Mainstream America is as mentally diverse a flock of sheep and everyone is capable of hiding it. This disguise, this fandango we dance with the "latest breaking news", masks one vital truth: none of us truly know what role fate truly plays. Imagine standing at a crosswalk — you know when to cross, and you might know what's on the other side, but you have no idea what you will find there. You can imagine from a prior experience; but you can never be certain. Perhaps you want to know, perhaps you don't. You can cross at the signal and keep going and never have to do it again, for all it matters to you, but you wonder (you have to, you are compelled to by your curiosity), even as you walk, what might have happened if you had? What if the road kept going past the barrier? What if the land didn't end at the sea? We ask ourselves these questions to determine if we are merely ignorant or if our curiosity is part of a greater idiocy that we cannot quite comprehend.
I am forced to argue the former — idiocy implies senselessness, and it is a well known fact that all humans are sentient. We can choose which way to walk, but we don't particularly care about what happens after. We are enveloped in the grandeur of the world, and for a lifetime, held in the steady orbit of life's necessities — the choices, the turns, the emotions. But we cannot escape the truth that human intelligence is still nascent, a speck — an improvement that is not significant in the grand scheme of things. We know so little about the things around us, yet we learn with an all-consuming passion to know but never quite achieve that. The finger of blame should never be pointed at one's senses, which are very much developed. The word "idiocy" holds no true definition. However, as young creatures, we can only take in so much before we begin to develop doubt, fear, regret, and realize that in hindsight, we have always been young, and for our changing world, perhaps that is better.
This is taken from an underdeveloped ideology from a day after school when I walked outside to find small groups of people, entirely encircled in their own lives — content to sit on a ceramic bench for hours and always find a little speck of life to continue enjoying. On one hand, I chide them for not making use of their time, but that is the hypocritical side of me. The truth of the matter is, I would give anything to be them — to know the standards life has put forth for me and defy them in so innocent a way as staring at the clouds on a Wednesday afternoon, and thinking, instead of what one must do, what one can do, and imagining that perhaps this will be a lovely day after all.
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Andrea said:
Wow… that’s really… wow. You’ve got some great insight there. You kind of reminded me of the poem we had to read in English, “Reading Brothers Grimm to Jenny” by Lisel Mueller. I don’t know why. Maybe I just read the poem too many times. ahhah. And your writing style is impeccable, I don’t think I’ve read much at that level, and certainly never anything like that unpublished. -Andrea
Posted on October 6, 2006 10:32 PM; Permalink
Ranjani said:
Oh wow, I just started reading that poem. I think I love it! And thank you very much for your comments - I used to go for a short stacatto writing style and I think, after reading The Hours, I transformed a little bit. I like where it’s heading ^_^
Posted on October 6, 2006 10:46 PM; Permalink