Confession No. 10: I Adore Oscar Wilde

I’ve loved Oscar Wilde ever since I studied him (and his play The Importance of Being Earnest) in a literature class a couple of years back; adored his quirky sense of humour and his flamboyant attitude and his complete disregard for societal constructs and expectations.

Confession Time: The reason I love him most is this quote; 

It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all it's tainted glory and still to love it.

It’s one that I’ve loved for a while, hung on my wall alongside other pieces of literature important to me.

It’s very easy for us to become complacent with what we are seeing, to see only the negative pieces of this world. The media bombards us with constant examples of how we as a race are failing, and it’s very difficult to look anywhere and not see destruction.

It encourages a pessimistic mindset, which is something I want desperately to avoid. At high school especially it’s easy to see every flaw in our population, but at the same time, if you look in the right places, it’s easy to see all the ways in which teenagers are so drastically different to how we’re portrayed. One only has to look so far as all those in America who have stood against the second amendment; or Malala Yousafzai, the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

So I love this quote, from this brilliant, zany author who had every reason to detest the world in which he lived. I love the fact that it shows how strong you are, how brave it is, to look at what is positive in the world. I love how it emphasises that love and compassion do not equate to weakness. It’s a lesson we could all do with remembering.

Next time you are feeling weak, next time you are overwhelmed, have courage. See the world, acknowledge how it is tainted, but acknowledge too how glorious it is to be within it.

Always,

Your teenaged disaster