A Good Old-Fashioned Me.

I have so many things to say and it won't be right if I don't let it be known to the world. I have established my dependency on my feelings so I will say this just this once, you might be right for thinking a certain way, I will completely understand it but I might not see eye to eye with you and that doesn't make either of us wrong. We're different and there can always be a difference of opinion, in the way that you and I see the world. I'll get back to this in the course of this piece. I don't see things as conventionally right or wrong. I mean sure, I won't justify it if you murdered someone but if you punched someone real hard, I'll question it by giving you the benefit of the doubt. I might be slightly biased if you matter to me, but I'll try my best to satisfy all parties concerned. I will strive to be perfect and give you the 12/10 version of me that you deserve. I won't deny it, to an outsider, none of this may seem fair but it need not always be that way. Our whole world is an unfair mess, everyone relentlessly trying to square up to the other's actions and where does that leave us? Where do we stop? Why does everything have to be fair conventionally? Here's a hot take.

Perspectives. In a lawless unfair world, I get stabbed. I take a hit. It is pretty serious and I could have lost my life. What would I be expected to do? In an attempt to restore the balance of fairness, I stab the person back with equal if not greater magnitude. Does that even it out? Yes, conventionally. But what we tend to overlook is that when you murder a murderer, the amount of murderers in the world remains the same. In that moment of maintaining a larger equilibrium, you tipped over the scales to your own life. You are now the same person you got stabbed by. An eye for an eye and the world goes blind.

Now, let's run this my way. In a lawless unfair world, I get stabbed. I take a hit. It is pretty serious and I could have lost my life. But I didn't lose it and was given a second chance. I took that chance and I went to the person who stabbed me. They would be scared, assuming that I've come to exact revenge or get them apprehended. I, however appeal to their latent humanity. A side of them, perhaps forgotten over the years of what the world put them through. I share with them the same chance life shared with me. We're both on the same page and that is truly fair.

What if the person stabbed me again and I didn't make the cut? You might ask, emphatically. Then you'll know that life is random at best and the very fact that I lived through it the first time was a chance given to me and I made the best of it. As humans, the best we can do is try. Not to restore balance but to create our own. There is so much more that we as people have to give back and yet we don't stop for a second to think about how we could be out there handing out these 'n' number of chances. As long as you live and breathe, you are capable of giving these chances because there's never a limit to what you bring to the table. The day you run out of chances, is the day you stop trying.

With this in mind, I naturally tend to find any and every chance to try. I believe that I can become the change I want to see in the world. I believe in the good things and that they can be as contagious as the bad ones. I am to share with you this beautiful life, encompassing every emotion, every topsy turvy road. A journey so unfathomable and variant, so dull yet so colourful. A true euphoria.

This is where I face my biggest challenge. Not everyone sees the world the way I do which is completely understandable. So I try to become the chance, become that experience, the euphoria, if you will. Most people look at this and advise me against it, not because I'm doing something wrong, but because they care for me. They know that I would stop at nothing and they fear losing me to my hopeful optimism. And its true, in the past I have been known to get carried away in this process and losing myself when the world didn't acknowledge my efforts to see beyond the limited, conventional, run-of-the-mill spectrum of the rainbow called life. However, owing to my graciously sped up way of life, with every new chance, I learnt and I grew. I realised how much more I had to give without losing sight of my goals, my existence and that for me, has been phenomenal. I might sound like a nerd when I quote Steve Rogers aka Captain America and believe me when I say this, "I can do this all day."

So what if you and I are different? Polar opposites, even. Do they not say that 'opposites attract'? They do, but then again, conventionally and we all know how I feel about that. I was recently introduced to a different outlook. Opposites attract, but isn't attraction just a front? The start to what follows when they attract, a thing of the surface, beneath which lies a plethora of unexplored stories, memories and a whole lot more. So yes, to maintain a sense of semblance, we can live with "Opposites Attract". A way to show on the surface that yes, there is balance in the universe.

As with everything else, there's a problem with this. Everything has an exception. So for us to take what we're given and accept it as our fate also implies accepting a fundamental flaw in the statement, because it is naïve and unassuming to not believe that there's more to it than what meets the eye. The bond that we share, as humans, can't just be a result of opposites attracting. The respect, the love, the trust comes from more than just that. It comes from acknowledging. Opposites acknowledge.

 

I am your opposite. I differ from you in ways more than one. We connect because we acknowledge this. Its in this acceptance of the knowledge of diversity that we bond, for our latent humanity knows this as euphoria. I bring to the table, cards of my own as do you. These cards lay the foundation of a magic fully known to us, yet somehow every single time, it leaves us in awe.

Then what does this mean for us?

You are a beautiful person. I know this because I see you, for who you truly are. The world hasn't been kind to you. You have been let down time after time, your faith, diminishing with each passing moment. It has had its instances of relief, which have still kept you going, that tiny flickering flame in a lamp running on fumes. A gust of wind, your worst foe. You are a strong one though, determined to not give up. Yet you live with the impending fear of the darkness taking over what once was a bright sunny day. Then there comes a chance. A chance to renew this flame with vigour and let the light soar. But you fear that if you take flight, the gust of wind will topple you over, leading you to fall into a pit of darkness, never to be seen again. So at the risk of losing the final flame to the winds that life may throw your way, you build a wall. A wall so tough to scale, no wind would ever dare come near. You end up creating for yourself the darkness that you strived to avoid. You still are the tiny little flame, but you shut yourself in, denying the world a chance to witness your true warmth. And so in the process, the lamp grew cold. The flame at its dying embers, not knowing why it burns on.

I've felt the warmth of that flame. I've gotten burnt too but that's because I didn't know any better than to jump into it recklessly. It may seem tiny but it holds the power of a thousand suns, a commendable force, one to be reckoned with and its not all about burning things in its path for it knows to be just the right amount of warm to the one with cold feet. It knows not, how much the world needs its warmth in order to see a brighter tomorrow. And sure there is now a wall in between us, that has left me tending to my third degree burns but I live and breathe. I have my chances still, a whole lot of them. Maybe instead of scaling the wall conventionally and risk getting thrown off again, I let the wall lower itself. Being gentle, with each new chance, letting no gust of wind hinder the reconstruction of the lamp. Someday, and I know this, the flame will burn brighter than ever, and I will smile in its graceful warm embrace, without the fear of getting burnt. That's the chance the flame deserves, that's the chance that you deserve.

It is not going to be easy. It never was. Maybe that's why you are who you are and I am a good old-fashioned me.