The last thing we ever wanted to know was how we compared to some ideal. We were doing the best we could, and we knew deep in our gut that fault and flaw could be found. We couldn’t afford to think about that. We couldn’t afford much in those days. We just had to blur our eyes with happy tears and stare each other in the face, ignoring the jagged reality in our peripheral vision. We were making do, doing our best, besting our challenges, challenging our detractors. We were setting new standards, painting pretty postcards of new mongrel ideals, ideals that could not be achieved by trying. You had to surrender, to despair, to let go.
What good is hope to the fulfilled? What good is hope to kings and queens and gods? Hope for such as these is like pearls before swine. Banish hope from the palaces. Have the servants stomp it and throw it out with the garbage. Let it wash down in broken pieces to the streets and gutters, to the dark and miserable places where the hopeless are slowly losing their minds, giving up, fading away. And when they stumble and fall and cannot rise again, let them find it there. Filthy cheeks pressed down in the grime, let their eyes fall onto it, focusing slowly. ‘What is this? I seem to remember this from long ago. What did we call it, when we were young and strong?’ Let them reach out and grasp at it, pull it close, stare with wonder into this forgotten mercy as they remember the word: Hope.
I do not hate the wealthy and successful, of course. Someone has to provide jobs for the less fortunate. There are many generous rich men and women who employ the rest of us. Some of us even get pretty good jobs out of the deal, make a decent wage. It’s true. We don’t all have to slave for these people in exchange for minimum wage, the very least they are legally allowed to give us. Only some of us have to do that. It’s very simple, in the restless and pointless rage of youthful poverty, to imagine the seemingly righteous thrill of walking into some nice restaurant and finding some rich bastard eating gold-plated duck stuffed with platinum-battered lobster and kicking him right in the neck and, while he’s gasping for air, slamming his face right down into the meal you couldn’t pay for even if you saved every penny you earned for two months. This seems like justice to you at the time, not hoodlum assault. But, as awesome as that would be—and it would, in truth, be one of the most awesome of things—it doesn’t really help anyone. That bastard isn’t really the problem. Hell, he might even be a good guy. But, in the aftermath, his pain goes away and you become just some forgotten peasant hero moldering in county lockup, telling the story to the slavering delight of your lowlife peers. Don’t do it. It’s not worth it. Trust those bastards to the justice of their gilded hell and spend your untapped strength on cultivating contentment in the fertile ground of your fallow soul. Remind yourself of the truth we all know: The gods—if they are there—only love the poor.
Hello, friends. I trust you’re well.
Later. Love.
