A Tiny Little Essay

From The Smile Shop

A Tiny Little Essay, by Eddifus

I am so fortunate to have seen Brian Wilson perform SMiLE its opening night 37 years after its genesis. It came when it did because this is the time. The story is timeless. And now, in the world, it sheds light. Brian too is the messenger. He had the thought and hid from it for years. Maybe he didn't know what it meant. Now though its message is stronger. The world should be impacted by it. Especially, that a man like Brian himself seems cured. He is able to confront the thing that drug him down and paint it so beautifully to canvas.

What is SMiLE? It is love, liberty, expansion, exploration, cultivation, fear, fatherhood, youth, innocence, pain, terrible injustice, repentance, rebuilding. It is the admittance of the cycle of life. It is societies rising and falling and in the doing brotherhood and genocide. SMiLE is man confronting life afraid to face its cruelty, wanting only peace, a drink of water. SMiLE is boarding a tidal wave in troubled times, learning from the past so that the future is there for the children who will one day be fathers and mothers to the world where we have all been blessed to occupy.

"It's the right time to SMiLE," I thought crossing over the Millennium Bridge outside the Royal Festival Hall, dreaming of surfing on the Thames. It's the right time to SMiLE. "Don't worry, when in doubt SMiLE," I overheard a man say as he was recounting a terrifying story of a home invasion. Well it's good advice. We should all keep it close to our hearts. Wonder and SMiLE. Believe.