Strange, How Everything Seems to Float in Grey and Drown in Gold+
The colorless life of a bird that a cow shits on. A hungry coyote listens to it. From gray lives to polychromatic souls. If the end is me, my destiny is to drown in gold. Maybe there is another end, maybe we will find it surrounded by the everyday shit… if we are quiet
There was this little bird that fell from a tree and kept chirping loudly because it was cold. A friendly cow approached, raised its tail and shitted on the bird. The all warm and happy little bird soon began to chirp with anger. Then a coyote came along, cleaned the shit off the bird, and quickly ate it.*
The routine is colorless like the IBM characters in the Apple commercial (1984). Inertia moves into apathetic monotony of living without major inconveniences. We tolerate everything and everyone without disturbing anyone or caring for anyone other than me. This seems to be the floating device to navigate existence. Obedient, lacking creativity, meek and servile. Gray lives and souls.
But at one point in that repeated, boring and immanent rattling of our reality the coldness of our heart, hardened and rough, built up by the force of me… me… me…, breaks or will be broken. Help! We scream from the guts witnessing the sudden shock. What happened? We put our hands together to cover our mouths. We repeat shit, shit, shit…
There, at that precise moment, germinated or unforeseen, covered in the shit of the sudden and inexplicable, we can do nothing and continue floating in the gray existence, dying of cold. Or we can scream, with despair surrounded by shit, that it is not fair, that it is not deserved, and so on. Or maybe we can shut up and thank. Just be grateful for what happened to us. Celebrate present suffering in silence knowing that it will soon be over. Thus, we will realize that even when life shits on us we can choose to be happy. The option is always there. Either we continue with our grayness that will drown us in the gold of vanity or we choose a polychromatic life that will cost us effort and pain.
Moral of the story: Not everyone who shits you is your enemy. Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend. And when you’re into shit, you better keep your mouth shut.
+ Kensington, Streets (2014)
* Terence Hill in My Name Is Nobody (1973)
