As Black as That

Firstly, to the matter of Heart — here owning to no one but itself — it must be said that, for all its obvious and peculiar deficiencies, particularly in relation to bloodless relations and reason, it is the thing — the thing — which we all stair-trip to obey, and which, when glimpsed through an unthought utterance or vulnerable glance (as opposed to keyhole or blouse), we spend an inordinate mound of time pursuing, often against the rigid and coolly sound laws of arithmetic we reserve for the menial. But the irrational part of the brain — opposed, as it is, to the lifeless organ behind the marimba — is not merely a built-in trifle that sheds the salt, for although it guides us, no matter how ill-advisably, through the ceaseless interactions we make a day and a life of wading through, it does not for a second make any of its caught-gooses feel anything less than utterly worthwhile, even for that of a right of passage with a wrong of outcome — Lesson Learnt; Now I Know — and even when it calls you an Idiot for having done it. Our maths half, however, whose responsibilities are greater only in the sense of Black and White, is never anything less than punishing in both mere feeling and mere fact when the result is anything less than correct, as no trance of emotion is ever achieved or vested upon its tasks — and that's how the world stays and goes round.

In contrast, the matter of Meaning does not come from either of these sources, particularly not the former. In fact, it derives from no less than fiction, whose lifeblood requires definition if it is to pump more than twice in the ear of the reader, listener, viewer, and whose envelope instincts insist upon a lack of ugly nihilism: the one thing in this globule village worth lacking. Can you blame us, then, if we, like the Frenchmen, seek it here, there and everywhere? Whether all this bears dwelling upon is up to the Heart to decide, or the willing to debate, but certainly it is worthy, in the least, of an endnote, albeit one that is firmly after the useful definitions; and though it may not be atop the list of pulse-racers, it also surely deserves a place among the more cob-webbed of the archives, along with the rest of academia's fat. There's been honours honoured on much less, after all.

For all intensive purposes, I'm not the only one gifted — and I use that entirely arbitrarily — enough to step outside the frame and stand back, finger on lip, and nod in that informed manner originally forged by the image-conscious among the gallery-dwellers. There are, in truth, roughly half a billion of us, and although, if you've taken my drift, that may seem entirely xenophobic, particularly in lieu of my own lack of colour, it is actually more forward-thinking than you, if to you this applies, would care to admit. The politically proper view is, as anyone with an ear knows, that every single human form on this earth is cut from the same industrial-size cloth, and thus all equally worthy of equal treatment. But this overlooks the factors of culture, from which no one can readily escape. The reason I have singled out the luckiest of the races as being the only ones capable of removing subjection and moving forward is because they, unlike the too-tanned, are not, in the general and popular sense, persecuted in the same manner as the rest, and persecution, I believe, is something which irreparably makes the Heart the Brain, and thus removes any possibility of reason or ration. Now, obviously they can't be blamed for this, for we are largely responsible, ashamed as I am to admit it, but they certainly can't be considered equal — at least, no more than a dog can. It's merely what they've been dealt, and if it were up to me, it would never have happened. And the same applies to the halves we seek, who are, bless them, all Heart — there was never even the threat of a brain in their history. And pretty Hearts, while perfect for one lifetime and one life, and utterly indispensable for anyone who isn't a rock, are not ably equipped to deal with the progressing of the species. That does not make their role any less integral — personally, I don't think I could ever live without them, and I adore them in the extreme —: all it means is that, in the broader sense, they are not fit to dine when important matters are afoot. Before you brand me a chauvinist as well, let me tell you that if the balance were reversed — that is to say, if we were all Heart and they balanced — I would be the first to admit that I and my kind would not be the people to turn to in matters of great weight, and, taking that a step further, if the tanned (et al) were the persecutors and we the persecuted, I would have no problem handing over the wheel.

If anything is going to change, these sensitive barriers must be broken down. Yes, it may offend people in the short-run, but there's backlash to every change regardless of its provocation, and the sooner we learn this, the sooner we can achieve what the least articulate among us refer to as Peace and Harmony. When people argue from the Heart against equality, I, let me tell you, am as appalled as anyone could possibly be, for Heart-based prejudice is the most nocuous substance known to man, and should never, ever be tolerated, but my argument here is stated with as much objectivity and logic as I or any man can produce, and with absolutely no guidance from that most persuasive of organs. Only superficially could this case be seen to resemble prejudice of any kind, and those who argue anything deeper are merely showing their own prejudices. If you can't see that I am against persecution of any kind (and especially the kind that we have dealt in our sorry past), then you're nothing more than a brainless fool, another of the many things stacked against us.