A light in the darkness of today's world

Let me tell you a short story about something that happened today that helped restore my faith in humanity. It's a small oasis in the shitstorm that is our world, and in my case, Los Angeles. For uncounted months all I've seen in the news is the complete degradation of our society in individuals pursuits for power. The representation of peoples coming together in harsh conflict over issues we all agree upon but which are muddled in translation between ideologies. No thanks to certain entrenched groups that vie with all their might to keep us all at each others throats...damn, ignorance was bliss. I long for those days where the sunlight still overpowered the darkness. It is in this twilight that more becomes clear.

So, let me tell you a story about the light.

I was sitting in the alley next to my coffee shop. Just, chilling. My moods were shifting back and forth. Good and bad things were brewing as I sat. So many decisions, so many ideas, so many desires...moody AF I stared into the space between the walls. Occasionally glancing at my work from the other day.

Maybe 15, maybe 20 minutes passed. Emotions, hopes, ideals, rising and falling in a perverse fast forward of time, evolution running at full speed inside my skull. A battle of wills, an arrow sliding from green to yellow to red and back again, never a moment still.

Eyes up and I saw a buddy from down the street walking up, blunt in hand. Now, we're not close. We've exchanged words in front of the cafe and told jokes, even had a couple tokes in the group at noon. But, never one on one.

I love life, I want to know and engage.

People interest me, as much as they repulse me at times. The swing from rational to irrational, truth sayer to liar extradionaire, I just don't get it anymore. And this guy interested me as a person. So, I stood with a smile.

Now, in three years of living in Los Angeles I've been through many kinds of high. From crazy good to crazy bad, sometimes everything at once. Blunts are still new to me after starting them up about 4 months ago when my neighbors took me to my new definition of 'totally stoned off my gourd.' Mom, dad, if you're reading this. I love you, and all this is in the search for the answers I keep asking myself.

This was one of those 'wow' kind of stoned moments. Like vivid slides taken from a movie, reality kind of slid sideways, but, the focus kept right. The conversation started with the art piece I had painted a couple days before. Now, writing that right now, is trippy. Never, ever in my life did I think I would say something like that. Never thought I would do art. Never thought I would be here in Los Angeles, in East LA, at the forefront of gentrification in Boyle Heights. Deep in a social movement I never knew existed, or how much I would care about it.

So, we started to talk about my piece.

The skull, the giant IDENTITY, the 5 words 'we are all the same.' My buddy, he nailed what I meant to say with every word of his description of what he thought it all meant. He had seen it. Scratched his head and been like, 'wtf?' Then he thought about it. He took the time, the effort, the energy, and put the pieces together.

And so he said to me that we are all the same. It doesn't matter our skin color, who we are, or where we're from. Take off all the skin, all the muscles, we're all just skeletons. The same. It fucked with my head something serious. To be a person who's created something that another identifies with at a core level, and agrees with. Two completely different people from two completely different worlds. A common ground. There was a common language we could both agree with.

Humans are humans. What the fuck does it matter what we look like? Male, female, elsewhere on the spectrum. Any color of the spectrum, I mean, it's just a color. Do we hate people because our favorite color is different? What the fuck. We're supposed to be educated and civilized. How are we any better than our ancestors who slew each other for such petty reasons? Does what we know change what we are, or are we just animals pretending to be civilized?

What restored my faith, my hope in humanity, was not the story I just told. It was the moment in his head he decided to give me a wassup and invite me in. No reason to, whatsoever, with all inclinations for him to be like, fuck dat dude, he took another path. And if one person can do it. To accept another, to want to get to know them a bit better, to try and understand another despite being so different...how can that not give you hope?

Mind you, that was only the beginning of the conversation we slung back and forth for about half an hour and each step got closer and closer to a kind of a more unified language...as strange and crazy as that sounds. Looking at what's happening the world, just trying to figure out where all the madness stems from. Because, we're all the same, to disagree would be to admit ignorance the fundamental answers science has time and time again shown us to be true. A single organism which is a part of this giant interwoven tapestry of life that make up our biosphere.

But enough with this warm and fuzzy story. Things like it don't come about without effort, and a hell of a lot of it. It means to keep your mind open to all things, to withhold judgement until there is reason and not just reaction, to be a responsible and community minded individual. None of that easy and our society has gotten to comfortable with being lazy. So few people want to be open and honest about it because it opens you up to criticism from everyone because there are people who will want to continue to deny the truth despite overwhelming evidence and will lampoon you in the most delicate of places over and over until you conform to their lies.

Ugh.

So, stay positive and stay open. Smile at your neighbors. Smile at the people at the store. Smile at people in general. Fucking leer and you will get your ass beat like a fucking creep. Be like a civilized society should. Be one. Be one of the lights that helps to fight back the darkness :)

Anyways, gonna post this before I think too much about it. Don't think it contains anything incriminating other than legally smoking weed, having a really good conversation with a friend, and enjoying a wonderful Monday afternoon in Los Angeles.

Wessel

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