pockets

 

My trousers have impractical pockets. The purpose of these pockets is that I should stick my hands in them, to stop me from waving my hands about, because neurotypicals find neurodivergent people stimming in order to self-regulate, dis-regulating. Bless. Anyway, I put inappropriate things in my pockets, such as keys, and coins, my wallet, and my mobile phone. And these things wear holes in the cotton. And every so often, I ask my wife to stitch the holes up. (This is not sexism, but an awareness of my dyspraxic limitations).

The hole is not a thing. It is the absence of a thing (in this case, cotton). It has no ontological existence. My wife and I are only able to speak about the hole, and to have a common understanding of what we speak of, because of the cotton surrounding it.

What we call evil is a hole. An accumulated absence. An absence of trust becomes an absence of faith becomes an absence of hope becomes an absence of love, until we find ourselves killing young boys in the street. A hole created by things with sharp edges, such as fear (fear, of course, is not inappropriate in and of itself, any more than keys or phones are: it can save your life; the issue is what we do with our fear, where we put it).

We don’t have to let an absence of trust develop into an absence of faith, hope, or love. We can choose a stitch in time, and to change our habits. My wife mends the holes in my pockets with coloured threads, and the pocket is enhanced (though no-one gets to see: beauty for its own sake). I still put things, inappropriately, in my pockets.

Put your hands in your pockets. Or wave them about if you prefer or need to. But, whichever you choose, be a person of substance rather than absence.