(no subject)
This will be long, probably.
I just have to wonder. How I am defined by those who don't know me, or knew me once and not so much now? Am I looked at as a coward or deserter for packing up my shit and leaving my friends and home behind? Or does the fact that I am in a fraternity peg me as a frat boy, college kid, or with any other negative moniker that is ultimately neither here nor there (as all outside perceptions, frankly, mean dick in the long run, and consequently, in the here and now). I just wonder. If the embroidering of Greek letters on my chest is reason enough for a person to decide that we'll never be friends. Or if my reverence of the past is unknown to everyone who is not deeply close with me, and I have resultantly become a slave to my past in that people who once knew me will judge me as--and think me the same person--I once was.
I just know that I pass by hundreds of people a day who either don't see me at all or see me as a single title given to me by recognizing my major, a summer job, an old job, my choice in music, my fraternity, my friends, my being a boyfriend, the brand of cigarettes I buy, the way I drive, what I eat, how I cough or sneeze, the way that I walk or speak, the clothes I wear and all the other nuances that mean so little and everything. And I do the same thing, typify, because I think it so much more disgusting to not notice a person than to acknowledge only what's in front of you and make up some kind of life for them. Is that egotistical and am I wrong? I don't know.
Does anyone know how incredibly hard a thing it is to know a person?
I do, I think, and I don't know what to do about it. How to know someone intimately (or if it even matters); how to make it known that people should know more about me than what I let on to when I'm not paying attention. But I think I'm a private person--even this is too much to make me comfortable--and I don't want people to know me, I just want everyone everywhere to know that there is so much to everyone else.
I want you to know that I smile at night, when I am outside and it is windy.
I want you to know that there are things like that happening everywhere all at once, and it should mean something to you. Not that I am part of it, at all, even--but that there are people, flesh and blood human beings with souls in parks, on sidewalks, in classrooms, cubicles, pews, on the freeway that are so goddamn beautiful and fleeting and complex and honest, and you'll never know. There are so many stories that are so much more important and consequential than yours. Or money. But that is not to say yours is not great or that it shouldn't be told. That would be a crime . . . but you know it already.
I just have to wonder. How I am defined by those who don't know me, or knew me once and not so much now? Am I looked at as a coward or deserter for packing up my shit and leaving my friends and home behind? Or does the fact that I am in a fraternity peg me as a frat boy, college kid, or with any other negative moniker that is ultimately neither here nor there (as all outside perceptions, frankly, mean dick in the long run, and consequently, in the here and now). I just wonder. If the embroidering of Greek letters on my chest is reason enough for a person to decide that we'll never be friends. Or if my reverence of the past is unknown to everyone who is not deeply close with me, and I have resultantly become a slave to my past in that people who once knew me will judge me as--and think me the same person--I once was.
I just know that I pass by hundreds of people a day who either don't see me at all or see me as a single title given to me by recognizing my major, a summer job, an old job, my choice in music, my fraternity, my friends, my being a boyfriend, the brand of cigarettes I buy, the way I drive, what I eat, how I cough or sneeze, the way that I walk or speak, the clothes I wear and all the other nuances that mean so little and everything. And I do the same thing, typify, because I think it so much more disgusting to not notice a person than to acknowledge only what's in front of you and make up some kind of life for them. Is that egotistical and am I wrong? I don't know.
Does anyone know how incredibly hard a thing it is to know a person?
I do, I think, and I don't know what to do about it. How to know someone intimately (or if it even matters); how to make it known that people should know more about me than what I let on to when I'm not paying attention. But I think I'm a private person--even this is too much to make me comfortable--and I don't want people to know me, I just want everyone everywhere to know that there is so much to everyone else.
I want you to know that I smile at night, when I am outside and it is windy.
I want you to know that there are things like that happening everywhere all at once, and it should mean something to you. Not that I am part of it, at all, even--but that there are people, flesh and blood human beings with souls in parks, on sidewalks, in classrooms, cubicles, pews, on the freeway that are so goddamn beautiful and fleeting and complex and honest, and you'll never know. There are so many stories that are so much more important and consequential than yours. Or money. But that is not to say yours is not great or that it shouldn't be told. That would be a crime . . . but you know it already.