Sincere

It happened to a friend of a friend: one fine day, sincerity came into his life.

He was living well before, he said. There was nothing in his world he wanted to change.

But it came to pass that, without any say from his will, some things began to change. As if by accident, on terrible occasions that made his heart leap, he caught staggering glimpses that there was no floor beneath his feet. These were not Freudian nightmares that faded on waking; it was a clarity that utterly invalidated the structures of thought that made up his world.

Of course, his world collapsed. And not because the world collapsed. Everything collapsed because, under an honest review of the real importance of the things that happened to one human character among millions, on a tiny planet among trillions, the conviction leapt out, undeniable, that nothing in that world was existentially valuable. Before the crystal-clear sincerity that recognizes death sitting on its left shoulder, and therefore recognizes that life is here, unavoidable and untiring, no everyday story has the special flavor one expected.

And what he had taken for peace, so painstakingly cultivated, burst into disaster. His days were confusion and suffering. His psychological crisis — the fruit of a repression of his energy since birth, so poorly disguised beneath social laws, egoic convictions, self-centered roles and tons of beliefs — showed itself for what it was. His flaws attacked him, ignorance scorched him, and he was slain by the fact that he was not great, as he had believed; he was only one human character among millions who also believed themselves great.

How paradoxical, the sense of spirituality. It is understood as the intention to paint the gray world in many colors, so as to rest supreme happiness on the joy of its shades. Sincerity has a different magic. It is perceived as the openness to accept the gray world just as it presents itself. And in that openness is born the sensitivity to discern the world's shades. And beyond that openness, resting at the very bottom, unconditioned by the world, involuntary to the character, lies supreme happiness.

And that friend was criticized by those who were afraid to see how messy their own house was, too. And he was isolated by the masses, who wanted calm so their armor would not be disturbed. And he was insulted by minds that clung to their ideologies, that dreamed of a united humankind, that longed for mature societies, that fought for their experiences to satisfy their personal whims — the more altruistic, the more selfish.

But he saw there was no turning back. All of it was a lie, however warm and protective it might feel. Nothing really held up as an excuse. No fantasy could lull him, if what was really happening was that his whole body had climbed aboard the ship of life, on a planet among trillions, to fly through the infinite universe with no map, no seatbelt, no guide, and no floor beneath his feet.

Beneath this acceptance lay his peace. He sat down to live the journey, no matter the shuddering vertigo the abyss produced. He sat down to watch, with nothing to defend and nothing to change in the mysterious world he perceived at every instant.

It happened to a friend of a friend. He let go of himself and all his weight. He embraced sincerity, and so he found peace.