Undercover People

I used to wonder why you took such delight in trying
to diminish the grand, majestic and most high, the
sacred and holy and exalted? You who are sold on
being romantic while I have been described as not
romantic at all – my personality analysis said I’m
very down-to-earth when it comes to love and the
simplest pleasures bring the greatest joy and my
partner is my best friend – I value friendship
above romance…

You are an undercover ROMANTIC and I am an under-
cover CYNIC! I love romance as an ideal, not to be ful-
filled, but to be strived for – while you actually believe
romance exists – this is the difference between us.

You reject the Bible on the grounds that nothing in there
is verified and literally true; you are deeply disappointed
– while I love the Bible on the grounds that it represents
a dream and a lot of mystery plays like they enacted in
the Middle Ages.

I am not disappointed at all that it is not literally true and
has been changed through the ages and am quite content
with it representing an IDEAL, a DREAM of mankind – even
if that dream is not exactly exalted, it represents a striving
for exaltation – while you are deeply hurt by your discovery
that the highly exalted does not exist.

It is because you are an idealistic romantic that you became
so cynical, and it is because I am a true cynic, that I cannot
become cynical by discovery of decadence and deprivation –
I am so impressed by mankind’s undiminished striving for
improvement and I appreciate every little step taken to create
better dreams.

I started life expecting NOTHING, so every little dream and
ideal I find seems delightful to me. You started life expecting
EVERYTHING, exaltation and masterful perfection, and so
everything you find is a disappointment to you and you
clutch your disappointment to your heart in order to
remain true to your first impressions of life.

I am luckier than you because I cannot become cynical no
matter what evidence of decadence is brought to me, while
you cannot become trustful, hopeful and delighted no matter
what evidence of exaltation is brought to you – it will always
fall short of your first ideals. How do you like my analysis?

1. Imagination is stronger than knowledge, period – imagination
brought the world into existence and all knowledge is just a
record of what the imagination accomplished.

2. Dreams are more powerful than facts because dreams brought
the human technological society into existence while facts only
knew of the animal world and man as just another animal.

3. Hope always triumphs over experience, that is why Helen Keller,
blind and deaf, accomplished so much – and why the dark Middle
Ages passed and mankind is not caught in torture and human
sacrifice any more. There is no intrinsic good or evil, we only
classify things into those categories according to our needs
and limited perspective.

4. Laughter ALSO cures the common cold – it has cured mine so
many times, I cannot count how often, and laughter causes the
release of dopamine and other positive hormones in the brain
and improves blood tests and after a year of laughter, illness
can be cured; laughter cures cancer – and cures grief also.

5. Love is stronger than death – of course, that is why we love old
masters of any art; we love history, the past and love ourselves –
we are death happening, you know. I can love even when death
in the sense of the event never having happened, is present; I
can love non-physical memories, ideas and thoughts which
have never lived and therefore have never been anything
else than dead. I still love my grandma and she has
already died 14 years ago. And I shall die one day
and prove love is stronger than death.


Based on a conversation with a correspondent who replied
the following words by Robert Fulghum:

“I believe: that myth is more potent than history - that dreams
are more powerful than facts - that hope always triumphs over
experience - that laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe
that love is stronger than death.”

- Robert Fulghum - All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten -