There are cheerful prospects, and there are the society sections, where dreams turn terribly wrong – lovers have fistifights with knives and gasoline, children are ignored, maimed, abused, burnt, elderly parents are given short shrift, or given too much shrift and then left with empty bank accounts... the stories go on, most if not all ending in a tawdry yellowish grey blue photo snapped in the police lobby. Voilà! Your moment in the spotlight!\
I hardly ever read the society pages. Besides the infrequent and tactlessly written good news, the rest seems a deliberate spread of depressing humanity bordering on speculations of stupidity. Of course we are stupid, but who likes to know it? Perhaps it serves as society’s gossip pages: greater in function than the dreamy and harassed or attention hogging lives of celebrities, the society sections serves as a moral reminder of what is both outrageous and unacceptable to our society. We never want to look as bad as we’d look when we’re given a box in the society section, perhaps (if we’re lucky!) taken a picture of by the seemingly never trained in photography reporters with their impeccable knack for bad angles and worse lighting.
The worse sin of the society pages, I believe, is that they make you tired of society itself. Every single beautiful act that you do seems destined for a mundane end. All motives of passion are made garishly shallow in the light of crimes. You will always be betrayed, you will never be truly loved or respected. Like the saying that male gynecologists will tire of having sex with their wives because they see the dark side of vaginas every day, the society pages make you tired of life.
Sometimes I just want to walk away, to flee, as though there truly is a place to go to where one can escape this mundanity. That I in a moment can find slight enjoyment in the company of men and in the next look curiously at their activities as though it were an alien projection, is something of a play with me – but a serious play. I’ve never been entirely satisfied with what is deemed common sense, normal, functional livings – to take our actions for granted, our lives and the final results for granted, seems the most obtuse thing possible for us to do. And we always have a choice. Why the fuck don’t we have a choice?
“Keep it real.” So say the hippies, later in a faddish way that denoted a blessing rather than a serious wish. I fluctuate between deluding myself enough to make my reality more palatable – and perhaps this wish comes true through sheer force of will – and wanting to just do spinning jumps into the sky so that I could leave the idiots behind. No, we cannot leave the idiots behind, we must be kindly, and grateful for their sensible existence so that we have sustenance. But, there is always that nagging sensation of dissatisfaction that tears through my senses and leave me blind with a strange craze that sees no outlet.
Some have written stories that created their ideal of what the world should be – beautiful, elegant, functional, deep with meaning and understanding, a rebellion against the jaded reality of we’re studying just to get a better life, we’re working just for the extra buck. So this right now means nothing?
Belief resuscitates fairies, and so it shall resuscitate our dreams. Believe that the universe is beautiful, and it will come to you.
I want to know you.
