Entrances and Exits

by Michael Richards

Sufism is derived from Rumi, as Buddhism is derived from Buddha or Christianity from Christ. These highly evolved men were conduits to the best parts of ourselves. And as I nurse the wounds of failure, reading Rumi, I come across a great line: “Bitter water and sweet water have (the same) clearness.” To look into the two kinds of water, salt (“bitter”) and fresh (“sweet”), the two signifying the opposites, both Seinfeld and The Michael Richards Show, through the “clearness” of the two, the winning and the losing, the coming and the going, the entrances and the exits, one side is not greater than the other. The two—like night and day, comedy and tragedy, the rational and the irrational—share the same “clearness.” I find this recognition comforting.