I See A Man

Just write. ‘The first draft, you write with your heart. The second, with your head.’ – William Forrester, ‘Finding Forrester’. 

I see a man who refuses to allow his age to be a handicap, neither to him or the public. I see a man who refuses to allow anyone to claim a handicap, for if they are in right mind enough to claim said handicap, they must be in right mind enough to live well anyways. I don’t like the term ‘succeed’. I bet a lot of people would stop using many of the words they use after one glance at a dictionary. Our words don’t mean the same things they used to.

The man I see is walking. He’s walking alone and with a purpose, he’s not upset in his loneliness and in fact, he wouldn’t even use that word to describe the state of being we find him in. That word doesn’t mean the same thing it used to. Now it’s almost an insult, a crime against the best nature of a person. Loneliness. It means to be alone. To be without human company over a given time period. No one is really lonely. No one is ever not lonely. So see, it doesn’t mean what it used to.

The purpose with which the man walks is unclear to you or I but perfectly sane and reasonable to him. Let’s call him Victor to keep everything straight. Pronouns are annoying, they don’t mean what they used to. Not any more. Just so we’re clear. We lean in closer from our invisible, floating point of view, and get right on top of him. From here, look, we ‘see’ more about him. We see and then we know. Whenever someone comes back with ‘I see’ to a revelation or thought I communicate to them, I’m usually disheartened, because I know now they probably mean it off-handedly to get me to shut up. They don’t understand what I’m talking about, nor can they view it from my point. They’re too busy wishing I’d shut up. They don’t understand or know. They don’t see. They say they do. They don’t believe the same things they used to say with authority. The people, I mean.

Victor, Vic for short, but we won’t call him that. His parents named him Victor, and for whatever reason it was, I hope they didn’t do it just so he could go by Vic, ‘for short’. That would be too cheap. So we’ll call him Victor because that’s the name he was given upon creation. It isn’t all he is, but it’s the name assigned to him by the two people responsible for his existence. We’ll call him that out of respect and thanks to the people who brought him to us. We’ll call him ‘Victor’ until come to know him by a different name. Not ‘if’, ‘when’.

Victor doesn’t live in the same time period that we live in. Victor doesn’t know who we are. Some would say that’s unfair, and I used to be one of them shouting it through a bullhorn. Not anymore. I don’t believe the same things I used to believe. Not anymore.

Some would say it’s unfair that we’re watching Victor up here from our invisible point of view, but I won’t let us feel badly. Everything is unfair, which in turn makes everything fair. Victor has his own invisible point of view from which to observe. Ours just happens to have him as the focal point. Victor is a very lucky man; one day he might meet us and we could tell him all about watching his life from our invisible point of view. I hope he’s interested in what we have to say.

Victor walks down a street because he intends to get on public transport. He needs to catch the last bus of the morning from a particular pick-up point, or PUP. Other’s may be getting off of the public transport vehicle at the same time Victor is getting on, so for them, Victor’s PUP is actually a DOP. Funny how they mean different things to different people at different times of the day. Makes you wonder if life is anything like that.

Victor looks down at his watch, observes what moment in Time he exists in, and weighs that in his head against his best estimation of the remaining distance between his position on the street and the PUP. He runs the numbers quickly and accurately as he walks.

He’s late.