Cynicism or Enlightment?

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I’d been told that many people cry when they see the grand canyon in-person for the first time. 

I’ve been there. I stood at the rim. And all I could think about was the smudge on my glasses.

 

My mind has become an Amazon shopping cart. A repository of desire and  a litany of longings. 

 

I add them up.

 

Prosaic urges and perpetual dissatisfaction.

 

I am a marauder in the desert, going from tribe to tribe, hoping to pillage: What do you have? Show it to me. Let me touch, taste, feel, hold.

 

I’m not a builder. 

 

I just want.

 

 I’m not an earner. 

 

I am a flattener of all things. 

 

Stomping. Traipsing in Doc Martins, throwing away cans that could be recycled.

 

And how might I be virtuous after having  pointed to my cynicism as if it were enlightenment?

 

Yes the flowers on the dinner table are artificial and there is microplastic in everything - in our bone marrow, on the top of Mt. Everest and even in some human placentas.

 

But is that all you see? 

 

Not the plate of food lit by the TV. 

 

Airplane navigation lights in a cloudy sky: In this case, not a drone primed for destruction. No. Most likely a sign of abundance. A FedEx cargo jet carrying in goods from across the globe.

 

Amazon Prime vehicles delivering in two days or less around here. We’re not waiting for UN Humanitarian relief. 

 

You get Birthday cards from your grandparents in the mail, not package bombs. 

 

On YouTube, you watch motivational musclebound men shout, “Be hungry, Grind, Go Get It.” 

 

But People are hungry. Starving. In this country and abroad. 

 

Meanwhile you complain about Christian Nationalism and Prozac side effects. 

 

You think about going overseas to bring drinking water to the thirsty and mosquito nets to the afflicted. yet at the same time, you don’t re-shelve your unwanted selections at the grocery store, just leaving them in random places instead.

 

And is this who you really want to be?

 

Are you a good person? If so, who decides that.

 

I hope to be a good person

 

I want to be a good person. 

 

The truth is, I am not a good person. But I choose to be. And will continue to do so. 

 

And maybe this is even more remarkable for a bad person to aspire to be good. 

 

We don’t all come by it naturally.