The Substance of Your Life

I travel, I observe, I ponder the travails of men. In this age of gender polarization, I must clarify that when I say men, I mean mankind, not merely the male gender. 

Enduring long periods of isolation, experiencing the wonderful and inexplicable bitter-sweet truths of solitude, has helped me to develop a capacity to be an observer, a watcher, even a sentinel, if you will, of man and his lost, deceptively purposeful meanderings. 

There are those who claim to have a purpose, a goal, to the attainment of which they devote their time and energies, their resources, their emotions and their wealth, with a single-mindedness that belies the transitory nature and the temporariness of their pursuits. None is mindful of the fact that he will leave behind no more of a gap in his passing as one leaves when one pulls a finger out of a glass full of water. Yet in this striving, the man, or the woman, forgets the things that matter and the only aspects of his/her life that will leave resonances, only to see them in the stark floodlight of the final moments before he passes into oblivion, with a pathos that is beyond measure, for realization has dawned only its too late; for the grasp on life is loosened, and the darkness has swamped the light of the eyes. 

In their ambitions, people forget people. 

They forget their families, their children, husbands, wives, friends, parents... 

The lure that beckons them with an intensity similar to that which drives a drug addict leaves them in a somewhat similar condition. They die of overdose. The rich die because of their riches; the power of the powerful kills them. But it kills them long before they die; for they lose the most important things of life well before they are lowered into their graves, or the wood piled over them; long before the butter is placed on the forehead, and the garlands around the neck; their lamentations have begun far before the wail of it is heard, because the enticements of this world make people blind and deaf and unfeeling. 

Walking the Thin Line

Again and again, I find myself being pushed to the brink. The line that divides hazily between sanity and insanity.

I write on Facebook all that I feel; FB - a place where I could have millions of people see my life and know my feelings. But I keep it away from public view by setting my privacy settings to "Only ME".

There is such a great need to speak, to express and to share, and yet I cannot. For sometimes, ridicule is a greater threat than anything else. Who wants to add insult to his injury?

How scary it is to love!

How frightening, therefore, to love a woman, who can change her mind without a thought!

How badly you want to believe in her! How badly you want her to mean what she is saying!

But then, just when you are pouring out the deepest thing in your heart, she will look at a passing store and cry out, Oh there's a sale!

Or she will suddenly declare how hungry she is!

Or else you will be speaking and sharing your heart, and when you are done she will say, hmmmm?

And you know she was not even listening!

It feels very foolish. You can just see yourself, and how ridiculous you look, sitting there with your heart spread out at her feet and her gazing at the neon lights!

So you pull away from her; and while you are bending, to pick up the broken pieces of your emotions, she will be entering some store to pick up a hair clip. So you dutifully follow and show interest in what she is doing, smiling wanly and nodding, because you know your feelings have no place here. This is HER world, her kingdom; you are merely a wandering vagabond who has happened to cross her path.

And then as you walk with her, with the emptiness filling your heart, she will turn and ask, "What's wrong?"

Nothing, you say.

No, I know something is wrong, she replies, holding your arm and tugging at you.

You wonder if she's for real. Does she perhaps mean it, this time? Perhaps she really wants to know! Perhaps she really cares.

And you turn around, look at her and begin to speak. Again, the fool. And suddenly she is off to another store, for she has spotted some lovely bags.

And so you follow her very slowly. She enters, picks up a bag and looks around for you, She sees you still outside and she impatiently beckons you to come and when you do, she shoots, "What's the matter! Can't you keep up with me, fatass?"

And inside you, you whisper sarcastically, "I guess its my old age."

"Oh! You're not helping me at all!" she complains, "Can't you help me decide what to buy?"

And you say, patiently, "Yes, baby, I will."

Finally, you are in the car. Alone with her. Perhaps now, she will be able to talk to you?

But she is talking of her budget and the other things she needs to buy and how she is paid so less! So you sit there and listen. And you are totally lost! For you, its about life and love and the brief time that you have in which to make lasting memories; but for her, its purses, clips and parlors.

And yet, in your empty life, this also has great value for the emptiness is so great that any kind of presence is better than nothing. You are one who has learned to value the single dew drop in the deserts which you call your life, and she is the one who has never known thirst nor the pricelessness of water.

But then she brings another person into this; an old love, a man she says she does not love any more; but who she cannot forget! And suddenly you are outside, in the rain, looking in through the glass. You were never inside; it was just a dream, a fantasy and a delusion. You were always outside. Nobody even saw you standing there outside with your face pressed against the glass.

You turn around then and begin to walk away. The rain keeps falling and water mingles with salt water. You half-hear a call behind you, and you turn with trepidation of hope thinking perhaps she did see you and has missed your presence, and has come seeking you.

But when you turn you see the door is still closed. Your absence was never felt. Nobody realized that you were not there.

There, in the rain, you know you tread the thin line.

You are defaced. Disfigured. Your existence has been mocked. You do not matter, never had mattered. You realize how stupid you had been. How your foolish heart had led you astray.

So you keep walking. And the thin line is always at your feet; one step is on this side of it, and the next on the other.

You are so lonely.

So lonely.

But she is still talking of that guy and how hurt he must be; and how lonely he must be. And you smile within. And you nod and you say, yes, you must go to him. You must talk to him.

Yes, she says, I can't leave him like this. I want to be there for him.

And you smile again deep inside your dark lonely heart. For you are a man.

And you say, It's ok. Go ahead. I am there with you.

And so she goes, Florence Nightingale, with a lamp to the hurting wounded, the one who moans and groans. But her lamp can never illuminate your darkness nor show her your wounds which she gave you.

And you stand in the rain and smile, the water running down your face is not all rain. But who cares and who is there to check what it is?

She says she will not be long; that she will be back soon. But you know that now you will not wait for her to return.

She is gone.

You have nobody to wait for. You stand in the same place but your heart no longer waits for her voice or her footstep.

The only one you wait for, perhaps, is death. But even that holds no attraction for you, for in many ways, you are already dead.

And the dead wait for no one.