A World of Words
It has become my Saturday afternoon routine to park myself at a cafe and blog. I'll have a simple Americano and some croissant or bagel for lunch. Occasionally I'll even have some pasta. Today, I'm having my favourite cranberry salad. Lunch is optional for me. But on a weekend, I'll try to indulge myself a little bit.
I don't know what I'm going to write today. I have some serious topics that I have been thinking about over the past week but I'll save them for another time. I want to relax today. To relax with words coming out spontaneously from my mind--which also means I'll be rambling in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way.
I am thinking of having some beers after this. Do I have any qualms drinking alone? Not at all. I enjoy the company and camaraderie of friends but there's also pleasure in being alone at the bar, slowly nursing a cool beer on a hot afternoon. Sometimes you strike up interesting conversations with strangers; other times you are just grateful that you have a chance to be by yourself, reflecting on things that cross your mind. If the light is good, I might be inclined to read too, and perhaps even pen a few words in my journal.
It is also fun observing people; people who are going about doing what people do--satisfying their craving for things and experiences, courting, procreating or working towards the goal of procreation. People struggling with fear and loneliness; people trying to maximise pleasure and happiness; people trying to be people, living perpetually unsatisfactory lives.
The rich and the poor mired in their petty concerns. The rich, always insecure in their perceived insufficient wealth, worshipping those above and trampling those below, feeling unrecognised for what they have achieved and trying at every moment to trumpet them to the world. The poor, defiant of their circumstance, overcoming their sense of inadequacy, wallowing in victimhood or clawing with vengeance to stake their claim in an uncaring world.
Is the world cruel? No, it is just indifferent. The rocks have nothing against the crashing torrents of the river. The world bewitches us with its many allures and dampens our naive enthusiasms by repeatedly breaking our hearts. We have grandiose projects of bringing forth beautiful children who will make the world a better place. But your so-called 'better place' is not always congruent with theirs.
And here in this cafe, we sip our lattes and tap and flick our smartphones, smiling at another stupid meme, texting our longings to another uncaring soul, lip-servicing social friends, whiling time away--enjoying life.
This moment, once experienced, once expressed will never come again. It is gone, the moment it is tasted. Life is beautiful because it is ephemeral. We cling to snapshots of experiences in our memory and call that our lives. No, life is not your memory of who you are, nor is it what you are going to be. Life is. Life is this word that I am typing now. This one. and this one. And life goes on, because I have not run out of words.
I will continue typing these words, because I can only live through words. In this world of words, every word expressed is a an act of creation. Every word consumes energy. And when word ceases, so does life. Didn't some religious tome say that in the beginning was the Word, and that's how everything began?
