On life

I've decided two things in the last few days.

One, my favorite quality in people is not intelligence. Intelligent people can be real pricks, often, is the truth. And there is nothing more sad and pathetic than an intelligent person using their smarts to rationalize some cynical notion of the world that either works in their favor or which they are chasing at the expense of others. Smart people can be real shitheads, is the truth. And there is nothing admirable about being smart and being a shithead.

The quality I value most in others is lovingness. I have many, many friends who do not pride themselves as being the smartest cookies, but who are some of the most decent and loving that I know. And I love people with good and decent hearts more than anyone in the world. I have a guy I work with who I think may feel kind of insecure about his smarts who I think is one of the best guys I've ever known in my life. And that's just how I look at the world. I think good people with decent hearts are more rare treasures than anything that intelligence, alone, could ever offer. I'd rather have a decent heart and be surrounded by people with decent hearts than I would be surrounded by people with big brains any day of the week. And I don't give two shits what snotty, shit-headed intellectuals who don't understand that could ever think about that. Because shitheads never know why a good heart matters, because their hearts are so fuckin' teeny-tiny.

Two, I'm a good person for me. It has nothing to do, necessarily, with how to please others or to how I might be viewed. Being a good person feels better. My life feels better. And I'd rather have that peace in my heart than anything that power or money or any of those empty aphrodisiacs might offer. You can have money and power and be a decent heart. But they both frequently corrupt that heart, as well, from my observations. Probably more frequently than not, sadly. I don't choose the life I choose because it will get me something from being good, though I get plenty from being good, as well. I do it for its own sake. Because it's the right thing to do. And because that's how people should live their lives, even if they often choose otherwise.

I miss Brandi like I miss Meg Ryan. I don't miss Meg Ryan when she stars in shitty films that try to highlight her edgier look or mediocre scripts that her agent hopes will hit at the box office. I miss Meg Ryan being vulnerable and adorable and bringing those qualities to the screen with brilliance in movies like When Harry Met Sally and Joe vs. the Volcano. I miss who Meg Ryan was, not who Meg Ryan is. And I'm sad that such a sweet light has let herself get swallowed up in the darkness and glitz of show business.

That's how I miss Brandi. Brandi, today, is not what I really miss. Brandi as she was 6 or 7 or 8 years ago, say, is who I miss. I missed her a lot, in fact, while I studied in Lawrence and she was busy making the world a better place in D.C. I remember when I first watched her take the slide, after she and I broke up. It was sad and disorienting. But I'm sure, by now, it's become second hat to her. I just can't do that in my life. I'd never feel right about myself or my life again, if I did that. And I won't. But watching Brandi do it made me sad. And, today, it seems like the biggest waste of potential of a person that I've encountered perhaps in my life. Brandi was someone really special 6 or 7 or 8 years ago (12 years ago, she was too adorable for words).

And then older cynics take that sweetness that kids like Brandi and I have and they spoil it in the name of their pride that their jadedness is something better or more or more an accurate reflection of reality than it is. Brandi and I are responsible for our own mistakes in this world. But trying to have a decent heart is often an uphill climb in this world. And most older folks just seem all-too-eager to snuff out that sweetness in the name of knowing the real world and protecting innocence, ironically, even as they work so hard to convince young adults to give it up.

Do you know why so many people are so obsessed with innocence, these days, outside of some genuine concern for children, today. They are obsessed with innocence because they haven't known it for a long time and have been too afraid to re-explore it in their lives and invite it back into their lives. Which is sad. Because it's a really sweet experience. And their fear serves as a guard and one long defense against all of the vulnerability that innocence engages the world with.

What most adults and many young people protect themselves against with that guardedness is not their vulnerability. They protect themselves against a fear that such vulnerability is responsible for all of the hurt that they've experienced in the world or that others have experienced. When, in reality, hurt is just hurt. There is no real protection from it. And opening oneself up to it is what makes us stronger and more able to handle the hurt when it comes. That's why liberal democracies offer us so much more hope. Because they make us, in real and material ways - the more reliable security that we so often take for granted, for instance - better able to build the strength and engage the learning that such vulnerability allows us more substantially.

Our defenses are not a reflection of reality. Our jadedness, which is the articulation of those defenses being up and a guardedness that, ironically, is perpetually leaving us more vulnerable to our fears because it doesn't offer us the learning that is involved with being more open and vulnerable, is not a reflection of the reality. It is a reflection of our disappointment with that reality. But disappointment without some kind of constructive response is self-defeating. And that is how so many adults live their lives, sadly.

Well, Brandi may join those leagues. But I will not. Sometimes people really are naive (and sometimes that's such a bad thing). But, often, what looks like naivete to the jaded among us is really just an openness to learning that jadedness does not and cannot offer. The vision of cynics is distorted by their emotional defenses and their anxieties in a world they fear is too dangerous for their hearts and minds to come out open. And that is why young people start running circles around their elders, at some point. Because you can't learn anything while you're perpetually protecting your heart from hurt.

You have to risk the hurt to live fully. You have to risk it for more real love. You have to risk it for stronger relationships with your children and your family members. And you have to risk it to better learn and navigate this world. You just have to risk it. And the alternative is not a live without risk. The alternative is a life without knowing the alternatives at all. And that, really, is the saddest life of all.

Perhaps a little hurt is worth risking to avoid that fate.

Love,
Ben