We are an entire culture interested solely in being interesting. It is vogue to be rogue. Fashion is hinged on being unfashionable. Creeds are supported by heresy. That which is normal is shallow; that which is different is deep. With bloated bellies we seek profundity in the uncommon, but do not seek it in our normalcy.

To be concerned with finding the profound is to be led by the bright light of irony. We are blind critters who fail to see the sun; our retinas are burned by its light for we have stared at it for too long. We are forever looking for contrast. We are forever stammering like drunkards in light, naïve to the shadows behind us, the images of ourselves, and the contrast from the light.

We fervently seek escape from ourselves, from our commonplace, from our “simplicity.” Yet, we fail to see our own glory because we have stared at it for so long. That which is common is merely so because of repetition, not because it is dull. There is inspiration in that which seems uninspired. The truly profound is discovered in the simple; it is within babes that all the mysteries of life are pocketed. Because of life and its hard, long, monotony, men, wrinkled by age, become hermetic sages and women, snow topped, become enchanting and wise.

Inevitably, the abnormal we desire becomes normal. As it has been said, “culture is forever a widow.” All is out-of-date. But is this not another “rogue” argument? To the current creed, arguing for finding the profound in the simple is a cyclical syllogism: the rabbit hole leads down, only to come up. Does it deflate itself by doing so? I think not. The common place, begot by the uncommon, it is the first truth of all our murmuring, all our searching, all our ideas and second truths, and all our traps. It is the heat that revives our numbness. It is the return to an old idea, not the furthering of a new one.

Herein lies the irony: the depth that we seek is found in the shallows. The profound is not in the abnormal, but in the normal. The commonplace is glorious and only tarnished by its repetition. It is the start, the first thing, which leads to all else. Let us lay aside our childish attempts at profound thought, and relish in the profundity that is already ours, lying dormant in the silliness of our ideas, in the playfulness of our hearts. Let us once again feel the weight of our feathers, the glory of the seemingly inglorious, and the magic in the monotonous.