The Real World

 “PERCEPTION” by Tammera

 

I’ve gotten tired of hearing certain things, over and over. The phrases you wish you could just seize into a butterfly net and then squash them into a clear glass jar, where they thrash and fume and turn different colors to show you how angry they are. And then you take a rowboat and head out to the deepest part of a lake, chain the jar with a few yards of metal links, and then plunk it in until the currents drag it to the bottom.

Phrases that you’re just sick of hearing, basically.

There’s no right way to view the world. There is no “real” world and there is no “right” way to live. There’s your view, and then there’s my view, and his view, and hers, and theirs, and everyone else’s. And all together they make up the truths of the world, I suppose, one crazy chaotic beautiful fusion, a mutual community. That’s the closest it gets to the real thing. That’s the closest it gets to the real world.

So don’t try to tell me how to live my life. Don’t try to define what Happiness means to me, or Prosperity, or Pride, or Success. I’d be happy to sit here and have you talk off me ear about how you view the world—it’s quite fascinating, actually, and I’m always happy to be fascinated. But don’t impose, because that fascination may morph into something ugly. Your right is my right, even if your view is not mine. Your right, not you’re right; your right, as in your well-deserved privilege, which I wouldn’t deprive you of for the world.

And what if I choose to speak of the sunlight in the world, and not the shadows? And what if I choose to dream dreams instead of nightmares? I, too, have seen the shadows, and the nightmares visit me also. But my choice is to not dwell on them. If that troubles you, my bad, because I love you and by my differences I seem to hurt you. But my right, because I too exist, and my differences are myself.

If we can’t exchange our rose-tinted glasses and cracked warped mirrors then let us just keep what we have and tolerate the rest. I’ll try yours on, but they give me vertigo. That makes me as sick as rowing, since I get seasick easily, and I’m scared of leaning too far out of the boat and toppling in after that jar of phrases.

So let’s agree to disagree.

"Angreek87"