being put back (together)

Today I was maybe the most broken I've ever been, at least about something closely personal. Given my experience and my significance in the whole scheme of things (making the most of our "little lives" as Parker said in the last line of his last lecture), this isn't saying much. But it took me by surprise. It's always come naturally to me to be optimistic, even while recognizing the inevitable and persistent presence of pain--of not right, of inexplicable, of unfairness, of why why why. For a long time I believed so strongly in certain ideals that it never occurred to me that I would have to defend myself for finally having the opportunity to follow them. Today I found myself actively fighting off cynicism from all sides. They call it knowledge and experience and result of simply living in the world for longer than I have, and I'm lulled into their dictates and their warnings. Is this what people become, hardened and accepting of what they deem reality? Do they advocate principles only to back out when they finally get the chance to carry them out the hard way? Their talk of pointlessness makes me so angry, and so hurt, that for a moment I think that I am in fact shrouded in ignorance, that these feelings shouldn't fuel my actions because they're too intense, too irrational. It's understandable that they want to protect me from suffering, but from that I learn that sometimes the best way to take care of people is to let them hurt for the sake of something better, more significant, despite being less immediately tangible or clear.

I asked, what is so wrong with wanting to value something for what it is rather than what it will be, and I was told, it's only like that in the movies. I've lived like that for as long as I can remember, through images and quotes and vague notions of love. The difference between that and what I have now is that I'm finding this fantasy world achingly real, and for that bit of life I'll fight, even if it's just us against everything else.