Living in the Shadow of Others
What is the difference between broken and unbroken? ‘Broken’ only means the constituent elements of a thing have shifted to a new pattern. The elements are all still there; they’ve simply been re-arranged. The new arrangement may not share the same functionality of the old arrangement. A ‘broken’ lightbulb, for example, is useless for producing light. However, an ‘unbroken’ lightbulb is useless for cutting bare feet.
Broken, then, is a concept, not a reality. It’s just a word we use to describe a thing that doesn’t do what we want it to do, a thing that doesn’t work the way we expect it to work. Whether we apply it to objects, to people, to relationships…it always means the same thing: it has stopped behaving the way we think it should.
Sometimes the scattered components can be repaired, the elements can be cobbled back together so that the thing functions as it did before. Often, however, the new arrangement cannot be restored to the original pattern. If we cannot realign the pattern, we can only realign the way we think about it. We can look for the utility and the beauty in the new version of the lightbulb.
What is the difference between broken and unbroken? Only our expectations.
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