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Monday, December 27, 2010

Who are You?

When I'm writing I often wonder who I'm writing to.  Who are you, precisely?  I assume things about you.  I like to think you are smart with a quick wit.  But for all I know you could be a true idiot, devoid of any humor.  I like to think you are special, that you chose to read my stuff vs. all the available crap in the new media because I'm special.  But you may have accidentally stumbled upon these words and be a person who is controlled by inertia and can't stop doing something they started.  So you will at least finish reading this sentence due to a force in the universe completely out of your control.

What's interesting too, is that you are all different.  I have to come up with something that can appeal to almost totally different species of people.  Maybe you are a an upwardly-mobile-upper-middle-class individual, because I know too many of you. (I need to branch out in my associations with people).  But maybe you are the guy I talked to at the cafe who works nights, and works hard, and drinks just enough every night to get tipsy but not become a drunk.  Maybe you are the guy who puts the letters up on the movie theater so I can see Angelina Jolie's name in bright lights.

Maybe you throw up after every meal because you dream of looking like Angelina Jolie.  Maybe you are sad.

Let me tell you a secret: I'm mad.

I am serious when I say this.  I have experienced actual madness, or what we upper-middle-class-individuals call mental illness.  I have Bipolar Disorder.  I literally have been in group therapy sessions with people who have eaten out of dumpsters.  I broke bread with people who are the lowest caste in our invisible caste system.

I went to an Ivy League School.  I thought I was better than them.  I thought I was better than you.  Because you could be anyone, and I was taught to be the best and better and to think that I might never go where I went.

Well I went there and I came back and it turns out that I ain't better than nobody.

It turns out that People are People.  

So if you are you, which you most likely are...then know that you and I have a lot in common even if we come from different planets.

I come from a planet where most people are semi-liberal, extremely intelligent, well educated and not eating out of dumpsters.  But when I sat down at a cafe and talked to this guy who had spent a year being homeless he told me something I will never forget:  Everyone needs to have no one for a year.

I don't know if I agree with him, I certainly don't want no one.  And late at night, sometimes I get up, and I am  sadly alone these days, but I think of you.  My strangers, my readers, my friends.  Thank you for reading these words and making me at least have the delusion that I have someone.

And if it's any consolation, you've got me babe.

nina

2 comments:

  1. Hey Nina, great post! Good to see that you're writing again. Keep writing. By the way...you are not alone...you always got us babe :)

    - Suman (& Sharmila)

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  2. You have a lot of courage bhenji, in a world filled with judgmental and scrutinizing eyes. keep it chardi-kala!

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