Quiet Color

by ryan s.

Across from me sat the most self empowered body I’d ever been around. We shared a space at a tiny table in an even smaller Indian restaurant that suffered from a glorious infestation of colored lights. The locale most closely resembled the interior of a candy filled piñata. I was receiving more than the standard “if you’re not moving forward, you’re standing still” speech. This felt like actual wisdom.

Artist: Andrew Bird Song: Measuring Cups

…

“Don’t focus on another negative thought..

It’s a matter of mentality..

Make positive contributions to your psyche and the universe.”

[I had wallowed in the wrong behavior for too long and it caught up with me long before I noticed. I was projecting doubt and ambivalence to the world. But worst of all, my brain was packed away in a box labeled Fragile. Giving up is a painful and suicidal route. Do things you love and execute at a high capacity.]

The face of reason was decorated with black hair and eyes that livened my senses. I had been her lover once but now my skin reeked of mediocrity. My problems had become stuffed animals I clutched for in the morning.

But her eloquence sliced through me until my broken components rested at the pit of my stomach. Once again a seemingly simple choice presented itself: Make an effort to self actualize or stay fucked.

I was living on risk. Banking on an early death by disease or accident. Why would anyone want to start the rest of their life? Because the waiting room is a drunken nightmare where your sense of self gets filed down to a groggy nub.

It’s a struggle I had waged for a lifetime, with little effort. But it felt different this time because I could no longer rationalize my masked modus operandi. All this over vegetable kofta and a plate of naan.

“People can feel my confidence when I walk into a room,” she told me. “They sense a confident woman that knows what she wants.” I winced at those words because I realized she would never want me like this. A charade of potential is a waste of time for people in her position.

I realized I had busted the light at the end of the tunnel. It wasn’t about impressing her or rebelling against my family. It was about restoring meaning to my actions and my will to live. Thankfully I was eating dinner with someone who had the rare ability to recount my subconscious thoughts. It took a perfect delivery from an extremely sexy and secure woman, amidst thousands of colored light bulbs, to finally receive the message.

Epilogue:

The battle continues between apathy and accomplishment, negative vs. positive thinking, as well as emotional awareness and the charade of such. But life will always be a process of becoming. In the face of distraction I take solace in knowing that I am the master of my own mentality and that my future existence results from it through constellations of indirect consequence.