Certainly uncertain

[Athos]

When I was a kid, I felt like I had all the answers. Things were just so simple. Life was like a television show; all the world’s problems could be solved in just a half an hour including commercials. I could never understand why people made things so complicated. The solution to life’s problems always seemed to be in plain sight. I was so sure of myself then, so sure that I knew how to save the world. So sure that if they just listened to me they would all see, but nobody ever seemed to listen. I was just a dumb kid who didn’t know how and why the world worked.  As I grew, I did my best to embody my certainties. I lived the way I kept telling people they should: confident in the knowledge that I had someone stumbled on the perfect formula for life. Things went well, until they didn’t and everything came together until it fell apart. I moved forward until I fell flat on my ass. Then the certainty washed away and I was suddenly thrust into the real world. A place where two plus two sometimes equals five. Where people say one thing and do another. Where you could make all the right choices and still fail. When I was a kid, I knew it all and talked about it constantly. But no matter how much I talked, nobody listened. Now I’m quiet more often than not, but when I do talk people listen more than they ever have before.