literature

Free Writing: Habits

Deviation Actions

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I have this habit you see, this quirk if you will, when it comes to people. I am not a very sociable person,
at least not in the standard definition. I do not generally go looking for people to talk with or be around
and those whom I do trust enough to seek the attention of are of a generally very small circle whose
branches I do not seek to affiliate with. If you are a friend of a friend then chances are you are no friend
of mine, capiche? It's not that I have anything against you, it's just that I am not going to associate with
you simply because I know people who associate with you, it's a gradual process with me and if you
really want to be my friend then you're going to have to make a little bit of extra effort. But anyways, I
wasn't meaning to get fully sidetracked there but it is another quirk of my persona, a sort of love of
tangents that makes it normally hard to communicate with all but the most patient of people. My habit
when it comes to people is I like to analyze them. Now the more perverted minded of you might
say, "Oh dear then you're a voyeur then aren't you, you sicko," while the more erudite might say, "Oh
like you have an interest in psychology/anthropology/sociology etc." While I would admit to the latter, I
would not say that is why I like to analyze people. It's strange, I like to know all the little details that
make them up, all the little details of who they are, why they are, how they are, where did they come
from, where are they going, and why are they there at all. I like to look at people as though they were
characters in a story, they are not arbitrary, and there is a good reason why they are around and a good
reason why each of their actions is occurring. One might explain this as a sort of representation of a
Divine Plan, that indeed by some cosmic force all actions have precedence that was laid down at the
start of it all. I, however, reject such an idea; it is baseless at least in its requirement of some higher
being to necessitate it all. While I am open to the possibility of such a being, I will not limit the
possibilities so greatly as that. On another end of these possible thoughts one can see the entire chain of
existence as mere actions and reactions from the most primal quarks up to the most advanced
civilizations, all things based upon those first spiraling movements of those first sub-atomic particles.
Now this is a theory I like, there is a sort of harmony in it despite its powerfully dehumanizing
connotations. Again, though, I have to admit that I cannot accept it out right. Indeed if you were to talk
to me at length I would appear to be one of the most indecisive people you could possibly come across.
Any idea that comes my way is neither fully rejected nor fully accepted, any idea is viable if only because
there is no way we can absolutely prove something to be nonviable. Thus I watch and I listen, I smell and
feel, I generally do not taste because that would probably come off rather stranger... at least stranger
than normal that is. These people I look at around me are all compiled up in my head and I think about
them, I think about all the little characteristics about them that I can or cannot relate to then I think
about why I can or can't and I think why I feel I can or can't and as you see it goes from macroscopic to
microscopic as I delve further and further downwards. Am I trying to understand myself better? Am I
trying to reach some kind of absolute human base from which we all stem? Perhaps I seek the Akastic
Records from which the wellspring of all consciousness flows and to which it all returns. What is it that I
seek and why do I seek it? To that question I have no answer and indeed is something that I very seldom
if at all consider. Why do I need a purpose? Is there even a purpose in purpose, if you wish to become
especially metaphysical.

I have this habit you see, this quirk if you will, when it comes to people. I see them as characters in a
great big story, a story that I want to write and yet I cannot bring myself to do so. Why is it that I do not
write this story? The usual excuses are that I don't do dialogue well, or I have no idea what sort of plot
I'd create, or I don't have any characters, I am not very creative, I don't have time. But still, I watch and
I think and I imagine. I see names and I think what this person is like or I see people and I wonder what
they are named. I catch the glimpse of a face in a crowd and I wonder who they are, why they look the
way they do, what do they think of themselves, what do they think of others. I see them as characters
in a great big story, a story that has no plot that has no dialogue that has no setting. It is a story of
characters, it is a story of connections, it is a story of why this and why that, of how it came to be, of
where it came from and where it was going, it is a story where who's are melded with what's and how's
are melded with whys. It is a story that cannot be told, cannot be written, and cannot be understood.
It is a story that merely is, it is the story that I am a part of and the story I want to view from outside.
There is no rhythm to this story, no strings upon its characters, no plot to follow, and no genre that it is
defined by. It is The Story from which all others branch from, it is an underlying infinity from which all
other infinities break away from, there is no beginning and there is no end, there is no protagonist and
there is no villain, it merely is. And yet, is this merely just my own thinking? Is it the thoughts of a person
who is seeing more than there really is? Or is it the thoughts of a character that really isn't important?
Or is it the thoughts of one among many who are central? Or are all really part of a greater focus and
these thoughts are mixed up with all other thoughts, their importance only that they are thought?

I have this habit you see, this quirk if you will, when it comes to people. I actually like people. While in
one way I could imagine myself being satisfied and happy with a life of seclusion kept company by only
those closest to me and books, in another I can't help but liking the idea of being surrounded by people.
And I do not mean by many many people whom I know and who know me, such a feeling would be like
drowning in an extended self, so little to share because it has all been shared. No, I like strangers. I enjoy
working in menial jobs as long as I can talk to people. I share with them little unimportant secrets and
they share their secrets back. I may never know more than that of them and I may never meet them
again, indeed I might even forget them by tomorrow, but for that instance I was able to connect on a
level with that that few seem to see the importance of. I tell a woman of how I gathered pecan from my
yard as a child and she shares with me a story of baking pecan pies with her grandmother. I reminisce
with an old man about a film that we both happened to love, a film that he says he hadn't watched
since his childhood. I look into their souls and I find what we have in common, no matter how small or
unimportant it might seem, I snag it up and share it.

I have this habit you see, a quirk if you will, when it comes to people. I like to look at them and wonder
where they've been and where they're going and why it did have to start and end in such a way. I
wonder why the woman with fair skin and fair eyes has palms creased with lines of work. I wonder
why the man to whom the world has given only woe nonetheless smiles the brightest. I observe and
I analyze, I theorize and ponder, I type and sometimes I discuss. Then it all comes down to, why am
I interested in the first place? Who am I, the young man whom questions everything? Who am I, the
student without a plan or a goal? Who am I, the cultureless multi-culturist? I observe all but myself, the
doubting solipsist who knows the mind and is yet unmindful of himself. Is it all figments of my eternal
imaginings? Is it all products of the insane self-limiting God that I actually am? Or, perhaps, am I the
shared hallucination of myriads, a mere play of light and brain sparks that for some reason gives people
over to flights of fancy. They speak their secrets to columns, they reminisce with bushes, they feel
observed by patio furniture, and they could all swear they saw a young man but there never really was.
Am I the ever central never changing Monad or am I the thought that never was? Perhaps this is why I
observe and I ask, I must continue to do so or else I will cease to be. The God-head without believers or
the story without being told, neither able to survive without some notice.

I have this habit you see, this quirk if you will, when it comes to people.
Just screwing about before my Food Culture class.
© 2012 - 2024 Just-Nith
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LadyRiverlark's avatar
This makes perfect sense to me.