The Averting Stranger

It's crazy how people can be so different from each other. By and large, we tend to stick with ones that are alike. Every now and then, unfortunately or otherwise, paths cross that are far more conflicting. What's more, there are also reasons to stay. Each party might have its own, but generally, it's not by choice. Something interesting happened today. A woman who's insisted on speaking to me every single day for months on end has finally seen too much. 

I've always been somewhat of a loner, and for the most part, I've vehemently lamented it. In fact, I've largely considered it the bane of my existence. This sense of loneliness, how no one ever seems to choose me first out of their own accord, took much of my personal time in college. Then, when someone finally showed up, I essentially told her to fuck off. Funny how that works. Anyway, I stand by it 100%, I truly believe it was for the best. But the whole episode made me realize some interesting things. 

Mostly I learned a lot about myself, which I am still processing, but there was also some other stuff. For one, the girl seemed to have some kind of aversion to herself, and she certainly wasn't the first one I've met who's afflicted by this. Another woman comes to mind who seems to have made a conscious decision to not make sense of herself and the world at large. 

I guess most people are like that, aren't they? They try to stay out of their heads and occupied with the outside rather than looking inward. They make conscious decisions to not think about stuff or try to figure something out. Where does that come from? It seems so strange to me. Is it a guy thing to want to fix stuff? Why would it be exclusive to guys? 

I suppose girls have more urgent constant things in their lives that they have no control over. Their body makes them suffer every month, and they are sexualized and preyed upon by creatures that can easily overpower them. Perhaps if they were to realize the full gravity of their situation, they would be at risk of great stress. 

When someone is dealt such a shit hand that oughta make them feel hopeless, isn't it preferable to not know about it? So many things are hostile in life. So much that's beyond their control. It's not hard to imagine this aversion to awareness becoming habitual and transferring into other areas of their lives. But then, the sad truth is, you can't really do much anyway. What do I mean? Well, I say that guys like to focus on solutions and fix things, but you can't really do much about most things. 

You can certainly try, and so we must, but it rarely ends up making much of a difference. But at least the sense of awareness gives me peace. At least I don't have to sit around and wonder about the possibilities, I don't have to delude myself about how it should be, because I know after much deliberation that it is the only way it possibly could be.

If you try to break things down into causal connections, and you take a glimpse, however briefly, at the vast tapestry of awesome beauty that is reality, you can't help but accept things for what they are. You do what you can and forget what you can't. As horribly unjust as things are, you feel surprised that anything is holding together at all in the first place, kept intact by some inexplicable magic glue. 

And you can't help but marvel at it all. I'm not trying to be dickish, superior, or self-righteous, as usual, my aim is but another inquiry into truth for its truth's sake. So many people live their lives as blissfully incomprehensible. "Don't open the black box," they say to themselves, "nothing good will come out of it." Whether they've learned this consciously or, much more likely, unconsciously, they follow this way of life as a means of survival. It got them through thus far, surely it'll take them all the way.

Perhaps it didn't pay off to ask questions or try to figure something out in their childhood. Perhaps they even faced negative repercussions because of it. So they choose to look away. They look outside and keep themselves distracted. They focus on shiny things that make them feel good, until they don't. At which point, they bury their head in the ground. If I had a penny for every time I heard "I don't know" in response to things only the speaker can possibly know... 

At first, I felt flabbergasted, and to some extent I still do, but behind it, there is a creeping feeling of pity. After all, what can be more pitiful than watching a powerful angelic being caged in the body of an insect, with the key right in its hands? Like the literate person who never reads or the rich person who works to death before spending a single coin of their own accord. 

I remember the times I've buried my own head in the ground. I would smoke weed, get high, and binge-watch anime. I'd play immersive video games for extended points of time. I occasionally fall back into that pattern as well, in one way or another. I revisit it again and again.

Sometimes, when I'm back there, I see sober people on the flip side, drowning in their suffering. I see them, dead tired, pushing themselves to the brink and back, and for what? I think to myself, what a waste of life! Surely this is not what we were born to do. So I settle down in my seat, ready for another trip to wonderland. Many of those times, I'm well aware of the constant aches to be found on that flip side. Filled with one neverending sting after another, I feel it waiting for me when I'm done hiding away. 

To be completely honest, in those times, I genuinely fail to see the point of such an existence. I know very well that I've lost the will somewhere along the way, and I often have no clue where to even start getting it back. In this new shade of gentle blue light, I feel the pity fade away along with the frustration. I remember once again, what it's like, and I know now how easily one forgets. The mind isn't made to hold conflicting pieces of information at once. 

It's very limited in extractable memory because its main purpose in the day-to-day is to make the most urgent of all decisions: the ones of survival. So what if people are lazy? They're literally hard-wired to be. I'm the unnatural one who sits in his ivory tower, enjoying the freedom afforded to him by countless broken backs, oblivious to the responsibility I bear to return the favor. If anything, I'm what's pathetic. 

It's only natural to choose the safe option. It's only natural to do what has worked so many times before. The only reason I got out of the cage was because I had no choice but to stay. I had gazed too long and deep into the abyss, and it had touched me to my core. I could no longer choose to stay, knowing my full capabilities. How could I stay content with the imaginary worlds of other people, when I knew I could make my own? How could I stay trapped in a faulty body, when I knew I could be healed? How could I shut my mind, when I knew how exciting it felt when it opened? 

I began with the article to decipher the averting stranger in hopes of liberating them, but now I feel ashamed of the very idea. If the angel has chosen to stay in this cage, who the hell am I to say it should be different? A person might be very different from an insect, but it certainly isn't inherently any better or worse. An insect is beautiful in its own way. In this shimmering new golden light, the blissfully unaware take on a glow of their own. 

The innocent child's purity becomes something to admire and protect for as long as possible, and not some unproductive blob to be whipped into shape. Indeed it is true that many people are strangers to themselves, but perhaps they all have their own reasons. He who says "It oughta be otherwise" stands at risk of being a tyrant. I suppose the greatest gift for someone like that would be to stay out of their way. Or it's the least one could do, I should say. Perhaps a gift would be to accept who they want to be?

If they want to act like an insect, not only should they be allowed to be, but perhaps even encouraged? I suppose the best thing would be to love them completely for who they are. God knows how many spiders, caterpillars, and ladybugs I've picked up to admire closely before sending them back on their merry way. I certainly felt some degree of love toward them. They all play their own roles in that great ineffable tapestry that inspires me so. 

Nevertheless, as much as I might admire them, I shall never take one with me, for I know very well that I must be a person. I may fall back into my own shell occasionally, but in those times I feel lost more than anything else. I might slip back there in new ways every day, but it makes me feel repulsed and uncomfortable like an imposter hiding his real face. So at the end of the day, it's fine to look at others from afar and appreciate their beauty, but if we were to mingle, disaster ensues.

It's fine for me to play my game and for someone else to withdraw from theirs, but it becomes difficult when we try to restrict anyone else. The only concern that remains is whether the others actually choose to stay as they are or not. After all, they might be able to accept their horrifying reality when they see the reasons behind it. 

Making them aware seems to be the only possible solution, but in that act, you take away their choice. And so I feel the closest to storytelling rather than nonfiction. The former allows you to lull people into awareness with a false sense of security. "It's not real, it's just a story." While the latter hits like a kick to the head. Surely, we could use more lulls rather than kicks?