Sugar Street

by Jonathan Dee

Politically, I guess you could say that I’m a progressive. I firmly believe that everything in and about human society is progressing toward its end.

How did silence get such a bad rap? Everybody these days thinks the world of their own voice, thinks that by raising that voice, they’re doing something. Wrong. Nobody except you cares what you have to say. Silence does not equal complicity; silence equals humility and also practicality. Silence turns your attention away from yourself. Am I talking about the importance of listening? Yeah, sure, a little I suppose, but it’s more inward looking, more personal than that. Just stop talking, stop posting, stop tweeting. Shut up. A lot opens up to you, to your mind and your senses, once you do that. Because in the end you are not a voice. You are not a name, not an identity; all that is vanity. In the end you are a body. That is the most, maybe the only, useful thing at your disposal.

Also, just get off the fucking internet. Forget the idea that anything happens there. It’s a playground, it’s an opiate.

Just do what you can do to reduce the amount of suffering that you can see right in front of you.