the black fly

 

I'm here for just one reason: contrast. I figured it out. I'm only here because light needs darkness in order to feel like it is illuminating something.

I'm the black fly in your chardonnay. The stubbing of your toe on your beautiful nature hike. The ants in your picnic basket, the cancer diagnosis on your birthday. I'm the cop who gives you at ticket, the dog who bites. The one sock in your laundry. I'm the burnt on stain in your pristine cookware, the chipped china teacup. I'm the bad tooth, the rotten apple, the bad guy, the spoiler. I'm fungus, mosquitoes, potholes and pain.

I give everything good its status by virtue of my being bad. How would you know you were having a good day, unless you had something to compare it to?

And to make sure I don't get to feeling too self-important, I'm not really a perfect example, even in my role as evil incarnate. Because, I'm not pure enough. I have a few "flaws" that disqualify me from achieving archetypal Hitler status. I'm just me. Somewhere pretty far down the scale from decent human being but a few ticks up from demon.

This has all been said and philosophized before, by more articulate minds than myself, so why am I so persistent in my unoriginal ranting? I dunno. Why do people feel the need to remake perfectly good classic movies or songs every 10 to 20 years? What expression does a flower have that hasn't been seen a million times before? You've seen one redwood, you've seen them all, right?

I guess the same could be said of me. You've seen the tortured, self-critical sap show once and the rest are re-runs. Fire the writers or cancel the show. No one's tuning in. Can't even come up with original material. Stealing from Alanis Morissette and Ronald Reagan. Tsk tsk. I'm claiming the hip hop rule of thumb for sampling, if it's nine seconds or less it isn't copyright infringement, it's art. And if you cite the original source it's not plagiarism.

And what is it called when you rely on spell-checkers so much that you question every word, even those you are certain about? Weak. That's what it's called. One needs to stand firm in their own mind and not be swayed by consensus definitions, grammar or morality, for that matter. Someday, when this is all unearthed there will only be a reverence for the uniquely styled voices that did not conform. Everything else will be vats of stale vanilla pudding.