Maybe

“The faults, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

-William Shakespeare

 

There are an estimate of seven billion people living in the world at this very second. Half of those people are most likely what you call, “bad people.” You probably only know about .5 percent of the world’s population, not even. There are an estimate of one hundred octillion stars in the universe at this very second. Some burning, some becoming new, some visible, some not. One thing about stars, though, is that they are always above us. So that means that they saw our past year. The 2017 that had a multitude of natural disasters, anything from a hurricane to a forest fire. An opioid epidemic broke out, ending lives before they barely began. An outbreak of sexual abusers were discovered and even more that haven’t been. There were a tremendous amount of suicides, pain that was thought to have no way of healing. Enough murders and heart breaks and terror attacks to last a lifetime. All of those seven billion people committed fault, more than they care to admit. I am not typing this up to guilt trip you or make you relive the worldly nightmares of this past year. My intentions are to help you see the actual “good” stuff this new year has to offer. Because maybe, in a world like the one we are living in, the only way to cope with the horrors is to see the upside to the downfalls.

Here is something I noticed about human beings: we love to create problems. It is probably one of our best features. We can never take the easy way out of anything, even if that was what we planned to do. We tend to only see the negative things in our lives, passing up that amazing chocolate chip pancake your friend bought you for breakfast or the green light you got when you were running late. It’s in our nature. We tend to push away loved ones, blame others, say the wrong thing. Causing drama, complaining about everything on your Instagram spam account, and making a mess out of nothing.  It’s what we do best because, like the Weasley Twins, we cause mischief. A little mischief is okay, but seven billion pieces sets us onto a collision course that has no solution but to implode on top of us. Just like all great observations, one must make a conclusion. My conclusion is simple. I see it like a photographer, aiming their shot on a crime scene. She’ll turn the lenses slightly into focus and maybe see a dash of good in the middle of all the bad. Someone was murdered, but don’t look at that. Look at the neighbor comforting the grieving mother and the officer brining the freezing daughter a blanket. People helping the people, clinging to each other like dog hair to your favorite pair of black pants. There is that piece of maybe. Maybe we aren’t all so bad. Maybe there still is good in the world, in the people around us. Maybe we shifted the photo and the way we see it because we are so tired of being negative human beings. Like I stated before, people like to put traffic on the bases in the first inning without thinking of the others around them, but maybe we still have a few change-ups in us to outlast the bad.

In 2012 a book was released about faulty stars, and while most girls were busy swooning over the attractive heart-throb who caught their eye, my eye was caught by a few words strung together to make the most revealing quote I will probably ever read. It was said by William Shakespeare. You may refer to him as that one British guy who writes all the boring and depressing plays you are required to read in high school English class. Anyway, Shakespeare is well-known for saying some deep and provocative things, and this one definitely passed the test. He said, “The faults, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” Not only did this quote decide the title of the book, it also defied the entirety of human nature to me. We are like those one hundred octillion stars in the galaxy above us, except that there are less of us and we are not nearly as old as they are. We are faulty, we break, we lie, cheat, steal, and, in all honesty, suck pretty damn bad at times. The way I see it though, we hold all the suck in our stars. We put good in the bad, sun in the clouds, stars in the night. We are those stars, faulty and unimpressed, but also dressed in gold and glimmering. Maybe you understand what I am trying to say or maybe you are as confused as I was when I first learned about foul balls, but I will quickly sum it all up for you. We are NOT all bad nor are the stars. We tend to only see the bad things in ourselves and others while forgetting about the promising beauty shining inside of us. It is easier with stars because we look up and instantly see the allurement radiating off of them. It completely passes our minds that they can hold fault, too. Maybe Shakespeare was just talking about our fate in the stars and hororscopes and whatever, but I saw it as us being stars, and focusing the lens on the good, not the bad. Our faults in the stars.

Here we are, ending yet another year. Each year more and more tragedy prevails and we are left in a shell of nothingness after it is all over, trying to imagine how it could possibly be any worse. No doubt 2018 is going to have more catastrophes to last a lifetime, but can I let you in on a secret? Maybe it’ll be easier if you look at the stars. Maybe they’ll remind you that we are all faulty, too, but it doesn’t stray away from our fascination. Because maybe, just maybe you are not as bad as you may imagine. And maybe, just maybe, there IS still goodness and beauty in the world and the people surrounding us. You just have to focus a little harder to find it.

’18 wishes,

Alyssa Clare xx

 

Citations:

http://favim.com/image/2987005/  -girl looking out window