Wild World

Wild World
 
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had this feeling that I was somehow missing out on life; that I’ve always been a little too late for, well just about everything.
The minute I get somewhere, the party’s over. They’ve all moved on while I’m still trying to cling on to the last remnants of their excitement, their eagerness for life.
 
There are times when I sit in a subway for hours on end, just watching. Watching the endless stream of people coming and going, getting on and off with this certain confidence that I so greatly admire and lack. They all seem to know where they are going, having had their next few steps of life carefully planned out. The exceptions, of course, are those blundering tourists, who always seem to get out a stop too early or too late. But even they seem to have a final aim or destination that seems perfectly clear to them.
 
But not I. Is it wrong that I don’t know where I am going, that I seem to be wandering aimlessly without a vantage point, without knowing where it’ll all end? Not that I don’t have any dreams or ambitions, but they seem so feeble, so unimportant compared to the expectations of today’s society, that I just don’t bother chasing them.
And anyway, do those people I see in the streets every day really have a goal, or are they just as lost as I am and are putting on a show for the benefit of their friends and family. Pretending to have a purpose, to assure them, or even themselves.
But if that is so, why are they not sick like me, of playacting their lives. Do they not crave to break out of their daily routines?
 
I seem to have been watching life from afar. Through a window, or even binoculars.
Never quite sure if I was missing out or if this is exactly what life is meant to be.
And so I wander on, through this dull, dull world. Not living, just existing.
 
Until him, that is.
I was sitting on a bench on Primrose Hill overlooking London’s streetlights.
It was drizzling slightly and dawn hadn’t yet broken, so the park was empty.
A pigeon was pecking at my shoe where a few crumbs of a sandwich lay. Exhausted from a long night up I sat there in a melancholic stupor.
I hardly noticed him sitting down next to me until he started talking. He didn’t say hello, or introduce himself. He just… talked. While he did so, I felt his eyes search me a few times, but there was no need for me to look at him. I just stared ahead and let his deep, gravelly voice wash over me. It felt good for once not having to be pressed for information, till he knew everything about my dull life, not that it ever took very long to tell. I was content just to listen. And somehow I felt it did him good too, as if all his life he had just waited for someone to hear him out. He talked about everything. But mostly he talked of himself. Of his passions and dreams, his failures and achievements. He simply talked about life. And with each word his voice seemed to become more animated, more excited. I was engrossed by his ideas, infected by his enthusiasm. His dreams seemed as mundane as mine at first. They were too. But somehow he hadn’t lost his way yet. He was still bothering to chase them, no matter how fruitless it sometimes seemed.
And it began to dawn on me, just like the sun was dawning on London, it wasn’t about achieving your dreams, but about the struggle to reach them. Living isn’t about basking in your luck. There’s nothing interesting in that. You cannot appreciate the happy ending of a story without the struggle that led to it. The adventure is not the happy ending.
 
He had fallen quiet for a few minutes, suddenly depleted of words. Then he turned to me again and I could feel his radiant smile, just like one feels the first sun of spring.
“Why is it”, he then asked me, “that sometimes it is so much easier to talk to strangers than to your loved ones?”
I pondered it for a while, then, clearing my throat I answered: “Because they see us for whom we are and not how they expect us to be”.
There was a slightly awkward silence. Somehow, through my talking, the moment between us had been lost. And I was left to grapple with the loss, saddened to have ruined it.
 
He stood up abruptly and I expected him to walk away without another word. But instead he took my chin into his rough hands, making me look straight into his eyes. Then he turned away and walked slowly down the slope, slipping occasionally on the wet grass, without a backwards glance, looking determinedly straight ahead.
 
His eyes were the only feature I had taken in of him. And they left me rigid, paralyzed on the damp bench.
I don’t even remember their colour. Just their fierce look, so lively, so bright. Eyes, that had seen so many wonders and so much calamity.
Eyes, that had looked upon a wild world.