An Attempt to Celebrate My Current Shade of Green

We are inundated, I think, with wonderfully relieving catch phrases. Wrapped up tightly, often with the best of intentions, in insulating blankets of cliches (blue if you're a boy, pink if you're a girl). Flotation devices to help us skim the surface. Water spiders of absurdity, too light and insubstantial to cross the threshold into tension. 

And who's to say the deconstruction of these "inspirational quotes" is necessarily beneficial, if an inflatable raft blown to buoyancy with raindrops ands roses and whiskers on kittens makes for such a smoother ride?

Unless of course they don't resonate, and their ubiquity leaves you feeling confused and alienated because mainstream bandaids don't stick and the depth of what you're experiencing can't quite be patched over by "you know, everything happens for a reason" or "don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened," as if crying is not also a testament to beauty, or as though you can't be doing both at the same time.  

Because the depth of pain is a direct reflection of the depth of honesty and that's what makes it beautiful even as it hurts. And it's an insult to that realness to try and force it through a cookie cutter and subject it to a splash of mass-produced sprinkles. 

And so no, I don't think that one should "never give up," nor do I believe that pain is necessarily conducive to some tangible gain. I imagine there are in fact instances when honesty is not the best policy, and silence is not golden. I consider it stifling to tell someone they should "never change," and am quite skeptical of the fact that love means never having to say you're sorry. If at first you don't succeed, it may not be your best or most healthy option to try, try, and try again.

Of course, there are elements of real value in all of the aforementioned examples-- where I find fault is their generalized nature, the way they use words like "never" and "always," the way they don't allow for exception, remaining deliberately broad rather than nuanced, simplistic rather than complex, as though value is derived from the quantity of things they can be applied to rather than how well-suited they actually are to an experience. But I guess "never give up" is more likely to be stitched on a pillow than "perseverance can be extremely beneficial and rewarding, but there are also instances where it can be ineffective or even detrimental, among other things." 

I must confess however, that much to my regret there is one such phrase that has particularly caught with me, absolutist language and all: "The grass is always greener on the other side." 

I am now going to make a statement "equally" as audacious, arrogant, absolutist and generalized as those I have been thus far bashing. Whatever, I'm a hypocrite-- so are you. **pausing to buckle seatbelt** 

I think this whole issue of grass pigmentation may in fact be the fundamental flaw of the "unenlightened" human condition, in that it's the biggest continued obstacle to our happiness. How terribly unfortunate it is, that we so consistently focus on what's missing rather than what's present. That we so constantly lament rather than rejoice, complain rather than complement, sulk when celebrating would just be so much more fun. What a freaking prank. It's so painfully obvious that we would be happier if we just appreciated our current shade of green, and my inability to translate that intellectual realization into an emotional/spiritual/mental one is really goddamn annoying.   I wish I could throw a big party for my patch of grass, but I don't have time to organize it because I'm too busy comparing and contrasting it to how green I thought it might be, how green it once was, how green his is, and how green it became for the protagonist of a romantic comedy I recently saw. Plus, inevitably if I invited people over for a grass-party I'd end up dying it greener. 

Uch-- could that be any lamer?

The worst part (meh, who knows) is that our perception of how green another person's grass is, is so incredibly biased that our measurements are flawed from the get-go, if not sooner. 

But perhaps today (or maybe I'll start tomorrow), instead of gazing out the window, wrapped up in the pseudo-warmth of cliche blankets and eating cookies cut from a stencil while dreaming of a green that could always get greener...I'll turn on the sprinkler and frolic. 

But don't hold me to that....