One.
The single word has so much potential. It's such a beautiful limit, such an exquisite definition.
In a time where we are told to think that limits are bad and definition should be defied, I find that I long for those very things as represented by the word and the number, one.
One has the connotation of being unique, singular, in duplicable. It is an indicator of a single thing; the first one, the last one, the only one.
Ironically perhaps, the phrase 'another one' actually means the exact opposite of one. Another one is a piece of several. It is not the beginning or the finale or the exclusive; it is simply the latest to be remarked upon.
My soul craves to be one and withers in fear that I am in reality, just 'another one'.
One is all I've ever wanted to be.
One often goes first. It never lacks or lags. It is never left behind.
One is never lonely because all the numbers relate to it, find their origin with it. But one is never obscured because the other numbers must follow it and cannot go before.
One is never hungry because it is given the first portion; of time, attention, food, love, money, intention, faith, trust, benefit of the doubt.
One can sometimes be last though. But this is also a good thing. The last one is by very definition the most memorable. It is such a low pressure place; there is no requirement to be best, or brightest, or smartest, or funniest, or prettiest, or riches, or most enjoyable. Simply, to be the last one, is to be the fixed point at which something stopped. And the mind must pause here, using it as a coordinate to remember the sequence of everything that came before.
The last one is never forgotten, never forgiven, never lived down.
The last one is often the one that was sought all along. For when we find what we seek, then we stop seeking. So the thing we found is the last thing that was discovered. It is the completion. It is the truth of our whole quest.
And then there is also the 'only one'. These are the best and the brightest, but by a strange and luminous default. They cannot help but be the best because they are the exclusive example of their own existence.
Conversely they are also the worst because there is no other one that of their kind to have more flaws or less features.
The only one is a pure definition of itself. It cannot be tied to any expectation other than itself because there is nothing to which it hold loyalty in form or philosophy. It owes no one any guarantee of quality, shape, or composition. It simply gets to be.
These ones are in a way divine. They are pure. They stand both utterly alone and also surrounded byfocus.
And yet contrast these to the antithesis: 'Another one'.
Another one is part of a sequence. It will be compared to the others in that sequence. It fits somewhere in the middle. It is forgotten as soon as the next 'another' come salong. It vanishes into a long, unending line of 'another’s' and it’s gone forever. But it must exist all at the same time.
Another one is doomed to constantly bereal, forever there, always solid and well understood and clearly defined... but completely unimportant in it's own right. It derives importance only from the mass permission of all the other 'another’s'.
It distinguishes itself with petty measurements such as 'longest', 'cutest', 'wealthiest', 'smartest', 'sexiest'; or 'dumbest', 'rudest', 'ugliest', 'most horrible'.
It's being is nothing authentic at all because it is nothing but a long string of meaningless, pointless comparisons that ultimately... are just reflections of the original, or final, or only One.
And that is why I long to be One. One is pure worthiness. One is self-possessed definition. One is the maker of paths, the ender of patterns, the categorical truth of self.
One is real.
Another one is not.
And all I ever wanted to be to you was real.