It’s All Just a Mirror…

I thought I was going to receive a lot of emails after my post that it is all an internet wasteland; but instead I simply found a sad surrender.  I can only stand apart and sympathize.  I am old enough and I have lived enough to see what we are doing to ourselves.

I mentioned Miles Davis in my post.  That reference was probably lost on most of you.  Miles Davis was more than cool, he communicated deep into your consciousness and did not need an Adore You video for you to get the point.  Have we all become so shallow that if we do not see it, we cannot understand it?   There is no other musician like Miles Davis who communicates such a yearning, a controlled intensity, the transformation of life’s inchoate passions and tensions into aural adventures that find a permanent place in your consciousness and influence your basic definitions of music.

This whole internet thing sucks and we are all going to be forced to recognize our inhumanity.  We can all be so brutal when we are not within intimate distance of each other. Does it really have to be sadness or euphoria?  Do we have to choose?  Does our reason co-exist with our insanity?  Yea, I am channeling some Billy Joel, but at least he has lived. The social inequalities we are creating are not new.  We cannot declare ourselves green, benevolent and a force of good, yet live our lives differently behind closed doors.  The older you get and the higher in the sky you live, the harder it is to see the people in the streets.  The real people; the ones who are just getting by.

I am telling you this is not going to end well.  Maybe I am just pessimistic, maybe I have been tortured by too many lies, but think I see the true human condition in the little things — not the big things.  I came face to face with one of those little things recently.  I was out walking in the city and there was this woman walking behind me, talking loudly on her phone.  She was distressed and on the edge of panic.  I could hear it in her voice — but I could not see her.  I could have put my buds in and just tuned her out.  She walked behind me for a few minutes after I had crossed street and stepped in front of her.  She was late for a job interview and was telling the person on the phone that the address was not two minutes, but more like twenty minutes away and she was now very worried she could not find the address.  I knew where the address was located.  When we reached the corner, she was telling the person on the phone she was going to turn right.  I could have simply walked across the street and never heard from her again.  It would be easy.  I could have let her Google the address; that would have been easy too.  Use your smartphone to find the address if it is so smart.  Yea, that is what I decided to do.  I was going to walk away from her, her verbal stresses; the awkwardness of the situation and the one sided nature of the conversation motivated me to walk way and Facebook it later.  My mind was clear.

Just before I stepped off to cross the street, I turned around to look at her; to make eye contact.  I do not know why I did this.  She saw me turn.  I could see she was dressed in her best clothes.  I had heard she had taken the subway.  I looked at her, she looked at me.  In an instance, I told her I could help her and told her to follow me across street.  I do not know why I did this and I do not know why she trusted me.  I led her to her destination.  I pointed across the street and told her that her interview was in the green building and good luck.  It was no big fucking deal, I just had to get over myself to help her.  She seemed so relieved.  She stopped, turned to me and said that I was an angel and God must have sent me to help her on that day as she really needed that job.  I have no idea if she got the job and I have never seen her again, but I know God did not send me.  I sent me.  I got over myself to reach out and help a stranger.

We thoughtlessly dissipate our energies.  We waste so much.  Maybe all our fantasies are to go unfilled, but I have been pushed to the ledges in recent years.  I know what it is like to look down and see no end.  This is the time to remember because it will not last forever.  This is the time to live and hold on to those around us.  That is why I find comfort and awkwardness with strangers.  I must be to the only person who smiles when I hear Do it Again by the Kinks.  Is it really so hard to figure out that we are going round and round again?  It does not take an app to be close; don’t be afraid to come dancing, it’s only natural.

– Lester Bangs, February 2014