Van Stanley

Some Sort Of Shameless Optimism

     I truly admire those who’ve come to a profound awareness of the limitless variability of existence; those who’ve, then, mastered the “art” of specifying themselves, as if perfectly, to it.

     I call it an art because “being yourself” is not a requirement to live, nor is it in itself an especially extraordinary benchmark before death, no, not any more than whistling a tune or wearing a necktie is required to walk down the street, not any more than biting a pen or taking coffee black is required to sit down, nor any more than a look in the mirror is in itself extraordinary.

     No, it is an art because one’s place & one’s presence is well-placed & well-presented; we as witnesses fail to deny its intrigue & in inspired pro-activity take it as a model to be repeated.  It is the stuff of proverbs, upon which we formulate the verb: human-being.

     It is neither in-the-moment nor out of it, it finds no shame in weaknesses to emotion, it is not discouraged by the some-times futility of empathy, it does not mistake interrelation or omni-philia for solubility, nor does it approach the narrow-minded with narrow-mindedness, nor is it so impartial as to be all things at once, nor all but one extreme (including the extreme of moderation), nor defined by the simplicity of this/that indulgence, nor ascetic.

     It finds in the potential for cliché a reiteration of the universal, that an old hat might say a word for those who’ve worn it.  It finds that every expression is one step in the dance of mankind, that a revolution is a pirouette & that the constant call for revolution causes dizzying.

     It finds that truth is a thing one bargains for, but it bargains neither to obtain truth nor to give it another name.  It is in the bargaining (the seduction, the heckling, the compromise) of truth that one produces one’s means for trading.  It is in the bargaining of trade that one identifies one’s style of speech.  It is in one’s style of speech that one identifies one’s manner of reasoning.  It is in one’s manner of reasoning that one finds one’s (call it spiritual) rhythm.  It is in one’s own rhythm that one impresses upon every one & every thing else.

     I truly admire the actors & the pundits & the makers & the curved lines & the types of currents & the movements — mostly the movements: the movements within us, the movements between us, the movements we make whenever we make them wherever.

(Source: vanstanley, via vanstanley)