the corn in the turd

People, life is bound to hand you a lot of turds. But sometimes those turds at least have little kernels of corn in them. You always have to look for the corn in the turd. I didn't make it up. It's something we've been discussing a lot around my household lately, with a good friend having moved last Sunday. He and his dog are gone and I will miss them-- there's the turd. But there's some corn in that turd, too, like the fact that I get his old room.


I'd like this saying about the corn in the turd to spread beyond my own sphere. It's a much more honest way to look at what is sad in life than what those other adages have to offer. Think about it-- I've never really seen a silver lining behind a single cloud; when I walk down a dark street, it's generally the case that there is no sunny side to keep on; at least 30 or 40 percent of dogs never do have their day; never once has even the most carefree hippie's deep-down disposition been "all good"; the negative has a way of being resistant to elimination, while accentuation of the positive often results in the grotesque; the sun is actually less likely to come out tomorrow on a rainy day than on a sunny day, and often there is no next time.


Compare the corn you might find in a turd to any of these old rose-colored glasses adages. Even if the turd does have its corn, it's only a handful of kernels, and they've already been eaten once, and are now covered in shit. This is not the kind of corn you go out of your way to find unless you are already unavoidably in the turd. This is not the kind of corn that can lift you up and reverse what has happened to you and put you at peace with your world. This corn makes no promises and offers as little in comfort as it does in nutrition. But this corn is honest about the turd it lives in, and so I find this corn far more appealing and befitting a world as ready to hand out turds as ours is. So remember, next time life hands you shit, you gotta look for that corn in the turd.