Sep
18
This is why we do it:
Because we have to.
Because it’s impossible to be an impartial observer unless you’re a Zen Buddhist or a fence post. Because chewed-up ballpoints feel better than splinters or koans.
Involvement empowers. Neutrality protects. There are those who are fundamentally compelled to grasp live wires just to see what they feel like. When that handful of amperage is figurative - when you’re walking into a war zone, a strip club, a border crossing - there are no better rubberized shoes than pen and pencil.
Because there is a right way to say things. Not one right way - a right way. It isn’t like solving for X. It’s more like weaving an afghan with dandelion fluff and straight pins. In other words, equal parts charming and finicky.
If you’re doing it correctly, it’s more craft than art. The craft keeps you improving. The art keeps you interested. Artistic discipline is a seventh-grade earth science teacher. She doesn’t explode or ignite things too often… just frequently enough to keep everyone awake, alert and receptive to marvels which aren’t actively ablaze.
Because our species cannot be defined by how we fuck, fight, feed and die. It’s an oversimplification, not to mention a mite depressing. One of the features which differentiates humanity from, say, boll weevil-itude is the need to document our existence. Spoken and written language are essential to our survival. Documentation which isn’t utility-oriented (e.g. “eating that orange maize will make you barf up the spirits of your dead ancestors”)? Non-essential. Yet it’s a feature of almost every culture on earth.
We are doing our part to separate man from marmoset.
Because it’s the anti-camcorder. Your experiences aren’t muted by the lens when you are the lens.
Because we won’t remember.
Because no matter how firm your dedication to compassion in theory, life gets in the way of practice. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a humanitarian, a philanthropist, a soup kitchen volunteer, a Peace Corps worker or Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Incarnation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. There will be days - many days - when you’ll feign obsession with your shoelaces rather than acknowledging a homeless man’s request for change. You’ll ruin cashiers’ mornings and waitresses’ evenings with stressed-out snappiness. You’ll use the most hurtful words possible just because you can. You’ll momentarily forget, as your three year-old clings to your leg chanting, “MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY!”, that you are this small creature’s life preserver, safety blanket and god almighty.
We can use words to lift our button-downs and bare those bruises, gashes and squishy patches. It will occasionally make others feel less alone. It is a small form of penance.
Because if we don’t assume the role of griot, local TV news personalities will. And goddamn it, those people have too many teeth.
Because a fistful of sand-tumbled glass is the only consolation prize you’ll get for having pockets incapable of accommodating the beach.
Which is to say: it is our purpose to see, experience and capture these things as best we can.
It is our compulsion to prop them up on a shelf.
The sighs, smiles and spontaneous funnel cake cravings our curiosities may elicit are our privilege. And it is a privilege.
Because it is fun.
Because it is a pain in the ass.
Because we really can’t help it.
This is why.
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Yes, this is why.