We make so many claims as to how things are, and the fact is – we don’t know much at all.

Four people in my lifetime, two in my family have taken their lives. Yesterday one more person I know got added to that number. The platitudes I hear are intolerable. Unconscionable even. A triteness, lazy, convenient and wholly unaccountable.

“𝑰𝒕’𝒔 𝒔𝒂𝒅 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒏’𝒕 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒕𝒐 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒘𝒆’𝒓𝒆 𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉” Is one such bromide, rote dismissal. Fuck you. You have no idea about this person’s love. You know nothing.

Another worn out pre-packaged pearl we cast; “𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒂𝒏’𝒕 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒄𝒂𝒑𝒂𝒃𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇.” Really? Motherhood alone blows that theory out of the water and scatters it well beyond retrievability. We don’t know shit. That’s what we can’t stand. So we make bullshit up that soothes us. And we have to stop it.

Stacking our idioms, axioms, maxims, precepts, adages, dictums or platitudes just a mere three high, one on top of the other – and we reach a contradiction between two of them, in absolute diametric opposition.

If 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂 𝒅𝒊𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒍𝒕, then all of our lives – yours and mine – all of our choices – yours and mine – to live our lives out fully – is by its history, by its repeated patterns and every single determinable probability – is in itself an act of madness. So who is it that’s crazy?

We don’t know each other and we don’t want to. It is too big of a responsibility. Too much to take on. Until we realize what our sickness is, we can never find our way past it. Everyone puts on. Everyone is a guru. You know why? Because it garners us the closest thing to the love we are afraid to ask for from the next person who is afraid to acknowledge they need the exact same thing.

What complicates our lives is we don’t want the responsibility of being dependent upon each other. There is no such thing as self sufficiency for human beings. Without a clan, you were breakfast. Warring came about because winter brought lack. There is no winter’s lack anymore. Lack is manufactured.

We have evolved to the point that abundance is the state of the world. But our hearts have not evolved with our intellect. The only winter or war we face is the ascension of greed. Humans have not evolved past their gluttony or their intemperance. Our need to be more and have more. That’s the condition we won’t survive. It’s not the weak that are broken – it’s the powerful. We’re sickest at the top, and we will rot from there if the bottom does not rise and learn from where we were, not from where we arrive.

Courage is the ability to show up afraid and alone, and I am not sure that enough of us have it. Here we are again, little learned, little gained – little that is sustainable, little retainable.

Every civilization has collapsed under its own avarice. We sit in the seats of a new coliseum where they feed our Lions to the Christians. We clamor so loud we cannot hear the rumbling, or even imagine the columns, arches and pilasters might fall. Again.