That Damned Glass

Do we really need despair and heartache to remind us that our otherwise mediocrity isn't so bad? Do we need joy and contentment to tease us, to show that this same mediocrity and sameness is, well, static and mediocre? That we should hope for more but not be surprised if it gets even worse?

The ubiquitous famous glass is always either half empty or half full; it never has just the right amount of liquid. This sad and tired metaphor is thus overly simplified by people, forcing one to chose a life-view paradigm, pessimism versus optimism, where really we miss the real lesson: that the glass is never correct and is constantly taunting us with either more or less liquid. Whoever first noticed that glass had something, but instead of asking us to choose sides he should have thrown it against the wall and called it garbage, plain and simple.

Enter God. He has a plan, you see, and thus both the highest summits of our existence, as well as the lowest abysses of our anguish, are honky-dory by him. (Or Him. Though, to be fair, I sometimes wonder if a deity whose "Big Picture" is so big that we're supposed to shrug off the deaths of 400,000, say, in an earthquake as 'part of His plan', really deserves capitalization of his pronoun. Or His. But, as usual, I digress). Are you telling me that this creator knows all, let allows us free will, and that evil and badness and despair and loneliness and poverty are part of his grand scheme? Why? So we can feel better about ourselves? So we can notice that dirty chipped glass is in fact half full? Are you telling me that the butterfly has to be stepped upon so 20 million years later primates rule the earth? That's fine for the primates, but it sucks for the butterfly. I can't ignore the butterfly, and I can't ignore the half-empty glasses.

Thus, exit God. I know that may be harsh, but in a world full of glasses of stagnant water and millions of butterflies cast aside for the greater good of some distant future or someone's peace of mind I say we hardly knew ye.