an Overwhelming Flood of Appreciation

With great perception comes great cost, I’ve learned. Not that I can claim to be perceptive in any universal sense, or extraordinary in any objective sense, but in comparison to my fellow men I feel that I can make a convincing and vetted argument to a certain superiority, in a certain context. This superiority is not one of height, as my level of enjoyment with life is no greater than anyone’s, but I can grasp a width of enjoyment that I could argue is unrivaled. Everyone finds a certain balance between the pain and euphoria that comes with awareness, only my balance is achieved through the most volatile of polarities. The bitter tasting end of such torments me regularly, and often overflows from my mind and into my body, generating an erratic sneering twitch of the mouth here; a spasm of the eyes and cheek there, as flashes of knowledge stab me in the chest and neck– the awareness of my ailing body; a shameful memory of ignorant action; an obvious individual in a sea of sheep who fancies himself a shark; a fat smug woman and an unhappy man in an endearment-only relationship, blissfully writhing in one another’s biological excrement. So much makes me cringe. So, so much…

But then…..

But then there are days like today. Or are they just moments, within a day? While I stand on the city sidewalk sipping my coffee, enduring the dull pain in my legs; the acute pains in my wrist and ankle, spitting and sneering at mobs of worthless delinquent children, I catch sight of something else. A woman walking her dog; both so fresh and full of life. An unlikely plant growing out of the side of a building, enjoying the sun high up and out of reach. I begin to slip into the calm waters of apathy; away from the tendency to impose my own personal standards on the world. I begin once more to see things and people on their own terms, or no ones terms, as a completely separate and distant entity. Instead of measuring them against my own awareness, I measure nothing, and appreciate simply what deserves to be appreciated and goes largely unnoticed.

I find it strange that the farther I remove myself from the world, the closer I can feel to it..