• NOTES FROM AN OTHER

    I think that life is a culmination of mistakes. Mistakes thought out, mistakes that just happened, and mistakes caused by foolhardiness.
    This is because carefully laid out plans stick to the edge of the paper only in your mind. Once you start to execute them, a thousand and one shortcuts, problems and persons pop up. Elements that did not factor in the original purpose. And so, the drawing board becomes bigger, the new players get a position on the pitch, and your head is a raging motherfucker.
    Pardon my French.
    Some people are blessed with the ability to do a thousand things at a time, others can't. These others can only execute one project at a time, and often dedicate whole phases of their life to that project. But, that doesn't sit well with the floor manager. He expects that Jo gets her teddy, Brad buys his shaving cream and you stay one step ahead of all pickpockets across two hundred and three aisles on the floor. 
    Sometimes, it is intense and entirely frustrating, at other times, it is the most rewarding thing ever.
    Intensity is a good thing for us, the others. We let it cook like roast in a crock pot, slowly and slowly and slowly, until we are simmering in the doneness. And then we we move at hair splitting speeds, speeds eschewing cardiac arrests and mind numbing paralysis. 
    Then there is a pause. That sudden pause that leaves us with tingles in our toes and hands, a buzzing in our bellies and hair standing in a straight line. The pause is necessary to our survival as a single minded people. Our single mindedness is ranked among the most abhorrent of qualities. Thus said the recruiter. And unfortunately, not many of us are considered good enough to work on a team.
    Being an other is hard.
    And so we cannot deal with unknowns nor spontaneity. We do not like uncertainties, neither do we appreciate unplanned plans. And as we move with such stealth and single-minded purpose, we block out everything. Thus, our mistakes are born. Sometimes out of foolishness, sometimes as an unfunny joke cracked by the clown that is appropriately named Life, and sometimes they are born from our desire for a rigid perfection.




    Good afternoon.
    It's Easter Monday, and I am not back to regular me yet. 
    And I did not think too much about this before I wrote it. It didn't sit in my head for days, like some of the others I have written. It crawled its way out, and here it is. There are a lot of analogies here, so take your time to read.
    Maybe you have felt like an OTHER before?
    Maybe you haven't.
    Maybe you're starting to understand YOU 101, in all of its intricacies belied by simplicity.
    Maybe you don't really care.
    Whatever the case is, just stay true to you.

    Photo by Jess Bailey Designs on Pexels


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