At present you need to live the question.

I wrote this two years ago and don't want to lose it, so it is now forever preserved on the internet.  It is flawed and overly complicated but the message is simple.  It's a message that felt genuine and honest at the time but now appears presumptuous and boastful to me.



"At present you need to live the question." --Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from the German by Joan M. Burnham

I am the narrator.  That girl is I.  Or is it really that simple?  I get the privilege of analyzing my actions, so I can give them deeper meanings, when, originally, they were as simple as human nature.  I can look back, and I can look forward, but for now, all I see is a ceaseless question.
That girl walks down a street, showing what some would confuse for naiveté.  Maybe she is an easy target, one that would stand out to a rapist or a murderer.  She does not carry the walk that most people do these days, their arrogant strut.  Maybe their walk is actually smart, not arrogant.  Maybe their arrogance is really that confidence she wishes she had.
She smiles at those who walk by her.  Some return the smile, their eyes brightening just a little.  Others continue on, unbroken.  They have to be somewhere.  They do not have time to falter from their stiff projections.  There is work to be done.  There is money to be made, people to please.  That is, after all, how the world keeps turning?  Right?
Instead of ignoring the homeless man sitting on the curb, she looks him straight in the eye, giving him a weak smile.  Maybe with time she will learn that her smile does nothing but mock.  But for now, she has to ask in silence:
Does my smile brighten your day?
Or shake you to your bones?
Are you angry at me?
Do I remind you of someone?
Or do I make you hurt?
Do I look like an easy target?
Are you really that far from humanity?
Or are you closer than most?
Does my approach just annoy you?
No, I do not think so. I believe that behind your distressed exterior, you are another person craving attention, friends, love, compassion.  I believe that my smile reminds you that there is hope for us.
Sometimes he does return a smile, that man sitting on the curb.  Other times that man gets up, with a mad look in his eyes.  He follows for a while, the girl keeping her distance.  But every now and then, he thanks her with his expression.  He thanks her for acknowledging his existence, for knowing that he is a human being.  He thanks her for not being quite so cold.
That man keeps the question going, so she continues to the next street corner.
The men are all part of an experiment.  The girl wants to know whether she has any power in the world.  Sometimes she feels so small.  When someone looks back at her, thanking her with their eyes, she knows that yes, she does have some control.  Yes, she is just a small part of something greater than herself, but she has some power.  She improves the world just a little, when she treats the men like fellow human beings.  Maybe, if she keeps doing this, she will find her own cause and will know that it can be done, that she can do something about life’s injustices.
Maybe this is all just silly optimism.  Maybe she has not helped.  Maybe someday she will give up and accept that she is powerless in a world of never ending maladies.  Maybe humanity is at the heart unfriendly (not evil, because good and evil are all so subjective).  Maybe she should accept this and move on, reduce her trusting innocence.
She cannot.  I cannot.  I keep looking to see whether people are good, keep trying to disprove my worst fears.  I look not only at the homeless, but also at the rich, the mean, the spoiled.  At myself.  I question them in the same way, with the same look.
Will you return my smile?  Will you show that you care?  That you feel?
Will you prove that I am not crazy?
That there is hope for this deteriorating world?