Mar 2014
You are talking to a person,
This person may be a friend,
it might be someone who you are simply standing next to in a queue.
The awkward proximity palpable,
the expression of indifference to life.
You bring up the weather.
Why is that?
The weather or how tired you are. Of work, of life.
Two topics that strike up a kind of mutual understanding between one another.
We do not even try and attempt to learn something of vague significance or interest. We squander our chances of a friendship.
These 'people' are simply a new acquaintance for those two minutes of silence in the queue.
They fulfil the social criteria while you stand, uncomfortably, waiting to escape.
You are not unkind. You do not seek escape, your mind does. Yet it seizes on these other lonesome, wandering raffles of people.
Who will you draw? What will you draw?
"Thunder?" "Rain?" "A spell of sun in February in the north of England?"
"Never! It cannot be." "Something must be shifting in the universe's core. It MUST be happening, I know it!"
Or perhaps you are inclined to broach the more self-interested turn of conversation.
"Finally, it's Friday. Oh look, you're buying ***** too." "Gonna be a big one!" "I am so ready for the weekend after this busy week." "Don't bother mentioning your problems because, quite frankly, I am simply using you as an external shell of a person, removed from my immediate life and therefore apt as an excuse for me to complain deeply about how much I have to do compared to every other mortal in this long and tiresome life."
Does thou sound bitter?
Ha.
Maybe because it is raining today but I wanted to talk about the Malaysian Airlines plane that went missing over Vietnam or the see-through trial of that ******* Oscar Pistorius or the fact that innocent people are being blown up about 5 miles from where I lay my head down to sleep at night but let's not stray too far from normal, everyday converse towards my sleeping habits. No, maybe I wanted to talk about whether or not there is a God in this universe who actually lives and breathes through our very experiences or whether or not Buddhism is a way of life that I really want to embrace and whether or not you have equally been changed by a class of meditation. I want to hear about your opinions and your thoughts and your ideas and something that you have picked up on in the last week.
I don't want to know about the things that I can observe through my very own eyes.
That is where perception comes in. I want perspective. If you are going to talk about the weather, tell me why condensation forms when it rains against my bird-**** stained glass windows. Tell me why the clouds gather in such menacing shades of noir above my towering filing cabinet of apartments, tell me how the weather patterns are tracked and occur.
For the love of God, tell me how that Kinder Bueno got to be sitting there in that plastic shelf just a millimetre from the tip of my right index finger.
This person may be a friend,
it might be someone who you are simply standing next to in a queue.
The awkward proximity palpable,
the expression of indifference to life.
You bring up the weather.
Why is that?
The weather or how tired you are. Of work, of life.
Two topics that strike up a kind of mutual understanding between one another.
We do not even try and attempt to learn something of vague significance or interest. We squander our chances of a friendship.
These 'people' are simply a new acquaintance for those two minutes of silence in the queue.
They fulfil the social criteria while you stand, uncomfortably, waiting to escape.
You are not unkind. You do not seek escape, your mind does. Yet it seizes on these other lonesome, wandering raffles of people.
Who will you draw? What will you draw?
"Thunder?" "Rain?" "A spell of sun in February in the north of England?"
"Never! It cannot be." "Something must be shifting in the universe's core. It MUST be happening, I know it!"
Or perhaps you are inclined to broach the more self-interested turn of conversation.
"Finally, it's Friday. Oh look, you're buying ***** too." "Gonna be a big one!" "I am so ready for the weekend after this busy week." "Don't bother mentioning your problems because, quite frankly, I am simply using you as an external shell of a person, removed from my immediate life and therefore apt as an excuse for me to complain deeply about how much I have to do compared to every other mortal in this long and tiresome life."
Does thou sound bitter?
Ha.
Maybe because it is raining today but I wanted to talk about the Malaysian Airlines plane that went missing over Vietnam or the see-through trial of that ******* Oscar Pistorius or the fact that innocent people are being blown up about 5 miles from where I lay my head down to sleep at night but let's not stray too far from normal, everyday converse towards my sleeping habits. No, maybe I wanted to talk about whether or not there is a God in this universe who actually lives and breathes through our very experiences or whether or not Buddhism is a way of life that I really want to embrace and whether or not you have equally been changed by a class of meditation. I want to hear about your opinions and your thoughts and your ideas and something that you have picked up on in the last week.
I don't want to know about the things that I can observe through my very own eyes.
That is where perception comes in. I want perspective. If you are going to talk about the weather, tell me why condensation forms when it rains against my bird-**** stained glass windows. Tell me why the clouds gather in such menacing shades of noir above my towering filing cabinet of apartments, tell me how the weather patterns are tracked and occur.
For the love of God, tell me how that Kinder Bueno got to be sitting there in that plastic shelf just a millimetre from the tip of my right index finger.
