_{Letters to Strangers}

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Dear Someone,

This is more or a less a letter to everyone, everything that exists, or, even, all that only wish to exist. This is a letter to the dust particles on dandelion helicopters, to cardboard signs of love, to coffee rings staining doodle-ridden desks, and to many, many flightless birds. This is a letter to the dirty clothes on your floor, the ants in the garden, the seeds sitting restlessly on the topsoil, to the creeks as they run slowly out every day. And, it is mindlessly, a letter to you.

I don't know who "You" are, and strangely, I do. I know it through the text boxes popping up every now and then, I know it through the clouds that sweep over the hills here that make the North State look like Ireland on a sunny day, I know you through the sheep that bleat hungrily in the morning, and through the mind-numbing C-note that is emitted through too many televisions being turned on. I know you through the graffiti on the rail cars, the rain shadows in the middle of the road, and through the moss that builds up steadily on old, English walls. But I don't really think knowing you is the point.

But then again I'm not entirely sure of the point. I'm writing this to nobody, and yet I'm writing it to everybody, but I don't feel like there is really a message that I could give to anyone that hasn't been heard, that isn't totally and utterly cliche that would make you enthusiastic about life again. Coming up with those sort of things isn't really my forte - I can't tell you that I'm a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King. I'm in no way an Abraham Lincoln, or, even, your mother, father, or friend. I can tell you what I've learned in life, but you'd think I've heard it off of some postcard sitting in an art gallery. I could cite some irregular, clever witticism that makes you die a little inside but you smile anyway, or I could even set up a silly picture here to make you smile and continue on your way.

And if it weren't a terrible thing for me to say I'd tell you to not be so critical of others. I'd tell you to take your own advice, and at the very least consider the advice that others' give you. We've been raised in a society that deals so much with bringing others' down in order make ourselves feel better - and we've been brought up to do so without remorse, without second thought, without any reason other than our own self-gratification. I've been the brunt of this my entire life, and I don't honestly think it's fair, even to the ones who hold the bigger stick (so to speak).

I can't sit here and tell you to listen to others, because a lot of the time they don't know what they're talking about (and I am absolutely no exception). But I also cannot sit here and tell you to ignore everyone else that comes your way. What I think I'm here to tell you is to reach out. Go out of your comfort zone. Where are you going to go in life if you're afraid to talk to your neighbor? Where are you going to be if you are so jealous of their rose bush that you won't talk to them? If you waste life on petty things instead of making random connections with random people, then you've, well, wasted your life.

I'm going to tell you that I've lived my life trying to be the bigger man. I've tried to cope with being on the end of too many jokes, far too many insults, and even more rumors than humanely necessary. I'm here to tell you to live your life, and stop leading it as if someone was always watching you. They aren't. And if they are, you shouldn't be part of their life, nor should they be part of yours (or anyone's). If you're judging people, you don't now what you're doing. I bet if you stood back and watched yourself, you'd be just as bad as they were.

But I can't speak for everyone I suppose. I'm not necessarily trying to. I'm more or less going off of that ugly C-note from the television, from the bees humbly working. I'm too busy cleaning up the clothes on the floor, trying to get through the daily rigmarole of reading, writing, and arithmatic. And somehow I don't think you're much different. After all. Circumstance.

Circumstance.
That's a great word.