The Nature of Things

March 6th:

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.”

That’s what they always tell me, that’s all they have to offer me. They pat me on the shoulder and whisper those empty words like I’m supposed to then look up to the dim heavens and offer my gratitude. I’m disgusted and I’m broken. 

March 10th:

I cried again today. I was doing what I already know to be wrong and recalling old memories. They’re such a brutal kiss, I get to taste the sweet sweet lips of love just as it's pulling away from me. I lean forward to try and chase it, extending my neck like a starving crane and begging for more, but I only find the perfume of where it once was, haunting me. 

March 12th:

I attend the classes and sessions, just like they tell me to do, but all I can see are the well-practiced smiles and rehearsed lines of people who maybe once truly cared, but are now simply idling in the harbor of a still life. I’m angry, and want to be more angry, but what am I to do? Be that gremlin that shouts and bites at people? Grab the shirt collars and sleeves of happy people passing by just to remind them of the fleeting nature of it all?

 I’m trapped in life and can’t get out without quitting. 

March 22nd:

Someone said it again, like it was some sort of divine remedy for my ignorant, uninitiated mind. In my whalings and laments I was interrupted by the arrogant confidence of someone who doesn’t know: 

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.”

I was enraged, like a dog I snapped and barked at them, how could they ever be so inconsiderate? What, this was God’s plan, my falling is like that of some stupid, flopping sparrow? And I simply must accept that like some sort of animal? What an awful way to view things, what a terrible way to help me. How could they even pretend to understand what this is like?

April 1st:

Here I am, on the day of comedy, without laughter. 

April 10th:

My only inklings of joy are the little pieces of progress that I find in my day-to-day life. What a weak existence, living for the sake of being half of what I once was? Is that okay? How could I ever be content with something like that? Why do I torment myself with such ideas? 

April 16th:

A friend told me to read some of the old Greek philosophers, said they helped him. After reading some, I kind of like them, they’re ancient and distant, screaming down the wide halls of time at me and reaching my ears in barely audible tones. But somehow, in those eons of distance, they find familiar feelings and words. 

They don’t all agree on the things of life, nor do I with them, but somehow we all tackle the same problems. I stare up at the night sky just like Epicuras once did, or Zeno, and think the same things they did. They offer me solutions just like everyone else did, but I can’t get mad at them like the others, they’re different, they’re dead just like I feel. And somehow that makes me a little more alive. 

May 5th:

A lot of time has passed since it happened, and everything is so different now. I am out of that time of whiplash, where events strained my soul, and have more time to reflect and think than before. I now realize that I have a unique opportunity to view life from two completely different angles, two different mediums of sight, and it's strange. 

Obviously I’d rather this thing to never happen at all, but I have gained a new insight now, a new wisdom. Like Plato leaving his cave or Odin giving up his eye, I enter a new world and can compare the two. It’s strange.

May 10th:

I think all I’ve done is think, since that’s all I really can do, and I’m finding out some things I never had before. I was so angry before, so full of the fire for revenge and feeling the pressure from the walls of life. I felt trapped, I was trapped. 

I think I was always trapped though, I think everyone is. I’m not the first to reach this conclusion obviously, a lot of the old thinkers seemed to think the same thing. Now, that doesn’t really change my situation, doctors said nothing can, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t help. In a way, nothing has really changed.

July 23rd:

Someone said it to me again. I was at some sort of family event, receiving condolences that I didn’t really care about, and the phrase came flying out of the void of voices like a club:  

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.”

It’s a bible quote, Matthew 10:29, and when I heard it again I immediately wanted to get mad, I wanted to become that old dog from before and lash out like a dirty little gremlin. But the phrase is different to me now, much different. I am not a religious person, not in the slightest, but I have certainly come to respect the power of voices louder than time, and that phrase hit me with its weight like it never did before. 

One of my favorite authors is the Greek poet Lucretius, and he said something along the lines of that phrase too, but without the God part. But honestly, I don’t think the God part of Matthew 10:29 is important, in fact, I think you could get rid of it altogether and nothing would change. Here, this is how I’d sum it up:

“Sparrows can fly, but sometimes don’t; That's the nature of things.”

 I think that’s really powerful, and it’d seem that the Greeks and Romans would agree. Now, I am no Lucretius or Matthew, but I am a Sparrow who fell, a Sparrow who didn’t fly, and I can say with all confidence: That’s the nature of things.