April 2, 2008 Why does it matter?
When I was about 5, I’d spend most afternoons lying on the floor and imagine I was dead. My idea of death was – nothingness. It was simple. Being 5, the memory of being in total nothingness was, perhaps, naturally easier to connect with. With nothing much worthy to be termed as life experience, I would try very hard to recall as far back as I could, to my initial contact with my existence. Awareness of my being, some would call it. I had to settle with the fact that I could never remember the sensation felt from my mother’s first touch and what it was like to behold the form of human for the first time. I could, however, remember vaguely waking up one night not sensing my mother by my side and being terrified by flashes of camera lights. I ‘knew’ at that moment, that there was a time when I did not exist, and I concluded, when one dies, one returns to the same state of nothingness. I was afraid.
My first major revolt – I was 7. I protested to the fact that I had to go to school. The idea that an entire population is made to sit in a room and do the same thing at the same time was an abomination to me. That kind of institutional confinement was an intimidation. I had to ask permission when I wanted to pee. It was scandalous to have to hand over what was naturally engineered as the excretory system of the body to the personified unilateral prerogative called teacher. If I had to pee I just had to pee! Occasionally, the rights to my bodily function need were denied. Understandably so. It was a price to pay for my curiosity. On my way back from the loo, I would often wander through the corridors of the training chambers called classrooms and wonder at how people would willingly give up their rights to throw stones, play marbles and run as freely as they want.
I returned to class one day and was told that I had to draw a chicken. I couldn’t. And I cried. I was afraid. Afraid because everybody else could do it. But I couldn’t.
Like everyone else, I had my first dance and it was sweet. She was hot. But it didn’t work out for me. She ended up angry with me. I didn’t understand why relationship was so complicated. I was afraid that people would not love me. In fact, I grew up finding it rare to see people really loving each other, selflessly. Later on, I decided that I should just let someone love me. I found out that I am afraid to be loved. That I am not able to love in return. And she too ended up angry with me.
I have so much to give. But people are generally selfish. I am particularly sensitive to these tendencies of late. They want to change others. They want to own and consume others. Yet, they sound so weak and needy. They have their ways of making others feel guilty and weak. And the world sets up the stage for it. It suffocates me. I am afraid of people. People who are over dependant on others.
I ask my friend the other day. Does relationship mean anything to him. There are some relational connections which one can’t change. I don’t choose to be connected to some people in my life. People who make choices. We worked out how we interact which each other. We started from love, respect, honor and ended up in anger, disappointment and resentment. Now, I think I am indifferent. But what is the right thing to do? But what can be so wrong?
I was taught that everyone is special. If so, then who is ordinary? If no one is ordinary, then how can anyone be special? I settle with this: everyone is different. I am happier.
I am still afraid of the idea of nothingness. Perhaps I don’t fear death as much. I can remember what I did and where I have been. But of course, there’s no way to know if it has been nothingness all the same.
- 6 comments
- Posted under scribblings
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whoami
said
I read your story and I find your life special….I relate to you and I find you special….special in ways that I cant find in other beings that I have related to…special in your thoughts, perhaps because you contemplate so much over things that I dont ponder over…special because you cause me to think twice…not because you set out to convince me or change me but because you sincerely express and shared your views and thoughts….views shared not because you think THATS THE ANSWER but you lay it out to be explored….special because you are so different from people who crossed my path….of course special in your unique idiosyncrasies as well…but thats you! after all the conversations I cant claim to know you well…I only know you as far as you want to reveal the you that you know….and maybe I have caught certain yous that you are not aware of yet but yet those are only up to my interpretations.
our conversations are special to me…when we talk I think we subconsciously open the dooors into a neutral space….a lifeless space of exploration…and BINGO! as we travel the space, somehow life springs from within….thoughts meet, thoughts crossed-examined, thoughts differ and fresh aspects open…sometimes I leave for home enriched, sometimes pensive….sometimes a bit weary that I may tread into thoughts I daren’t explore…sometimes i just let them be cos I lack the courage
In many ways you are ordinary too….people don’t see you and give you a second look cos you don’t look human….sometimes you choose to be ordinary…but I believe in most relationships we start ordinary then we discover the differences and as we accept and relate to the differences, we discover that something special in the relating
In all that richness of your journey, I am glad you are still in touch with nothingness…..I call you blessed….
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Justy
said
You know how entertained I am by your chicken story, don’t you?
Anyway, you asked some difficult question there which is gonna make me going “hmmmm…” for quite a bit for the week. “Hmmmm…”
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lil' jennie
said
Although my responses to you were a little bit unconvincing the other night, deep down I do believe that you still take me as a good friend. And I meant every word on that bookmark. Happy Be-early Birthday again. Am worried about my uncle 😦
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lianghin
said
In fact, I find the conversations, especially when accompanied by a bottle of wine, more than exciting … intoxicating. Yet, whoami, I wonder if I’d still call it blessed when I sit at the edge of the bar counter at the age of 50, running through my entire memory and still find that I am feeling nothing at all.
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lianghin
said
Yes Justy, I know how amused you are by that story.
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whoami
said
I suppose at that point you could be too intoxicated with the many life experiences to feel anything is something and thus most things are nothing…ask someone who is 50 for concurrence….haha…I suppose you are not too intoxicated now to have a hunch what that haha is about??! Wine please…conversation please….wine and engaging conversations can be blissfully pulsating