An Atmosphere of Imaginary Brightness

 

“History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness.” ― James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans

That’s a brilliant idea!

I gasp and say to myself as flashing lights fill my mind’s eye and blind me to my own folly.

I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!?!

I exclaim knowing damn well why I didn’t think of it before but choosing to ignore such things.

I must act upon this no matter how complicated it is to do!

Because it would be stupid not to…

Time, usually not too much of it, passes…

OH! S! F! B! Who is the [Bleeping Bleep beginning with C] idiot who thought this was a good idea!?!

Well, I know who the [Bleeping Bleep beginning with C] idiot is because I’m that [Bleeping Bleep beginning with C] idiot. And it wouldn’t be fair to give someone else the credit for it.

If I was given a medal for every bright idea I have had and continue to spit out of my mind, I could melt them all down and build a gigantic temple to my stupidity…. Hmmm… NO!

But occasionally the fallout from a bright idea gone dim can be quite good… okay… not as bad as it may appear. Or at least if you’re prone to the sort of bright ideas I have and the catastrophic consequences, you learn quickly to put a spin on things and find the nugget of (fool’s) gold in the pile of poop… and then pretend that your goal was that all along and only a genius would know that such nuggets can only come when chaos poops.

The photograph with this post is how my ideas look to me in those moments when they pop out of my head like the goddess of wisdom being born… I just fail, yet again, to notice that the brightness of the idea is a fading one like the setting Sun, rather than a growing one like a sunrise. It is only when darkness engulfs me that a different kind of light dawns, and I stumble home hoping there are no holes in my path which are too deep to scramble out of them once I fall in… and I know I’ll fall in.

Such is life…

Perhaps one day history will make a hero out of me and surround me in an atmosphere of imaginary brightness, but I doubt if it will, and it won’t mean very much to me as I will no longer exist and thus won’t be able to bask in the glow. However love has already touched me this way, and I bask in that glow like a purring cat in sunshine because I know love doesn’t need me to be a hero, it loves me, brilliant ideas and ensuing chaos poop and all.

And that is a truly brilliant idea… love.

Whoever had that idea… what a bright spark!