where is everybody?

so yesterday i went to a salsa congress with my friend and a few of his friends. now salsa is one of those things that you can’t really believe until you see it happen in front of you. i mean, “dance with me” and “dirty dancing” and all of those movies really make you feel nice and maybe think about signing up for salsa classes so that you too can dance with a hot guy in the rain. but watching these amazing salsa dancers from all over the world really shaking their stuff made me think “now, isn’t that just freaking awesome!!?!”

and of course going with 5 young boys, actually 4 young boys and 1 young man, makes a salsa congress all the more interesting. all single, trying to mingle. so 5 scared boys walked in the door and 5 beaming guys walked out. for various reasons of course. besides the short skirts, supple-waisted women, and inspiring dance moves, salsa just brings out the “guy” in you. i mean, if you can be a macho guy and have bulging muscles and yet gently and easily lead your lady round the dance floor, it makes for a pretty good combination. at least, that’s what i thought.

i should tell you about my “friend”. he is actually a collegue and works with me and happens to be a very very interesting guy. DB, lets call him. owing to working with him for a considerable amount of time, besides having shared nice conversations, i also strongly believe that his brain is wired differently from the rest of us. his view of the world makes me think about everything all over again. and that is something.

so DB is standing with me at the salsa congress and happens to see this really nice girl who he saw previously also at this other party. she happens to be extremely good-looking, is an actress and dances to make everyone stop and look. and he has said hello to her before and wants to say more this time. and so begins the hunt between the hazel-eyed boy and the hazel-named girl. which after, i assume, a lot of chasing and escaping ends up with DB with a forlorn look on his face and hazel-named girl in the arms of a hot spanish guy showing the world her salsa moves on the already-steaming dance floor.

ME: “whastup DB?”

DB: “she said no.”

ME “Really???”

on the way home, it got me thinking. appearances are not decpetive. assumptions are.

if only she had given him a chance. if only he had tried harder. together, they would have created art.

of course, i readily concede that this whole thing is really blown out of proportion. i mean, he tried. she said no. no big deal. too many fish in the sea anyway. but, to me, an artist by soul, it seemed like a wonderful situation to which i would have loved to give a different ending. not that i have not.

today DB is at home, hopefully nursing a cold and not a broken heart. and hazel-named girl is somewhere, hopefully doing what she does best. and that makes me wonder, is everybody where i think they are….?

When in a situation of stress, an organism is provoked to fire neutrons rapidly thus speeding bodily functions like breathing, heart rate, etc. Therefore it causes various stress responses. In normal terms, when faced with danger, an animal reacts in one of two ways: face the threat (fight) or avoid the threat (flight).
Psychology explores this phenomenon in a very interesting way. i look at it as one very important facet of a human being’s personality. To me that explains more about someone’s personality than most other science facts. It is, i believe, closely linked to another famous rule of nature: survival of the fittest. The food chain is ruthless. Moral rules are invalid here.

I guess it’s not strange to ask….. Where is everybody?

“out of the arm of one love
and into the arms of another”

Bukowski knew exactly what he was talking about when he wrote this.

i dont. but i like to think that i do.

but what it most reminds me of is how much we need to lie to ourselves to tolerate our everyday thoughts. we wake up in denial, walk around in distrust and go to sleep with cynicism. and through all of that, we keep constantly reminding ourselves of how life could be so much worse. and therefore consider our present lives a blessing of sorts. what we never give enough thought to is if its enough.

do you have enough? do you want enough? do you think enough? do you laugh and cry enough? do you praise enough? do you aim high enough? do you demand enough? do you expect enough? do you curse enough? do you love and hate enough?

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away”

and in this constant search for what we cannot have, we realise, on the way somewhere, that we don’t want what we can have. so we reject. reject thoughts, possibilities, people, love and chances. unconsciously, we reject that perfection that we all seek. we walk around believing in the undeniable beauty of this world and of our lives. but the truth is that we lie to ourselves. isn’t truth the beauty? or is it the other way around?

where are you?