Mankind’s miracles

There are people of whom one wonders whether they were really there. Did I know this person or do they exist only in this memory I wished for? Only fantasy, only dream.

There are people who change lives. Maybe they are the only ones who have life in them?

People wait and hope for miracles. And some of us, lucky few, meet such a one. If so, do they notice? I don’t think.

I like to think that I myself am such a miracle. Foolish, what divine quality I presume to myself with it. But – without wanting to formulate any insinuation – am I the only one who ascribes such an immoderate peculiarity and anointed importance to myself, or is that, simply speaking, a fundamental characteristic of our species?

There is this verse, “to die for someone”

I maintain that people speak lightly. They don’t know what their words mean. They don’t want to know.

They love and hate, they hunger, they claim, yet they ate breakfast two hours ago.

No one says, “I am.”

Because nobody wants to hear that.

They say, “I am seventeen years old.”

Because they understand that.

They say, “I’m on the debate team.”

Because that’s what they understand.

They consider certain things normal. Normal they accept because they know it.

There is a form of exceptionalism that has become trendy. Everyone wants to be original and unique.

But they don’t mean what they say. They only allow this certain degree of exceptionality, which makes them interesting and attractive to strangers, but stays within the framework (somehow tolerated by society), so that they just don’t scare anyone away and unintentionally repel them. They want to be extraordinary in order to please and stand out.

I can’t blame them. With so many people, all subordinated to a system in which everyone lives next to someone else, it’s easy to get lost. To blend in. To lose yourself.

Possibly we are all already lost and only the few, the miracles among us, find themselves and life. However, it is probably those who are lonely. The ones who find themselves groundless and ignorant.

Possibly Faust was one of them?

Possibly the little prince was one of them?

Possibly you are one of them?