PA: Blog-City // 05
November 6th – Rain
So much for honesty.
It’s cold out tonight. A light drizzle has been mopping the ground for a few hours now. I think back and smile lightly to myself, in wonder of all that has happened and the amazing… loss, of so much. Hm… people. How many times have I tried to explain to people… Ah, they never understand. Which is a major reason why I’ve been so hesitant to explain anything at all about recent events. I’ve seen the blood a misunderstanding can spill. And am anxious to avoid them. I slip sometimes though. If I don’t speak, people will assume, and if they assume, they understand, whether what they understand is what really is or isn’t. And that also creates a misunderstanding.
It is in that satirical wonder that I found myself standing blankly by the side of the road watching the rain. Ever remembering… And I think back, and I smile because this winding top of useless words spinning down farther and farther in hopeless effort to uncover truth is finally winding slowly down, and is running out of steam. I hope. I think about people. I think about secrets. I think about truth and lies and honesty and dishonesty and cliche and figures of speech and… eventually they all pool together and mean the exact same thing. I guess that’s always the reason that the question of ‘why’ has always been the most important one to answer.
In the past few months I have seen so many faces on so many of the same people. And I’ve had my eyes torn open wide. You see I had it all wrong. I thought I understood society. I thought I understood people for the most minute of instances. How… presumptious of me. And suddenly this world I construct that makes sense falls apart and all the minor inconsistencies that existed before become clear and obvious, and I then understand that I’ve been wrong all along. So many faces… It’s a whole new world I discovered. Well, not really knew. It’s always been there, just… it’s a world that was never mine. I had my own world and my own fantasy. I had my own dreams and assumptions concerning… just everything. And over the past few months I got to know some different people. And I got a taste of another world, a silent current running directly parallel to mine, but invisible to those outside of it, and invisible to those who live within it. I got a small taste of this person’s world and I think they got a small taste of mine. And it clashed, violently. Not better I guess, not worse, just different. And not opposed, just incompatible. So all there could be was a taste. And I think she walked away with that flavor lingering in her mouth. Me? I wondered. And I… I guess I got too curious and my curiousity got the eventual better of me. I threw up my hands shouted “Carpe diem!” and took the biggest bite I could manage.
Click, everything changes. I felt like Columbus for a while. You don’t see them because you’re not in them. But over those past few months, I saw something I’ve never seen before in my life. And so much more made sense because I didn’t live in a world that other people saw. I lived apart, and misunderstood the world those around me shared. And it’s utterly amazing. I’ve been responding to a few rants and there’s never anything solid in them. Which is the way with emotion. In one sentence, one speaks of a love that cannot possibly ever end if it exists in the first place, and then in the next, in a new rush of emotion, one says they once had that love, and now it’s gone, that it’s no longer felt. And on request, too.
I read through letter after letter and book after book and relived memory after memory and I put everything together and I found something solve through the smoke of such a fire… And I saw the new world I had discovered and put the two side my side. And they matched… perfectly. And I felt as if shot at the revelation. So much for honesty… I wish people could hear themselves. I wish that people could honestly… HONESTLY, just listen to themselves when they speak. They’ll go on, rant, sling some mud, dredge up crud, boild some blood and let us know about the facts, the unjust acts, the cruel attacks made unto them, and then they’ll take it all back. And the reason? They never meant it in the first place. Great… you never meant that… just… what? Why? You see that’s why that question is so important. Because people with lie and believe it because they’re world defines it as truth. Oh accusations… misunderstandings.
“I did it for you. I said all that so not to hurt you.”
So much for honesty. It made sense. People do not speak truth, they speak what they need to speak and then it changes. Almost immediately. the end. I put it together and it made so much sense it was staggering. This new world wasn’t really a new world at all, it was only- their world. And not mine. That’s why so many misunderstandings, that’s why so much conflict. I lok back over the past few weeks and I have never seen so many faces… They wear so many faces. Depending on everything from what they want to who’s around. So much, for honesty. I’ve seen people change faces in the blink of an eye recently. Talking to them one second and their happy and smiling and a split second later they stand and bolt away mid conversation, because the company was different suddenly. And I thought wow, I understand exactly how necessary it is, but how honest is it? People might think about living this honesty thing before you pitch it to others. So many faces. They wear them in their worlds. They change so many times. Mostly its leverage. You wear what’s appropriate, what’s acceptable, what benefits. Yadda yadda yadda. And this new world I found, becomes one-enormous-lie… It’s a different world. Oh society… wow. People aren’t honest with themselves. They don’t believe certain things hard to believe. They don’t accept things that don’t fit what works. And they create a lie, just instinctively, and they live it. And the world’s a better place because no one has to worry about believing what they force to be untrue. They lie to themselves and that lie, that tapestry of so many millions of subtle allowances envelops them and it’s so snug and warm… it’s too cozy to remove. That’s the world people become. Their face that changes. And it’s so obvious, but so accepted. It’s an understanding between people. Everyone knows it’s a lie. everyone knows that they change faces every which direction.
“Don’t distrust me though, just because I lie to my parents doesn’t mean I’d ever lie to you.”
Wow, which one of you is that? The one that belonged to me, or the one that exists around your parents? Around friends, in different weathers, so mysterious, so dramatic, so soap opera… I opened my email and laughed- “what is all this brick and stone nonsense?” People choose their words carefully depending on whom they’re speaking with and it’s absolutely amazing the webs some people weave. The understanding though is that in this world, everyone knows, and everyone ignores because everyone believes in their world and the solid fact that it’s never fallen apart… not yet, because it never had any reason to. Everyone in this world knows that not everything you say is true, that half of it’s a lie. But it’s okay, because the one being lied to is a liar as well. They have their own faces and lies and world and… everyone- understands together, that they all lie, together. And its okay. It’s acceptable, it’s a figure of speech anymore… and, I guess…. it’s a very delicate dance, this world. Like the party-goers at Gatsby’s. And that’s how the world turns I suppose. I understand now. I understand all the faces and all the dishonesty and all the lies and misunderstandings. They have this understanding with each other, this world. The part that I missed I guess. So it really is my fault, all these terrible misunderstandings in the first palce. I just never connected with that. When I say something I mean it, what a crime… To not exaggerate. To not kid myself. My own self! I don’t kid myself the truth. And now, because of that, truth is about all i’ve got left and it’s really a worthless thing in a world where truth is whatever you’d rather it would be.
Lies. Not so much lies even… just little allowances that people make themselves. A choice to be, to believe, to understand, to pretend, to be concerned, to make another feel better, to protect themselves from the truth. Just allowances. Tiny little things. Like dew, like little drops of water. And all the people together and all the lies forms a great cloud of confusion to one who doesn’t live within it, to one who resides in a separate world… And the cloud of confusion collects all the drops together, all the little denials and it forms like a great rain, drop by drop by drop. And the rain falls drop by drop by drop and is enough, it is just enough, and great enough, that when the shelter of illusion is removed and the rain is allowed through, past the barrier of misunderstanding, to where one discovers the truth, the truth that is there is no longer any truth at all, the rain, then, is enough to drown even the most powerful of fires. The fires all go out, and there is no hope of rekindling any such fire until either the rain stops, or a new shelter against the rain is built, till a new illusion is formed and a new lie to protect the dream that was once a fire begins. But for now… the fire remains completely consumed. In absolute wonder and awe of the brave old world just discovered.
Now you see when I say that once you ask too many questions and receive too many answers you wish so hard that you had never asked in the first place because the answers were worse than the confusion. Than not knowing at all. I’ve been watching this dance for a while now and it enchants me like no other. Weaving people in and out of each other. Watching faces… watching the rainfall.
It is like rain. It is very much like rain.
