Greater Than
Sean Moore
Isn't it funny?
In a way it has to be. It must be. It could not be anything else. Without humor, it couldn't just be brushed off. Without the laughter, the tears take on a whole different meaning.
Isn't it funny?
Well, yeah. But who's the one laughing? And what does it say when the laughs and the tears aren't coming from the same person?
Man's got a sense of humor. Must - no other explanation. Guy goes to work every day, same time, same route. Eats the same lunch. Holds the same meetings, answers the same phone calls, asks the same questions, does the same work. Punches out – leaves at the same time. Stops at the same take out place. Orders the same meal. Flashes the same smile to the same cashier. Who asks for the same amount and hands him the same bag. Tips the same amount. Leaves the same way he came. Parks in the same spot. Opens the same mail, the same bills for the same things. Watches the same shows. Goes to his room at the same time. And then sits down on the same chair at the same desk with the same pen and the same paper and writes the same words. The same words. The same words.
Maybe it's raining. Or snowing. Or hailing. Or sleeting. Or maybe it's not. Maybe it's sunny, or cloudy, or foggy. Maybe it's hot out, and humid, or maybe it's not humid but still hot. Sweltering. But it's still the same. It's all the same.
Maybe the client on the phone is different. Or the line of code. Or the agenda. Or maybe it's all the same again – the same discussion, the same bug, the same question, or concern, or complaint. But it's still the same. It's always the same.
Because nothing moves the man. The man does not change. The man does not exist in time. He is out of it, removed completely. Time moves around him, through him even. But the man is not carried along. The man remains the same. The man is all the same. The man is always the same. And this is why the man writes at the same desk in the same chair with the same pen and the same paper and writes the same words. The same words. The same words.
So the man must have a sense of humor. There is no other way. Because those same words same the same thing: be something different. Be something better. Be something greater than the same.
There's the great irony of it all - that the man, that very same man, has the nerve to write about becoming different. The man who is trapped in his glass box of same, who is happily adjust to his stable routine of sameness, thinks himself able to write about being different. The man who can't escape his sameness, who can barely tell how deeply in same that he is, spends every night writing about what different is all about. And so he must have a sense of humor.
Mustn't he? After all, what does the incarcerated man know of freedom? What does the poor man know of wealth? What does the fool know of knowledge? What does the bachelor know of love?
What does the man, the same man, know about different? Perhaps he's dreamed about it. Perhaps he's longed for it. Perhaps he's watched it from a distance, hoping it would come to him. Perhaps he's spent so long desiring and pining for it that he's come to accept his sameness. Perhaps he's come to understand what different is. Perhaps his sameness is just enough stability to know first hand just what different is.
Perhaps it doesn't even matter. Perhaps the same words written on the same paper with the same pen at the same desk with the same chair where the same man writes every night can be something more.
Perhaps words can be greater than.