Sitting here I am reminded for the one
millionth time in my life so far how ignorant I am. Here, in this
place there are sounds of friendship and sociality, laughter and
conversation. I’m sure they are telling their stories, the stories
of their days, their jobs, their lives to each other but I will
never know for sure. I don’t understand a single word they are
saying because I sit over coffee ten thousand miles and 17 hours
away from my home in a country where they speak a completely
different language than my own. Of this new language, I know what
seems like less than 1% of the most common phrases so you see I’m
really quite useless and I might as well be deaf. Though as soon as
I consider how much that would help me to concentrate on the book I
was reading before all these crazy thoughts about my ignorance came
into my head, I notice the music playing softly underneath and in
between all the foreign sounds and I feel a twinge of gratitude for
my good ears which though they cannot decipher a single noun from
all the conversations going on around me can at least lend me some
comfort in the soothing sounds of a flute and violin.
If it were just me in this chair with
this coffee and the music in the background without all the
gibberish that echoes between my perfectly good hearing though
ignorant ears, I might be able to close my eyes and pretend I am ten
thousand miles and seventeen hours away back home at ease with
myself, unaware of my state of ignorance and the discomfort of
life’s great contradictions. Contradictions? Did I write that? Once
again my hand teaches the rest of me what my mind is thinking.
Contradictions, I guess. Life’s great contradictions. So perplexing
that they interrupt my coffee. Take for instance winter when the
best time to be outside is when it is snowing but at the exact same
time it is snowing is when outside is it’s coldest and I only last a
few minutes before my fingers are numb, completely useless and about
to fall off.
This makes me think of books, all the
contradictions in books like the Bible for instance of which I was
required to memorize great quantities of as a child and all during
college to make me a better person because it is the greatest book
of all though not really a book more of a collection of little books
some of which contradict each other at times. One says one thing
while the next one says something different but together they make
one Truth, I was taught, so I’ve come to realize Truth is a
contradictory thing like winter and the Bible and people in general.
This is like famous actors in famous movies who cry on screen about
how desolate their lives are and how alone and poor and unwanted by
society they are but I have a hard time buying it when in real life
they are famous actors who are almost never alone are anything but
poor and by definition are the most desired members of
society.
All my life I’ve known people. Most of
you have. And people are funniest of all because usually the ones
everybody loves are the pretty ones but I’ve known so many pretty
people in my life who weren’t really so lovable and some of the most
lovable people I’ve known weren’t really so pretty but never seemed
to have as much as the pretty people because pretty people seem to
have it all. Appearances. Now there’s a contradictory thing. Here I
sit, all Casper white, light hair, light eyes and I stick out like a
half frozen finger in this place ten thousand miles and seventeen
hours from home when all I really want to do is blend in and hide.
Maybe its to disguise my state of ignorance but mostly its because I
just want to watch instead of be watched, to learn and listen with
understanding to all these foreign things happening on top of and in
between the soothing sounds of a flute and violin.
All kinds of people have tried to tell
us what life is but to me life is more a collection of little lives
some of which contradict each other at times. It’s one big period of
time made up of hundreds of little periods of time that together
make up a person’s Truth. Did I not sit over coffee ten thousand
miles and seventeen hours away wishing and dreaming of this place
only to sit here and do the same in reverse?
No longer a young child memorizing
scripture, I am a slightly older child not memorizing anything at
all anymore except less than 1% of the most common phrases. Back
then I thirsted for attention while here and now I would gladly give
it all up just to blend so I could really watch everything here
happen just as it happened a million times long before I ever
traveled all those miles and all those hours. And so what if all I
ever observe in life is contradiction because life is contradiction
and doesn’t learning something new like that make me a somewhat
better person?
I came to get a hot cup of coffee and
look, I’ve let it go cold beside me.
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