He came to a stop, suddenly confused, suddenly hearing what the man was saying.
"First rate stuff bro! Genuine one, no bluff."
Who are we? Who lies to passersby on an everyday basis in order to... what, turn a profit?
"It's just business bro."
No, he wanted no business in this world of just business.
___________________________________
He couldn't hear himself think. It was the city, all the friction of
contact with all these people living in close proximity, all those
silent abrasions, noisy encounters.
The seething writhing raging mass of the masses.
___________________________________
It was hard to dream with all that baggage. Baggage: the homogenized past and present of our youth.
The stifled dreams, normalized hopes. How hard is it now to imagine
someone dreaming of a different future? A dream of his/her own, not
merely that of the petty bourgeoisie, culturally ingrained, inherited
from a generation desperate to not fail and therefore afraid to dream.
It is no dream, these not-dreams. Not-poor. Not-lacking. Not-a-failure. Not-sad. Not-childless. Not-lonely.
___________________________________
The sunset was particularly beautiful today, and we stopped, just like
that, a five minute lull where we stopped thinking about work, the car,
the mortgage.
We all know each day has the potential for boundless beauty, that
hurtling at a speed of one thousand miles an hour about the axis of this
earth and sixty-seven thousand miles an hour through space we are bound
to meet something interesting along the way. But we choose to forget.
What's been buried even deeper is that people, too, are capable of great beauty. Yes, this seething writhing mass.
Maybe we never did want to bury all this knowledge, but we never had a
choice, did we. Slowly we are smothered by this world, beautiful as it
may be, by all the debris, the flotsam and jetsam of the various wrecks
we've made of our lives. Until we die while still alive, screaming
silently into our indifferent graves.
Until and unless we stop to see the sunset, to see each other, again.
___________________________________
Never so shockingly alive as when he stepped fresh off the plane, nor so desperately alone.
___________________________________
And if you, too, think these thoughts, then welcome! Welcome to being human.
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