Happy Mardi Gras!
Carne vale, the metaphorical giving up of of fleshly things, is transformed into its opposite, the celebration of earthly existence. Everything has its opposite, and try as people might, we can’t deny essential parts of ourselves or they merely appear in an altered, perhaps distorted form.
But it’s also true that the human propensity to adapt, to transform, makes the imagined possible, and the most eccentric of beliefs can sometimes result in positive and wonderful discoveries, not always crazy destructive lemmings-over-the-cliff stuff.
So we celebrate the good things, the hard things, accepting our stupid and brilliant hideous beauty. Like a Breughel painting full of every crass and beautiful human endeavor, we are all in it together, so laissez les bon temps rouler.