I’m hopelessly straight, which to me means serious. Seriously, I can go an entire day without cracking a smile, without looking on the lighter side of things, and without finding a reason to laugh — really laugh — at the absurdity of the world and all its people. As a child, I kept all the buttons on my shirt securely fastened — and I am talking all the way up to my chin. And that reminds me: another eye-rolling thing ultra-serious people do is they only think in extremes. Like how something’s gotta be all one thing or another; that’s a big mistake I make when I’m in serious mode. Everything’s a crisis; everything’s a gross exaggeration. But that’s not how the world really works at all. The world is full of both bugs and butterflies, if you catch my drift. Beauty and beastliness can exist in the same space; one does not rule the other one out. But seriousness sees none of that. Seriousness seems only to account for the worst, and it braces itself accordingly, as a way of life and feeling. And so seriousness’ greatest tragedy is that it refuses to acknowledge the bright colors of life — from its small sensual pleasures all the way up to its gold-leafed spiritual delights. So what’s a hopelessly straight person to do, with such a dark and narrow view obscuring life’s beautiful possibilities? Well, in keeping with the bugs and butterflies analogy, she decides to live by the light of both truths. By staking my claim in a serious and uncompromising reality — the inevitability of my own death — I remind myself to look at life through a crystal-clear prism that sends rainbows bouncing in every direction. Becoming serious about the art of living is what sets me free to enjoy my life, at last. ❤️‍🔥—Y.B.D.