Is it weird that I love to people watch?
If it is, call me the King of quirky, and captain crazy... Because I really enjoy watching people on the street, in their cars, and essentially anywhere that people will be. I am not a crazed stalker, I assure you of that, I do not go out of my way to watch individuals, nor do I follow any individuals more than others... So, have no fears, I am anything but a crazy stalker!
Sometimes I just like to sit (i.e. at a train station) and look at the people that walk by. I’m not sure why I enjoy it, because more often than not, to be completely honest and truthful, it breaks my heart.
This moment I am sitting on seventh floor, a floor where people often come to just “be” to relax, hang out, socialize, and catch up between class periods. Earlier today I was driving downtown to my classes, and I remember looking around from car to car, looking at the people in their cars, and sometimes I just wonder, why are people the way they are.
I could go into the philosophy argument over the identity of self is, using David Hume’s argument that people find their personal identity in bundles of perceptions and memories. Essentially saying that people are the way they are, their self identity is found in nothing more than a bundle of interconnected perceptions.
I could use Sigmund Freud’s argument that our personality is divided up into many different parts, that we are the way we are because of the unconscious, the ego and the super ego.
Blah, Blah, Blah... I don’t want to talk about school work, I have too much of that as it is, I do not even intend on discussing this topic into great depth. I was sitting and noticing how many different people act and I wanted to blog since it has been well over a month, and so I thought I would write on that.
I think what I really wanted to get at is the very obvious fact that we are all people, people who bleed, burn, break, we all cry, complain, and we all laugh. We are all carbon-based life forms, and we are all connected together, whether we like to admit that or not, it’s true and there is nothing we can do to avoid or change this fact.
I realize I am far from perfect, in fact, many things I will be saying in this little writing I will have contradicted many times in my life, but perhaps that is why I can write on this, because I realize the destruction involved, I get the feelings behind the various facades that are placed by so many people.
Virtually everyone knows the song written by War, entitled “Why Can’t we be friends” (it just says, Why can’t we be friends, why can’t we be friends, why can’t we be friends... over and over again, catchy little jingle) I think we would all do well to listen to that and realize the deep truth in the song.
Why can’t we be friends?
We’re not so different, I promise you. I’m not so different from you, no matter who you are, where you’re from, what you have done (hey that’s kind of like a backstreet boys song), I can assure you, with a very reasonable level of certainty that we could be friends. Let us test this out: Do you have parents (yes), what are they like? What’s your favourite kind of food, after all I can guarantee that you at the very least appreciate food. How about hobbies, I know you have hobbies, what do you love to do. What are you passionate about, what are you all about, why? That is a conversation that you can have with any person on this earth, and every single person will have answers to. I realize that their answers may be different, potentially polar-opposites from what you would say, but a conversation will be had, and in conversation you have the opportunity to learn. If the answers are completely different, you can learn about new topics, your eyes can be opened to new perspectives, new ideas, new experiences, and that in and of itself is a truly great and exciting opportunity!
We all need people in our lives, we all need community, and we all need love. Without love, the fabric of our souls are unfed, they’re deprived of one of the very few things we are designed to need.
One thing that breaks my heart about the people I see around me is that they’re all crying out for love, but they’re unwilling to receive it, or they are unwilling to meet the one thing that can truly satisfy them. Many people try to receive love in all the wrong places, trying desperately to gain acceptance and love in sex, drugs, and alcohol. They feel that if they give themselves to another, they will feel needed, they will feel accepted. They think that taking drugs will take their mind away from the pain; it will bring them to happiness. They learn to love the feeling of being drunk, because they can dull the pain away, they can deny how they are truly feeling; they can ignore their body’s cry for love, by overpowering it with alcohol. But this can only take you so far. You cannot ignore your bodies cry forever, eventually, no matter what style of life you live, if there is an absence of true love, you will feel empty and alone. A feeling that only one God can fill.
A love that only one God can give.
- kAt
