You know what the good thing is

You and me, we are not really going to find a time in our life, where we would listen to each other and feel like that is all we always wanted to do. We are no longer able to listen.

In fact listening, talking, expressing - these have all become things we need to learn. I can see why people get an inclination to preach at this point, to advise especially after saying what I just said. So I am going to deny that tendency and go the other way. It is not a generations’ defense against the criticism of having no life and respect for socializing and attending to the fellow man. It is a clear observation. Which is,

It is so hard to listen anymore because everyone is talking. It’s so hard to talk too, because everyone is talking.

I mean, am I doing any different? I guess not, but I just have to let this out. I must. I identify as an artist and nothing is more filling to me than being able to express myself. Through writing, I am able to give you a better option than listening. You do not have to manufacture a way where you make me feel like you are listening this way. You just could read or not read.

Speaking of which, reading is a skill people are looking to learn now. In fact, I subscribed to the hype behind speed reading and what I seemed to understand is that’s what I used to do when I was preparing for my exams. It’s like blasphemy to real reading experience. Do I sound like a bigot yet? Are the bigots listening yet?

But yes, it ruins the reading experience. It helps to make small talk, present something nicely to an audience and appear highly well read but I have to separate and take a look at what’s happening. I mean I basically draw margins within margins and read the most essential words in a sentence, directing my eye movement accordingly and flip through the pages. What it did for me was I could probably tell you a summary of the book in one to two sentences. Ask me however about the characters or the narrator and about how he felt etc and that’s literally impossible or is a responsibility of my imagination.

I understand the purpose of speed reading so if you are looking to be pissed off at this point and write a review about why my writing and my book is not based on good study of what is what, kindly refrain from it and use the energy to do something nice for yourself, like eat an ice cream and if you are diabetic, think about a new brand that would cater healthy sugar free ice creams. Unless of course, you like to bask in that feeling of leaving a very masterfully written review and that’s how you make sense of your existence.

The good thing is this is a book you can stop reading and I will be happy just to know its on your shelf and you gave it a minute if not read it all.

We need to feel we exist, some of us want to feel it without knowing that’s what we are looking for. We need to be doing something to help make us feel alive and more often than not we end up doing things that makes us hate that we exist but still not accept it. Instead to feel less frustrated we just make things worse.

I remember this time I asked a rickshaw driver, if he could wait a few minutes, so I can get the many bags of grocery and stationery I ordered and I do not know if he was going through the worst kind of midlife crisis but he went on this angry profanity laced diatribe about how he got so many better things to do and I sinned like no one ever has. I stood there processing it all and my proclivity to lazily resign from expending energy in any kind of conversation helped me look like I zoned out and it was not happening to me. Don’t get me wrong, I heard everything and felt like shit later but the only rebellion I did was walk back and carry the bags home. During that walk back I saw the same guy pass and he had a mocking laugh. It could be me saying things that would help making me feel less bad but I made a point that this driver felt pretty proud. He probably felt like he existed. He would go around and tell people about how he took a stand against a guy unjustly asking him to wait 2 minutes to get a bag. He probably exaggerated it enough to look like I had horns and I was a filthy rich bureaucrat/capitalist taking advantage and feeding off the efforts of the middle class workforce that he is. He probably told his other friends that he used very powerful vocabulary and had me shut up and cry out loud.

I saw him many times after and the last time I cared to remember, he still saw me laughed and told the other driver he was having tea with something.

I watched more videos of monkeys and it made so much sense. Us people and the shit we do and say to validate our being alive. It’s so amusing. What do we all want? Where are we headed in such a careless rush?

Why are WE?

The good thing is we would all perish anyway. The bad thing is we do not care to remember how vulnerable we are. The good thing is we always have things to tell ourselves to defend what we do to make it seem trivial the madness we carry within us. The bad thing is we never really face ourselves. The bad thing is even with God and religion, we never live to make our suffering feel worthwhile by helping ease another person who could do the same for us.

What a joke! Shit! Did I segue from a random guy verbally assaulting me into the philosophy of suffering and the importance of coexistence? See, this is the problem, I am the the problem. You are the problem.