Previous posts, and comments relating to them, have led me to reinforce the following point.
The following character is NOT me. The following character is fictitious, and though unavoidably based within my experiences, education and thoughts, should be read without the author at the forefront of your minds.
With love and apologies to any fellow social science students reading this. Writing happens to be an excellent way to cement new ideas. =)
Christopher.
***
You can always see those images of urban life on the TV. You know the type. The panning image of a metropolis skyline. The montage of busy streets, people dodging other people, rushing to and from. The jamming of city streets, impatient drivers leaning on horns. It's an organised mess of noise and interaction. A vast nest of networks, ever more complex as we march further and further into the information age.
These images that are designed to depersonalise city life, destroy individuality, and comment on the society that so many of us are a part of. Society that has conditioned us to believe that we are individuals anyway. That we can do what we like, when we like, how we like, and who we like. And I suppose that's true. We like to think we have choice - that we can go where we like. But there are so many forces outside of the individual, forces that constantly mould and shape our so called individuality. We can't go to the shops on December 25. We have to wear clothes, or run the risk of losing our freedom. Our unique sense of style is dictated by the whims of designers, the limits of technology, and whether we are really able to afford it. Those who strive to be different, try to separate themselves from the crowd, always end up doing it in the same way as every other person who thinks like that.
But so what?
The individual might just be a myth, in fact, I'm fairly certain that it is.
Maybe humanity is only valid as a collective.
And if it is, I think that it is something that even if we wanted to change it, we couldn't.
Love is an emotion that many would say is a fundamental of the human condition. But is it just a socially constructed state of mind? An unavoidable social fact, instilled into us from our birth to our death? The basis of all those Disney movies you grew up with, the institution of marriage, the world's greatest literature.
What about attraction? Is it as romantic as we would like it to be? Or merely a primal instinct, an evolutionary trait in order to ensure perhaps the only common goal of all life - reproduction.
But are these thoughts even relevant? Does it matter whether all our thoughts and emotions are moulded in ways that we don't even realise by society's subtle tendrils?
Time, I think, would perhaps be better spent not dwelling, moping, and wondering about the state we are in, the society that we could be. Time would be better spent embracing that society has allowed ourselves to believe that we are individuals, and no matter how thinly veiled this is, it doesn't change the way we have be bought up to feel.
And thus, this story is the experience of an individual - it is not a series of words dreamed up by the collective. And though I draw my words from thoughts already well pondered, from emotions almost unanimously experienced, the lens through which they are expressed is that of an individual. And though the lens is almost entirely moulded by outside forces, it is this moulding that has allowed the lens to belong to an individual.
And so I seek to personalise that urban montage. I want to zoom in on an entirely personal interaction between two people.
The interaction is unspoken. It is so subtle, fleeting and so personal that the event goes entirely unnoticed by the milling crowds. It is not part of the collective. But an experience shared by two individuals.
It was always a surprise when she appeared. A shock. She was sitting on bench, conveniently located to take a rest from the bustling city centre, surrounded by what he assumed were her friends. He hadn't seen them before. They looked happy. But was that a glimmer of sadness on her face between laughs? He doubted it. He was trying to see what he wished he could see. A glimmer that maybe he was still part of her. But it was only laughter and the glint of teeth that reached his searching gaze.
She looked up at that moment. Him, caught in a ponderous moment. Her, taken by surprise. Her smile slid from her cheeks. Adrenaline surged. Fight or flight - heartbeat jumping the gun. He broke eye contact, and walked away – short of breath -wondering why he couldn’t stand to face her.
She returned her gaze to her friends. They’d not noticed her distraction. The grin returned to her face. Though noticeably more forced. She glanced toward his retreating back, but he had already been engulfed, back into the milling crowds.
***
<3
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