The average person does not much care about the world. It was the simplest truth. Most people only cared about their Sunday brunch. Their weeks were swamped under their contribution to the world. Their days built to the anticipation of Sunday—sleeping in, having a hearty brunch, going out and about and naturally, telling others they went out and about. Then, there were the champions of the bohemian, those with their art and their backpacks and their lives who did not conform. I vacillated between the two like a pendulum going too fast, almost as if it were broken. No one could fathom my allegiance.
I was as clueless about my life as a bird who often flies to land at a place—not knowing what it needs from here or why it has stopped at a random railing in the middle of town. It bobs its head, twists and turns it, and ultimately decides to fly away. I lived life like that little bird. I did not know where I stopped, for how long I lived a particular life, and what was I even pursuing in the grand scheme of things? I cared too much about flight. It was why birds got lost or separated from the flock; some were going places, some wanted to survive and stick together, and some only cared about flying.
In a seminar on all things wrong with our world, some idiot might call that laser focus. But focused and aloof were words for the same thing, viewed from different ends. I thought of all this when I was out having coffee, searching for love. I had met them for the first time, and a little exchange we had flew me into this tangent of thought. I don’t much remember what we talked about after. I could not care.
Oh, you are a writer? That is so inspiring.
I don’t think it’s inspiring. I think it’s just one way to live. Mine might not even be the wisest way.
I write sometimes, too, you know?
Oh, you do, do you?
Yes, when I get time after a long day or when I’m tired, I write sometimes.
That’s two “sometimes,” I mumbled.
Did you say something?
No, no, I didn’t; tell me, what do you write about?
I did not listen to a word from that point on. In my focused disinterest, I had already started thinking about these words—my words. I had already begun writing them.