Things Fall Apart

Forgive me, Readers, I'm feeling morose. Bear with me.

In high school, we had to read a book that I absolutely hated. It was called Things Fall Apart, and it was by Chinua Achebe. I read the whole thing, but I truly disliked it. Yet, the more I look back on that book, the more I want to give it a second chance because something about it seems so fundamentally true.

The thing that I really latch on to is the title. Things Fall Apart. It's so simple. It's so rudimentary. It's a natural fact. So final. Something about that has to be respected. It's such a simple idea: things fall apart. I don't think there's a single person that would disagree with that statement. Yet, it's something that we seem to be constantly forgetting.

It's something that bears repeating: things fall apart. Don't get too comfortable. Don't get cozy. Don't fall too hard. Don't go too deep. Things Fall Apart. You'll get hurt. You'll be sorry. And the universe will not be surprised because it knows that things fall apart. The only idiot will be you.

This is what I've been thinking about lately. I just have this sinking feeling that things are about to fall apart for me in an epic sort of way. Like I'm not going to see it coming, but it's going to be totally devastating. I feel like a character in a bad movie. You know the one--the character that predicts ominously that "something's coming," but can't tell you what, when, or how. The most frustrating type of sci-fi character. That's me. I'm like an M. Night Shyamalan plot device. It's atrocious.