There is so much peripheral trauma happening these days it’s hard to feel safe about looking out the window or listening to voices on the street below, is what I want to say. But I only want to say it so that I can hear myself think it and somehow be convinced I know what I’m afraid of, when I couldn’t tell you, at least not right now, what really scares me. I want to believe there’s so much pain in the world there isn’t any room for compassion, because the thought of there being room for only a little caring seems more terrifying to me than there being room for none of it.

It’s like when my mother used to hit me, she did it so horribly it was easy to think she was sick, forgive her, and move on, but while making sure I never forgot. I thought so well of the human being her horrible behavior just seemed like it had to be something she had little control over, because humans couldn’t do something like that in their right mind.

I’ve since learned humans may behave horribly, and may behave for what they believe are compassionate reasons, but the jury is still out on whether intent plays a reliable part in determining the quality of a person. Just because you think you are doing something good, doesn’t mean you are good, and in fact, I don’t think anyone can be good or evil, fundamentally, since being itself reflects a place of neutrality, and assigning good or evil to that unbiased quality is like having a desperate and qualifying afterthought and placing it at the end of a poem only to realize it sounds just a little too tidy to be true.

But what am I really talking about? And why do I feel repeatedly that it is important to bring this topic up? Why ask? I’d like to think I have important questions to ask, and that I’m important, so important, in fact that there is a hole somewhere out there made just for me to fill, and only fillable by me.

But I’m not that important overall, and with a little practice and dedication anybody can do anything I do and probably better. Then again, I kind of would say that, knowing I’m always trying to be more honest and purposeful. I only think at all to understand why thinking itself is a kind of optical illusion I give myself to avoid having to just sit with my raw, unique, and uncertain sensation of being.

I could say to you, maybe someday I’ll finally feel fulfilled and like I don’t have to go anywhere or be anything, but I’m not sure I want to have that day. I’m not even sure I want to take off everything unnecessary, to know I’m enough right now, because I know I don’t want to have to take off anything in order to be me. I know practically nobody cares. But I also know that many of us would like to.