We are lost, in this world. Many have felt this way, over the years. We are meaningless, so must create meaning. Directionless, so give ourselves a direction and pretend it had been provided all along. This is nothing new, as an insight. There have been many meanings, directions and explanations created over the centuries.
And then, us. Are we free from that? Outside of that? Well, yes and no. But what we are, or at least what we must always aim to be, is honest. About our own selves, our own natures and shortcomings, as much as about others and about the world. What we absolutely are not, are rebels, as when rebellion is seen as virtuous or correct in its own light, it ceases to be rebellion at all and becomes a fashion.
The trajectory of the world, for a while before we arrived, was one of fashionable rebellion. It had become desirable to set oneself apart. And the divisions and confusions resulting from this left us with the mess we are all very familiar with.
We are a subculture, yes. Maybe this is a failing and a hypocrisy, maybe not, but we do understand that the tribe is our basic unit of relating to one another and it is neither desirable nor possible to avoid this completely. An ideal is unattainable by its nature. Honesty requires that we acknowledge our faults, with neither pride nor shame. We are a subculture, we are not a counter-culture.
An ideal is unattainable, but our capacity to create such a thing is our greatest, and at many times our most dangerous, unique gift. A thinking mind that can conceptualise a perfection that does not exist is the closest thing to magic we have. Some among the fashionable rebels shunned this. They are poison and anathema to me, so much so that even to read their words takes away my ability to express freely. But they claimed to be acting honestly by embracing the base, the crass and the unpleasant, and only these. By doing this they claimed superior intelligence, superior morality. This is a poisonous lie. But it is one born with better intentions, I must concede. Because an ideal, having the power that it does, led to war and murder on a scale never seen before. The desire to rebel against and shock an establishment that genuinely deserved it, and for the good of all, was once the idea and a correct one. I don't know if these people could have seen what they created, or whether they'd have disapproved. I like to believe they would have.
At times such as now, I don't remember how we were born. Where we came from. Where the original spark originated. But here we are, and here I am, in black chiffon and blue topaz, moving between the corners as we do.