Perhaps

Sometimes we pack things so densely with meaning that they cannot possibly withstand the weight of our inscription.

Small things become overwhelming and permanent when they need not; we worry the trivial and this snowballs into unwieldy metaphors.

Is it possibly to take gentle, tiny steps that are not overdetermined, or is it the nature of the beast to feel that all our yes's and no's are so impacted with the fear that we will answer incorrectly that we become immobilized?

It's funny to me, and cruel, that what looks good on paper is often unfulfilling, and I suspect it is because proscription cannot translate to "real" life, with all of its complexities and complications. Perhaps that which works best--that which is the most enriching--is messy and lopsided and "shouldn't" work, but does.

I have dangerously talked myself into this kind of thinking before, but I am also learning that there are gradations of difference, even amidst messiness. And so the key, perhaps, is to not eradicate messiness, but to keep it proactively in check so that it doesn't slip into cruelty.