking of people being either entirely good or entirely evil. It’s like, “well, this person is clearly evil, so let’s just toss them over there in that box where they won’t disrupt us good people. Then we won’t have to deal with them.” Jesus we’re lazy.
Yeah, this is making sense now. Because in order for someone to believe in redemption, they must believe there’s at least some good in everyone. If we subscribe to the idea that people are either good or evil, we sabotage the idea of redemption. Why? WHY WOULD WE DO THAT!? It’s cruel, it’s all so crueelllllll.
It’s not new though, that’s for sure. People have been thinking like this forever. They used to cut off peoples’ heads. They thought people were actual witches… Good times. Yeah, we should invest more in redemption. I’d like to see more “This person fucked up, let’s do everything we can to make sure they don’t fuck up again” and less “This person fucked up, SO FUCK EM!”
What if, instead of sending people to prison, we made them write poetry about rocks? That would be so cool if that worked. Like yeah man I felt nothing but rage and hatred inside of me and murdered three people on a random Sunday for fun, but then they made me write poetry about rocks for three weeks and the beauty of the world presented itself to me. Now I feel only compassion and understanding.
Oh if only! I wonder what the proper thing to do with a psychopath is. And at what point is someone a lost cause? This next essay is titled “Barriers to redemption; an exploration of psychopathic behavior.” Just kidding, I’m not writing that. Not now at least. K bye.
