Tags
being curious, being present, desire to understand, fascination, freedom, listening, magic, modern dream, never assume, past experiences, phone screen, reflection, simple advice, speed of light, suspicious, time travel, trustful
I don’t know how others are, but my fascination with people is endless. I’ve developed this curiosity that I most times have trouble explaining a couple of years back. Leaving aside the general context, it started off with a very simple recommendation: be curious about the person in front of you; don’t assume, don’t jump to conclusions, don’t take it personal, just be curious. So even though I seemed to remember something about curiosity being the demise of the domestic feline, I clenched my fists around this piece of advice and started applying it pretty indiscriminately.
I can’t help myself from wanting to understand why people act the way they do, what lies behind the words they choose so carefully or behind the jokes they crack, what experiences have made them react with suspicion or, on the contrary, with such trust that you’d almost label them as naïve.
Q: Are you still naïve?
A: No, not anymore. That girl’s long dead. I know better now, so if I get fooled it’s because I allowed myself to be. Which is worse then? Being naïve or not being so?
Humans may be hard to read, but they are truly my favourite subject to study and I swear they sometimes show signs of possessing supernatural powers. For example, have you ever met up with someone and time became warped beyond recognition? Whole hours will pass without being compelled to look at your phone (ah, the modern dream of freedom!). Simultaneously, time will become contracted so that a conversation feels like it’s flown by faster than light takes to travel between two people sitting next to each other.
There will be ideas that you’ve discussed with certain magical individuals stuck to the frontal lobe of your brain more stubbornly than 10-year old gum to the underside of a school chair. There will be words they’ve uttered and phrases they’ve used so uniquely that these will linger with you and force you to re-position yourself in relation to none other than yourself. Then, it starts dawning on you that’s only the beginning.