Better Than Inadequate Isn't Always Good Enough

Sometimes it's
great, just about
good enough,
when the support
you can find in
a place that
otherwise supports
inadequacy is
better than the rest,
who will listen to
your frustrations
and agree with them.

But sometimes,
better than inadequate
isn't good enough.

Sometimes, it becomes
apparent what that
really means.

The ability to recognize
and the ability to actually
handle inadequacy are not
always the same thing;
it's the difference
between tacitly supporting
and abhorring it, really,
and sometimes it's okay
to overlook that,
and sometimes it isn't.

Sometimes you just
can't deal with it.

Of course, I would rather
be able to deal with it
than lose my own head,
lapse into crippling
complacence, because,
as I've discovered,
everyone's more happy
when they can believe
everyone's happy,
and that's more helpful
than if they don't.

I don't really get that,
since to my mind, in
the best of all possible
worlds, people would
understand at least to
some degree that when
someone's not happy,
they're actually not
happy for a reason,
and so the only reaction
would be to try and
find out why, and what
you might do to help them.

But the truth is,
most people aren't like that,
and most of them are happy
to be inadequate, because
by their reasoning, life
can be accepted for what
must be rather than
what might be.

There may always be
possibilities, but
for some, it's okay
to decide there aren't,
apparently.

To my mind, the best thing
to advocate isn't so much
hope but a belief that
you simply don't have to accept
everything so rationally.

Let go. The Buddhists have
that much right; let go of
empirical facts, and make
your own, tell the world
that it's better than it knows,
that sunshine isn't lethal,
that you can be countercultural
but not conventional, that you
can find acceptance and still
be your own person, that you
can do for others and still
satisfy yourself, that the self
in the world doen't have to be lost,
but, yes, in the end can be found.

You don't have to fall in their place.