What is it that brings people together, only to impose themselves, their opinion, and their beliefs on the others? The force is gentle at first, but gathers strength with each exchange, fueled by a mix of pride, hurt, and ego. It waxes and wanes, it swells and ebbs, but it chips away at us and our relationships ever so slowly.
It is a cycle without a purpose, at least something that I haven’t discovered yet. It makes me wonder if this cycle happened the same way since we have known ourselves to be the way we are. And by that, I mean humans as bands, a term that I wouldn’t have had readily available to me if had I not read the Yuval Noah Harari bestsellers.
How did we get to pre-history, I wonder. May be because Band of Brothers—a phrase that I have often heard and read without really knowing what it actually refers to—came up as a book title just yesterday in a conversation. The phrase was used with the assumption that everyone in the conversation would know what it meant, which is one of the most fallacious fallacies one would encounter. My mind must have subconsciously guided my fingers to type the word band.
It was just another occasion when I found myself in the middle of an act of trying to rediscover my purpose/role in a relationship—maybe I should use the word acquaintance—a tenuous one at that. We were indulging in an illegal activity, where I was trying to please someone who I have been trying to please. Not in any lewd sense, but because he could—if he’d be willing to, of course—fill a gap in my life that has existed since the time I remember myself as a child. The activity was just a simple exchange of pirated intellectual property in the written form from me to him.
My intentional concealment of the identity of this person must not be misconstrued as a means to diminish them or their presence in my life, but instead is a show of respect to their privacy. Something that I have learnt the hard way on this very blog. I guess it is also a gesture of affection, an effort to shield them for prying minds.
I had met him in rather unflattering circumstances, trying to sneak behind his newspaper-reading self to find means to make myself presentable. My first act of initiating a conversation involved offering a tumbler of whisky at ten in the morning, mind you, in his very own house. It was an evidently unsuccessful attempt at concealing my anxiety of meeting him. We had then settled down into a jarring conversation about goods and bags of beverages to start one’s day.
A few years since that initial encounter, I had finally found this rather unimaginative method to step into his attention range. I had the tech chops that could help find things to occupy his spare time. It was one of the numerable straws to clutch at to strengthen a fledgling, and dare I say, flailing relationship.
I find myself writing this the morning after an unpleasant experience—I’m certain this is from both sides. It was a bizarre conversation about the frequency of possessive pronouns in conversational speech. Just an observation at first, but it went on to become something that defines a character as good or bad, of course from one’s own perspective.
Happenings like these is why we have not yet been able to break in our relationship so that we can get past the constant reminders that we need to continue building it. I’m not really sure if he feels the same way, but I’d be gutted if he isn’t.
One thing leads to another, and this morning we find ourselves talking about books—a book if I were to be precise. It is an anthology of sorts, somewhere in between a memoir and an autobiography. I’m going to call it Memories for R&Z, which is an oversimplified appellation distilled from its intent and purpose. A book that he is writing with stories that he has written—stories based on life experiences, with a healthy coating of humor. If things work out the way they could and should, I would work as an editor—more like a second pair of eyes—for the stories.
Our hope is to eventually get this book published, with a warm reception from an audience that would not solely consist of family. I’m well aware that the way toward the destination could be treacherous. The prior mentioned triumvirate of ego, hurt, and pride will definitely come to play. Of course, I’m anxious if the equilibrium of building and breaking will alter, and that the relationship with drift toward a less desirable state.
All this we shall see.
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