Something there is that doesn't love

Some of the things you don't love are really, really important!

There are walls, and there are walls. Not all walls are the same, and it will not do at all simply to build one, expecting that it will do what you ask of it. Not all of them work, you see, and every wall comes with an attitude that you will have to live with forever after, as long as you keep the wall around. And sometimes stuff happens that you don't expect.

So there are walls and walls, and you really must get to know them to understand the difference. 

It is not a bad idea to ask some walls, to find out what they are doing. Walls have their own wisdom, you see, and it’s good to talk to them about it. Don’t be fooled by those who would tell you that there’s something wrong with talking to walls. Trust me when I say that there’s a lot to be learned from talking to walls.

And when you do — I have done this myself — you discover that the ones that work, the ones that do their jobs best with the least expense are always those that are meant to keep stuff in, rather than keep it out. 

Almost every last wall that I have spoken with (and I have talked to a lot of walls, let me tell you) and all those I have read about that were built to keep stuff out, eventually failed. The big ones, anyway. The little ones, like the ones around my house, they usually do their jobs well enough, but then again, they often need help. Security systems, for example. Or CCTV. And that makes them even more expensive.

And of course that's because all walls everywhere need police of one kind or another. And the bigger the wall, the more police they need. It makes sense: If there are no police, well there’s nothing stopping someone climbing over it or digging under it or even just knocking it down. And if you’re building a really big wall, you need even more police. It’s pretty simple: More equals more.

So the really big keep-‘em-out-type walls all eventually fail — some of them sooner, some later, some pretty spectacularly. I once talked to a really big wall of this kind in France, and he (all walls are male, it seems) went on at length about how strong he was, how many soldiers he had had protecting him and on and on. He was very proud of how much money had been spent on him, and not without reason. He was indeed an impressive wall.

But then I asked him, “If you were such a fine wall, what happened? How come you’re all alone now, here in the woods?”

He just shrugged and said, “They went around me.” And then he went back to sleep and didn't talk any more.

Every wall I ever met had an attitude. I guess it’s just part of being a wall. But they always get their attitude from the people who built them. The nicer walls I have met in my life have all been all about practicality. Walls around a toilet tend to be friendlier than walls between neighbors’ houses, for example. Walls that keep out cold and snow are usually very friendly, as are those with lots of windows and doors. Such walls clearly have been built by loving people who want the best for those using the walls.

But a really big wall means there must be something really big you want to keep out. Or keep in. And they never, ever show much love. No, the big ones are also the most unloving…because they have been built by people precisely to show their un-lovingness. Ask ‘em. They’ll tell you, because it’s all part of their attitude: Stay out! Go away! You are not wanted here! That’s what they’ll say to you, every time. If you listen.

Of course, you can choose not to listen to walls. You can go about your business as if walls don’t matter much. Most walls prefer to be taken for granted, actually. It helps them do their job. 

But the most unloving ones, they cannot tolerate being ignored. Intolerance is their M.O. If you let them talk, they’ll never shut up about how strong they are, how big they are and blah blah blah. It’s as if they want to celebrate their un-lovingness. Because after all, that is why they were built in the first place, right? If they were about love, well, they wouldn’t even be there.

And finally, there's this: almost every wall I have spoken to personally had something to say about unintended consequences, stuff that wasn't planned but happened any way.

One wall I spoke with — right here in the good ol' U.S. of A., though I won't say where — was telling me about how happy he was that I had stopped to talk. He lamented the fact that so few people even paid any attention to him. I felt sorry for him, actually, and even more when he told me his story.

It seems that his Builder was a very greedy man. He was constantly planning how he was going to make more money, even though apparently he already had more than he had much use for. So anyway he owned a bit of land in a marshy spot next to a very pretty lake, and he got it into his head that if he could build a really nice hotel or something, he could make a lot of money from people coming to stay at the hotel and look at the lake.

But to do that, the wall told me, the Builder had to drain the swamp, so there would be enough dry land to put the hotel on. When the wall told me this, I took a look around, and sure enough: the whole area was wet and marshy. I remember thinking, "Hmm, so he wanted to put a hotel here?"

So my friend, the wall, was built to keep the lake out, so that the hotel could be dry. But two things happened, one that made my friend, the wall, unhappy, and one that made the Builder unhappy. 

First: the wall kept sinking and sinking, so that the Builder had to keep adding to it. So when I met him, the wall was this hodgepodge mishmash of concrete and stone and brick, row upon row...and yet the whole thing only stood a few feet above the water.

Second: To build the hotel, the Builder had to pump all the water out, dry the land and bring in a lot of machines and men. Before long, though, the place began to smell. It stank — even when I was there — from all the dead fish and frogs, and the algae and so on that collected by the wall. And the water, which had been like a blue mirror reflecting the sky, turned brown from all the yuck the Builder was putting in the lake.

The Builder was smart enough not to try to finish the hotel. The unlove he had brought was enough to chase away anyone who cared to look at the lake. It was just costing too much.

Paradise

He was not, however, kind enough to fix the problem he had created. "Too expensive," he told himself, as he walked away.

As I walked away, I looked around. No, I thought, I wouldn't want to come here now, either.

So this is what I have learned from talking to walls: They’re not very good at keeping stuff out; you have to make them bigger and bigger to do that; the bigger the wall, the more expensive they are and the more un-love they share with the world; and every wall comes with stuff you didn't plan on...but you have to live with it, anyway.

Yes, you. Because you are the one who built it. Right?