She calls it perversion.
I call it beauty. Art comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, and designations. A photo of a man, woman, animal, or object, if aesthetically pleasing to me draws me in. It’s not sexual. It’s not sensual. It’s not even intimate. It’s simply soothing. It’s soothing to my soul. It comforts me in the same way that stress eating comforts a person. That harmonious instant when my eyes, functioning in mysterious, fascinating, even inexplicable ways, tingle at such beauty. That instant, that moment, that millisecond can change a person’s feelings, their mood, their day. She can call it perversion all she wants. I’ll call it beauty.
They call him a thug.
I call him a human being who didn’t have the same chance I had. He didn’t have a father who was there to direct him and set an example on how to be a man. He didn’t have a mother who only worked one job. His mother worked three jobs. She did what she had to in order to make ends meet. He wasn’t raised by his parents. He was raised by a system. He was raised by a system in which he was given missions instead of chores. His commission wasn’t given to him by someone with his best interest in mind, no, it was given to him by the local drug lord and survival literally became part of his life, part of his daily struggle.
He calls it bad parenting.
I call it a child with challenges you cannot even imagine. The signals from his brain work slowly, differently than yours, differently than mine. Where you or I have already self-regulated, his signals are still making their way to their destination. Until that time, he simply doesn’t have control. He must be taught how to cope with moments that you and I take for granted. You have a bag full of tools to help you process and cope. His bag consists of one tool and he’s still trying to figure out how to use it. His behavior isn’t the challenge for him, his tools are, or perhaps even more so, a judgmental society is.
How do we see what others cannot? Why do they not see what we can? Has society become so shortsighted that they only see what’s right in front of them? Do they only see their reflection?
It feels hopeless. As long as they’re fat and happy though, I suppose everything is fine.
