We’re Owners Of Many Things And Keepers Of None

I love both almost equally, yet fickle is a word dearer to me than the word fragile. Though both signify the human condition to utmost perfection, I think fragile quantifies it somehow. Limits it in boundaries and emotions. Fickle feels more open; tenacious, deadly, filled with rattle of a poisonous snake, and at the same time, alive, jammed with hope— of a dreamer, a wanter; owner of many things and needer of even more.

Often times we have blades for tongues and faces of contortionists— expressionless; our bones soft and joints available to let go just enough but not more. We can hurt people with our good intentions. Our eyes sweat in delight’s terror and weep with longing for someone we can never be or never have.

Isn’t this a confused world? Aren’t our days supposed to be bright and nights black? What generation do we come from, and what generation will we become? Do we need worry for our children? Procreation is a funny word, a funnier act. Can we do better than this? Do our lives carry any significance at all or is all this just a sick inside joke formed between god and his predecessors? And if it is just a joke, should we laugh or cry looking backward? Should we chuckle or cringe thinking of the future? Or do we simply stay numb to everything and all?

Of course we are genuine people. We are honest, frank individuals in the dead center of right and wrong. Always needing one more hand to hold. One more shoulder to cry on.

I think our fragility comes from our mercurial existence. Our volatility and fogginess. Us wanting the world and the fear of the world not wanting us back. Yes, that’s where our vulnerability stems from, but so does our sheer will, our unbounded determination.

Have you ever thought about why you do what you do? Talk about the basic act of caring for someone, rather falling in love. Of course you’ve noticed how quickly the feeling escalates when there is no reciprocation from the other side, but have you thought about it in reverse; i.e., how quickly that very feeling, albeit so pure, so gentle, lessens once the adequate reciprocation is sent our way from the other end as well. Why then the prevalent idea of relationships being equal work for both parties involved? Why then the bogus claim of unconditional love being impossible? When we can maintain a one sided love so unconditionally, why not a both sided affair? Why then this unequivocal need to have the other person work and work and work to keep us involved?

We are fickle beings. We like to declare ownership of stuff and not just stuff but people as well. Consider a gadget you have been eyeing in the store for long, and how your interest in it drops almost the very instant you bring it home. There is always the next thing. The new thing. The better thing. The shiny thing.

I think this is where the concept of family comes in, and what also comes in is the concept of affairs, betrayals, and estranged relationships. We are bound to jump the gun, many guns, and although there can be a hundred contracts to keep our attention at one place, we will still falter. We will still cross that barricade which says “Do Not Enter”. Not because we are inherently bad people, rather because that is who we are. Fickle. We are pendulums set in motion by forces inside and outside of us, hence, we oscillate.