Uncertainty

The more I learn, the less I know - at least, the less I know for sure. Nowadays, it seems as though I don't have a firm opinion on anything. Thanks to the analytical skills that have been ingrained into my mind, everything is gray for me. That beautiful, childish black and white is no longer separated by a nice, straight line anymore. Everything is nuanced; all that varies are the shades of gray in my mind. I'm not sure about anything anymore. I see good and bad in everything; beauty and ugliness, joy and sorrow, steady and weak - they're all ambiguous.

I envy those who can firmly argument anything for extended amounts of time. Even as I try to make my point, arguments in favour of the opposite opinion pop into my mind, unbidden and unwanted, yet relentless. By the end of a debate, I can't stop mulling over what my own actual opinion is. While everyone else around me is bickering bitterly, my head swings side to side, nodding now at one, then at the other. Am I really that easily influenceable? The thought saddens and worries me.

Once in awhile, though, I'll see the light. That one stray ray of brightness - almost white in its certainty. Like a flash, it comes and goes before I can even register what has happened. Those moments - those moments of absolute, wonderful certainty - that's when I feel the adrenaline rush, the shift of an out-of-focus world righting itself, the sense of peace. My eyes open wide, both literally and figuratively. I suddenly know - I do have an opinion. No longer is a shadow cast over light, or light shone into dark. Everything looks crisper, cleaner, clearer. I can make judgement and stand by those decisions.

But these moments are short-lived. With dread, I sink back into doubt, into that disgusting gray.

Truly... growing up is growing gray. In more ways than one.

No tildes for this post. Tildes suggest a certain lightness. Uncertainty is too dark for that.

Perfection

You pull the moist, creamy cake out of the oven. A tantalizing, mouth-watering smell of rich chocolate emanates from it. You hold your breath, hardly daring to breathe on your masterpiece. Its perfect roundness, the impeccably smooth surface, the just-right shade of chestnut... ~ You smile in contentment. This is perfection. ~

When someone has achieved a semblance of perfection, the initial high seems to drown out everything else. ~ That moment of euphoria, of a sense of complete certainty that the world is right, of self-justification at last, can at once wipe away days, weeks, even months of toil and despair. ~

Just as easily, though, an inkling of doubt wedges itself back into the mind. ~ That dreaded blemish, that fall from perfection, seems just a half-step away. Misplace your foot, and the scale tips. ~ The ice-thin surface you were treading so confidently on is suddenly jarred by an ugly crack. ~ All at once, the illusion is shattered. ~ Ice cold water engulfs you, taking your breath away. ~ As you hold your breath, your mind goes numb. ~ How did it all go wrong, you wonder? ~ What changed? ~
Almost nothing. ~ Simply, your art. ~ What you have produced. ~ Your creation. ~ What's in a painting? Strokes. One after the next, you paint away, your brush dancing gracefully on the canvas. ~ Then, splat. ~ An ugly glob, born of carelessness, right in the middle. ~ Perfection, ruined. ~
Yet take a step back. ~ If you add a tiny bit of paint here, and a swipe there, that blob turns into a beautiful rose. ~ Not the perfection you were looking for, but a new, more vivid and jarring piece of work. ~ An unexpected appeal to the eye. ~
So while perfection may have produced a picture-perfect piece of artwork, failure drew your attention to a different kind of beauty - an asymmetrical beauty, a flawed beauty, a bittersweet beauty. ~ And that inspires so much more emotion than the mundane perfection, which in itself loses it special quality because it lacks dissonance. ~