Approximately Adam: The Courage to Resist Simplification

November 28, 2005
The Courage to Resist Simplification

I have heard alot of rhetoric about President Bush in the four or five years of his presidency. None is a more compelling argument than Gary Ross's masterpiece Pleasantville. This is a movie that challenges neither parties nor values nor ideas. It's far braver than that: it challenges the need for classifications like parties, values, and ideas. They simplify the world and make it easier to digest, true; but much like pureed food it's bland and unsatisfying. This is the reason primaries always pick the worst possible candidate and the voters are ambivilant. The same simplifications intended to make voting easier and boost turnout keep the targeted audience out.
So say that grief is beautiful, hard work is the only good work, and what a candidate will do different is far more important that which status quo their campaign signs say.
I know plenty of people that are happier than me. I know plenty of people that drive themselves to get more out of life than I settle for. But I know few who approach the world with the complexity, laughter, sorrow, pain, and joy that I do. I know few who would smile at the beauty of a man so utterly in love with his wife to suffer a complete breakdown at her death bed. I know few who would snarl so ferociously at debates where primmed and pampered smiling faces trade childish barbs with empty prepared speeches. I plunge readily into utter depression too often, yes, but I experience moments of joy that I could not imagine living life without.
There are simple people whom I admire that find happiness with what they have. There are fireballs I admire that blaze through life, lighting a spark in every room they pass through. But simple pleasures would not satisfy me, and blazing through life would miss far too many details.
I spent an evening with my good friend. I felt the joy of bouncing ideas back and forth with an severely intelligent other soul. I felt the frustration when I could not reach places the other dwelt, and when he was not equipped to make connections I thought were essential. But mostly I felt the contentment of once again sharing the same spaces and wavelengths of a person I've witnessed grow from a meek, insecure little boy to an outspoken, confident young man whose particular gifts and shortcomings I can navigate like the back of my hand.
Only connect, however you can. Anything else is open to contradiction and its own perils. The worst peril in engaging the world is failing to ever engage at all.

^{posted by Adam at 00:41 |}

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