All the light in the world and it’s never enough.
The sun, as generous as it is, must also cast shadows as long as there are things to illuminate.
Here’s the problem: sometimes we feel the coolness of the shadows more often than the heat of the sun. Not by choice, of course. It just sort of is, as if we’re chosen for the shadows, gifted a gravity in our hardest moments, a force that’s stronger than our will.
When you’re chosen, it makes strange sense, like it has to be this way, just as the moon pulls at the ocean and the crops burn to make room for seeds. Something has to be sacrificed to keep life coming back.
Well, fuck it.
The tide can go to hell. The crops can die.
I shall work against Gravity. I shall break the rules.
I will step out of my unearned shadow and defy the great laws that came before me. I will reach across the line of black and white and I will stand in the light and I will burn brighter than the sun to light up all that is hiding and all that was ever lost. I will send so much love into the hearts of others that they will rise. And we will…
What?
So what if it drains me.
So what if it’s the last great thing I do and my fire burns out. So what if it doesn’t last and our smiles fall and the shadows stretch over everything again. Even us.
That’s the point of the fire, isn’t it? To use it, to send light into places without light, to touch others beneath the surface, to reach out so hard and unflinchingly that we transform ourselves completely, that we become the light we long for.
I’ve been there. And back. It’s worth the risk.
We’re worth the risk. You and me.