Will you be there for me?

Lately, so many people have been asking me this. As if, in their storm tossed lives, they look for one constant, one rock… weather-beaten but there. They are unsure of where they go and when they will come. But if they do come back, they need the assurance that someone will be there for them, someone they can come back to. They want me to be that person- who will listen to them, be a balm on their travel weary bodies, soothe their uprooted hearts and minds. In the dynamic, ever-changing they ask, “will you be there for me?”
I say, “Yes, always.” Not forever, because forever has ceased to mean anything…. So, always, till the end of time. But when I ask them the same question, they look apologetic as if making an excuse for their fickle minds, hearts and loyalties.
So I sigh, and continue being there for them, without anyone “being there” for me.

YIKES! SAVE ME!

What am I doing sitting and writing an exam that I don’t care to study for and one whose outcome I’m unworried about? I should be sitting at home writing agnostic treatises, tearing popular beliefs to bits! I should be “out here” propounding theories and instigating people to a pseudo-intellectual debate about existence (or any other NON MBA topic) or making non-mainstream, experimental movies that make people sit up and think. I should be prodding, poking and pushing society to reach a higher level and stop running after the petty. Alas, I don’t have the mind of Socrates (thank God! look what happened to him!) nor the guts of Luther. So I shall be pushed and shoved against my will to do an MBA… can you imagine that?!?! I cannot see myself stuck in “bored” room meetings, telling people how to go about their work! How can I manage a company when I can’t manage my own life?! My ambitious parents want me to throw away my God-given talents and run with the herd (who are, by the way, making money). Money? Ça ne m'intéresse pas. I’d rather be a chocolatier in Belgium or a travelogue compére (even if I have to live on bread and water for a while). Who understands? Who will explain? Every time I tell anyone my plans, they sigh and say “Another dream snuffed out!” “ Another talent bites the dust!” Should I be another casualty? Another statistic in this graveyard of dreams? Is there anyone who’ll pull me out of this Hades and support my stand?

destination destiny

Is that really me? Pushed into a vortex of circumstances I have no choice in… Existing, not living, by the dictates of other people- family, friends, society… doing what is needed or required, not what I want or choose to do. And in all this I can’t reclaim the life that is supposedly mine because “I owe people things”… I owe my family for bringing me up, society for accepting me, so on and so forth. But why in all this meaninglessness should I exist? Why? Hmmm…. That is the first word that confronts me every morning. (Blame it on the existentialist in me… and Camus for influencing me) WHY must I get up and go abut doing things as if I mean them? WHY must I study what in my opinion is conformist bulls***? Unanswered questions of the pseudo-intellectual, rebellious mind. Society has always served to wipe out and eliminate entirely beings who question her ways. They are pushed into the inconspicuous subcultures and slowly forgotten. Society beats everyone into conformity0 in the flow of the river, in the run of the herd and anyone who sticks his neck out… “Off with their head!!!”
Must I meekly submit to this stomping of all that I hold dear or should I fight for my ideal ideals and risk getting ‘cut-off’? My own family doesn’t understand why I behave this way…. How do I expect an entire conformist civilization to do that??? “Please be a little more normal!” they beg. But can’t they see? I’m better than normal- I’m abnormal! Under the lie of teenage counterculture I have gotten away doing most of what I’ve wanted to do. But time is running out and soon the validation period to use that excuse will expire. I’ll need to face my fears and tell them that in all this orthodoxy/ compliance / consistency / accord / submission I need to be an individual. Or I’ll have to face the music and finally ‘grow up’. Two words I dread and have come to hate. Associated with untold responsibilities thrust upon members of a society once they are deemed to have reached a certain age- mentally. Shakespeare said “All the world’s a stage…” But this ain’t my kinda show baby! So I’d better get my act together with people who think like me or bid the old life a toodaloo and begin from scratch, away from the influencing currents of all that I have come to abhor in this place.