Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.
-Og Mandino
Sporadic moments, magic moments… I don’t know why, maybe because of the medicine or maybe because it’s payday: there’s no way of knowing really: but at times I get to feeling more connected than most days. More in touch with my neighbor or however you want to put it. Buzzing with deep charges from far beneath the surface of the boring grind, I feel inspired- on occasion- to light out down a road I rarely wander on. I’ll get brave. Brazen. Let my guard down/ humming with some new flash of confidence I know won’t stick around long, I take the leap, risk the rejection, try overt kindness on for a fucking change.
I doubt you understand what I am trying to say. Chances are, you and me, we move to the beat of very different drummers and fair enough with that. Who wants to be another cookie cut drip boy you know? Who wants to walk around flashing the same stupid bright smile as everyone else/ the same political frown/ the same bogus sense of righteous understanding? You don’t understand ape shit from apple butter. Neither do I. That is everything if or when you think about it.
Even so, the human mind is such a fickle spark/ such a perfect catalyst for surprise. Each of us is sitting on so many time bombs. It’s nice when one of them, every now and then, goes off with a puff of pink smoke and the gentle scent of teenage patchouli and autumn leaves in your hair, you know? It’s a gentle reminder/ these rare nice explosions/ that life is absolute chaos.
There is nothing but random innocence and happenstance guilt.
No one has a goddamn clue what ten seconds from now will bring.
People are dying right before they reach the chorus. People are dropping dead right before they get off in bed. Across your street, down your block, people are going about their day as if nothing will happen that they can’t handle.
But the wires in the walls are fraying with decay.
And the dog doesn’t recognize anyone anymore.
Someone is flushing the toilet for the very last time.
Tomorrow they are no more.
Isn’t it strangely beautiful, these random shots going off in the dark? I hear screams, voices laughing, the bursting of echoes in the roaring night.
My own behavior can be such a beautiful bird landing on my shoulder.
Come with me and I’ll show you what I mean.
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