Ramble on, life. I’ve been listening. I’ve been listening too closely to the things I wish were right. Or maybe they are right. I don’t know, I’m so darn confused, I hope everyone else is as confused as me. The voice of life echoes and I don’t know if it’s because I’m in a packed auditorium or an empty room. Some part of me hopes it’s the former. I’m not unique, I’m just another spectator, pulled along from act to act. The same curtain falls for everyone.
In the empty room, it’s just me. Sitting. Alone. Why is that better, being unique? If you’re really unique then how can anyone relate to you? If they can’t relate to you, you’re alone. What are my experiences? Are they a patchwork quilt of experiences someone has had at some point in the past, or are they a wholly new and unique flavour of life that only I can taste? Either way, the bottom line is I’m alone, either in an unfeeling crowd or an empty room.
Does that mean we’re all alone? No, it doesn’t. Some people don’t feel alone in a crowd, ditto for empty rooms. Hell, I like empty rooms most of the time. Unique or ubiquitous, you can choose to believe that other people feel what you feel or you can choose to feel like nobody can ever understand you. There’s no way of knowing for sure, is there? It’s a blank canvas.
But for heaven’s sake, who’s painting? I don’t think I am. My hand moves in ways I want but the colours seem arbitrary. I paint a tree because I’ve been given green and I like trees. Who gave me the green? Ah ham-fisted analogies, life, why can’t you ever even tell me if they apply to you? Questions questions questions and answers lie floating just beyond our reach.
I said I’ve been listening, but am I? I get so caught up in questioning that I think I’ve missed a step, something I should’ve seen. And I dive back into more pointless loops and spirals, why am I worried about being alone? Am I worried about being alone? I’ve been away from direct social contact for months and I’ve never been more consistently happy, so why does that idea of being alone on planet earth frighten me so much?
The canvas isn’t blank. It isn’t black or white. It’s grey. We paint blacks and whites and definite colours to create some comfortable polarity but behind it all, it’s grey. It’s always been grey. Why do we keep covering that up?
Give me an empty grey room, a concert hall in beige. Give me wishy washy colours that don’t know who they are. Don’t force me to paint in bright polarity, in stubborn certainty. But even my desire for grey doesn’t sit still. I want the certainty of grey, doesn’t that defeat its purpose?
My brain is a whirlpool at times, at others a crystal sea. I want to believe I’m one and not the other, I want to believe that others feel the same dissonance. But even if I hear it from others, what am I supposed to think? In a few hours I’ll be content and I don’t know if I’m sane now or I’ll be sane then. But maybe I’m just sane and insane, understood and alone, black and white.
Don’t give me resignation, soul, until your weather no longer changes. Don’t define me, reader – or friend, perhaps – until I define myself, for when I commit myself to a definition I will be truly lost. And life, don’t stop talking. I’ll be listening, in the grey room over there, and I’ll be the one rambling.
The Galley with No Name 