Those who read here more than once should get the sense that I tend generally to trade in existential crisis. Tales of nameless dread, nightmares, heightened reality. The absolute certainty of the pointlessness and uncertainty of the human condition. But I am more than the sum of my neuroses. I am, after all, only human myself. More or less.
(Perhaps we’ll touch on that later, but don’t count on it.)

The point, today, is this: there are in fact a few things in this world that are wholly positive. Things which as a human we can each experience, which will almost certainly prove uplifting, which will provide a glimmer of optimism, perhaps even a gleam of hope in the face the daily horror of mere existence. One needs merely to be open to the experience, to recognize it as it is happening.
This can be quite a difficult task, given the dread nature of reality. There are so many horrors lurking just at the edge of perception of which the average human must be wary, ready to counter and fight and continue to exist in spite of. It’s all too much, most of the time, this fight. It takes nearly every erg of existential energy available to us. But. Sometimes. There is that perfect moment.
Sometimes, the horrors lurk just a little less obviously. Sometimes the nightmares are gently pushed back by the airy hand of some propitious spirit or other. In that moment, a human might find themselves suddenly aware of something…beautiful. Wondrous even. At least, not dread-full. And even more rarely, there are those moments, experiences, that actively push the darkness away – if one is receptive.
Focus helps. Perhaps is essential. Focus on the moment. Focus on the absolute essentials of the task at hand.
Using a straight razor, for example, is a perilous exercise. Not for nothing is the phrase rendered, “razor sharp.” Few people alive today have any real conception of just how sharp a razor should be. Most humans alive today know only the sharpness of their kitchen knives – and they rarely hone their kitchen knives. A few people may conceive of their 5-bladed, mass-produced, plastic-handled device as being the watchword in shaving keenness.
But they know NOTHING of sharpness.
Draw three inches of professionally honed steel across your face. Learn the hard way which motions are…unsafe. Which strokes, which angles will draw blood.
You will focus, or you will bleed. A lot.
And then, as you are focused purely and wholly on the moment, the movement, the experience of NOT cutting your own throat…you will hear it. A sound like nothing else in existence.
This moment is transcendent. There is no lurking darkness. No nightmare fuel. No bombarding threat to one’s sense of self in the knowledge that an entire planet full of things cares only about you so far as you are an obstacle to their will to dominate.
There is only the sound: three inches of absolutely, truly, professionally “razor sharp” steel cutting through great swathes of stubble.
Truly.
A thing of beauty.
(But don’t become distracted by that beauty. Focus, or bleed.)