want

I think we have this concept engrained in us, especially those who grew up religious, that giving the people what they want (including ourselves) is inherently indulgent; it's decadent. But my perspective is that there are so many times when we can give people what they want (including ourselves) without crossing any boundary-- moral, logistical, or otherwise.

It seems to be a(nother) nasty offshoot from the concept of original sin: if we're inherently bad, then our first hopes and inclinations are going to be wicked (as in ", no one mourns the"). But since that's not a concept that I feel serves any helpful purpose beyond corralling people back into church settings (which are not inherently bad, ironically), I've dismissed it and its seedy spawn. In other words, I reject the assumption that our first thoughts are indeed not our best thoughts and that giving people what they want is equivalent to giving a misbehaving child a treat.

What if! we started from a baseline of "how do we meet people's (including our own) expressed needs?" From there, if our pursuits are met with a moral/logistical/miscellaneous snag, we reroute to a less idyllic solution, instead of assuming that our best course of action will always be that which compromises our high hopes and our naïve, inherently wicked little wishes?

o·pen

April 22, I slept with my window open And woke up to summer. For the rest of the morning I heard garbagemen shouting incantations over the Gregorian humming of their instruments The rain responded, joining the chorus of sporadic beeping and splashing puddles, turning the bricks from terra cotta to mud, Forcing me to dig through my memory to recall the luminescence, the songs of summer to which I awoke.

tel·e·vi·sion

What does it take to get on the television? Would it matter if you knew? (Does a self-help book give an ounce of reassurance to readers living three rungs below the author?) Would it matter if you made it? You'd return to the same home with the same bedroom, same bathroom you left that morning.

I sometimes think about the tension between high hopes & contentment.

Contentment:

a glowing cream, a fresh wall of paint & a dog lapping at its bowl. A river bouncing over the rocks in its path like a child into kindergarten. Chickpeas and lemon juice on toast with tomato slices. Squinting smiles and face moisturizer, soft blankets and time to read.

High Hopes: Flint. The iron that sharpens me. The things that other people have done that I genuinely want to do too. Because I know I can. It's quick conversation and high ambition; it's an event, a creative idea. It's the work hard that stops the play hard from feeling like a copout.

I am content to never be on television. But I have high hopes.