Whoa - Heavy, Man!

[Written for Write Club ATL's 'Heavy' Writing Prompt.]

When you can take a loaf of wonderbread and condense it with both hands to the thickness of an Ipad 3, you must ask yourself of the value of fluff. Weight, Heft, Heaviness, Substance, these are the things that give meaning to our lives. It is not to say that the opposite does not have its place. Sane individuals do not exist in binary universes where it is either black or white, dark or bright etc. You cannot have one without the other, but the argument is there to be had on how MUCH there should be of either.


And I for one, am tired of popcorn in our society. Reality Television has no reality to it whatsoever. It is mindless, scripted entertainment that doesn’t really have a script and only kind of entertains. Art should be about elevation rather than degradation to the lowest common denominator.

There are times to be light, let go, stop caring, but the best parties are built around the moments where you have real meaning, real substance to your life. What is that? Everyone has their own path to meaning…their own path to substance. And too much substance can kill.

“Hey Babe, what’s your sign?”

“Did you know that there are children starving in Africa?”

This is not a good way to get fucked. In fact, it can be a really good way to make a happening party slowly die as it crawls up in the paper bag of awkwardness. Too much heaviness makes the weight of the world crush down on your shoulders, towering heights of impossible devotion and death to which you seek to escape at any price. You would spork anyone in the eye, any time, any place, any how! The phrase that says Duty can be a mountain isn’t kidding and that mountain sucks when it hits you in the gut.

But….

BUT…

Have you ever seen that look in someone’s eyes, when they’re lost? Even the most supposedly irresponsible person has it, even when they’re masters of hiding it. This is not a case of not taking themselves too seriously, but a chronic understanding that they want some meaning to their lives and have a thorough understanding that they don’t have it.

Meaning, of course, must be earned. We define it ourselves and can validate it in those around us. Every life is unique, just as every story is unique. The Mythic Imagination Institute’s motto is, “Every Life is a Story, and a Story can change the world.”

That’s some pretty heavy shit right there. And it is easy enough to ignore it.

But…

BUT…

You can run away, but really? You can’t succeed at running away from yourself. “Wherever you go, there you are,” said Yogi Berra and he was right.

The light makes the heavy bearable. It lets you forget about your troubles for a while. But the heavy? The heavy is there when you’ve partied all weekend and you know that job saving orphan seals in the Himilayas is waiting for you and that it was all totally worth it man as your life flashes before your eyes just moments before you are hit by that truck full of monkeys.

Without Heavy, or even just the search for it, there will always be that lingering doubt in your mind of, “you didn’t even try!”

Now, to be fair, this guy sounds dangerously close to the asshole who says, “You didn’t matter. You didn’t amount to anything.”

Voice #1 is your inner light helping you to seek your path. Your destiny. Your true self. If you ignore her there is a part of you that will always hunger. You do not have to find what you seek, but you MUST Seek, for in seeking, you Find. Metaphorical enough for you? Well…that’s the nature of the beast. Heavy is HEAVY for a reason after all.

Voice #2 on the other hand is nothing. It’s an illusion and vapor created by the shadow in your own mind of what you think you should have been, largely built on expectations. When you learn to listen to the unseen world, the difference between Voice #1 and Voice #2 could not be more contrasted. But it’s a learned skill.

In sunlight, they both sound awfully much the same, but in the stars and under the moon and the dancing flocks of birds at sunset, you know, you know man that there is something there.

“Hey babe, what’s your sign?”

“It depends on the context of the question.”

“Right. Good point.”

“Let’s go Fuck somewhere. I feel my destiny has been fulfilled.”

“Me too!”