Society talks and I'm not listening. [WRAP]

Sometimes I feel myself sitting on my own and yet I'm surrounded by people. Because people talk, but they don’t listen, they hear but they don’t learn.

People can look at you, and make their mind up about your personality before you have even opened your mouth. People are rude, and nasty, and it’s human nature to exclude those who are slightly different, who think outside the box.

So here I am, sitting, listening to what is going on around me but not really taking any of it in. Because it’s all negative and I can almost feel the weight pushing down on me, further into the darkness of my own brain. And sometimes I get lost in there, and I can’t find my way back out. Drowning in the pools of myself and gasping for breath as I try to fight my way to the surface. And sometimes it feels as though I’m going to be okay, that I’m over it, but then it comes back to me and I’m falling again, and scratching at anything I can reach to stop myself going under, because once you’re fully in the void, it becomes very hard to get back out.

Most of the time I have one foot in.

Everything in the room is loud; everybody is laughing or crying, or sniping or kissing. It’s full of love and hate and light and dark, and it’s hard to keep up, so I try to block it out. Because to take it all in hurts. The people around me are scaremongering about something else which doesn’t matter and I feel like telling them what they should really be scared of, but they wouldn’t be able to take it. People are discussing ‘celebrities’ and the kind of culture that I’ve never managed to understand, but it’s hard to get away from it as people are more interested in other peoples lives and their aspirations to be rich and famous than they are on making their own lives better. Less dull.

I really couldn’t care less. But I suppose that makes me a weirdo?

Part of my problem is I get bored too easily. It’s hard to see the wonder of the world when you’re passing through the same concrete streets and seeing the same grey buildings everyday. If just one new thing could happen to me, one new person chatted to me on the bus, a new story to add to my collections, then maybe life would be less grey; but people don’t talk anymore. Especially not to strangers.

It’s sad really, isn’t it? How we’re interested in someone from Big Brother and not in the person sat next to us?

I met a lady on the train one day who was heading for a hospital appointment. She and her sister were both terminally ill, and she had no one but her sister left for her. Her husband had died, her children moved away taking her grandchildren with them, and she was so proud of them; the only time her eyes lit up was when she was telling me what they were doing with themselves… apart from that, there was nothing left. She told me, a complete stranger, unflinchingly how she couldn’t be saved but that it was fine. It was a good job I was wearing sunglasses because I was almost in tears. I hope where ever she is now, she is happy.

People lie all of the time, cheat to get ahead and I don’t see the point. If I want to achieve, I want to achieve, and I don’t do it by upsetting others and barging through them, kicking and screaming. But you're supposed to though, right? And that’s the problem.

And so and so did this, because someone else did that; and because of what they said, someone will get revenge and I really can’t see the point. Because to get out of this cycle is the only way to move on. And people see me as blunt, and rude. And I'm not. Really, I'm not. I just don't understand society's rules.

I gather my things and leave because I don’t think I can take it anymore, but I can’t explain why because people don’t understand when I say that I don’t want to live like this; when I speak of how it makes me feel. I just get that look again. The one that says ‘shut up, because I don’t want to know’.

Talk is cheap, but the truth is expensive.

Sometimes I wonder how evolution came to this; selfishness, greed, lies and anger. And then you wonder how we managed to evolve in the first place. But at the end of the day, I think it’s a pretty reasonable argument to claim that something made us and then turned its back. Because a lot of the time, I would like to turn my back and just not look. A lot of the time, I can’t see the good in people, in what people have done, and those are the worst moments you could imagine, because everything seems pointless.

But then other times, I look around and everything is shining; and I try to hold on to these moments, because when you can pick out the good in everything, when you have a sense of awe, everything feels right again and there is colour, and you can face getting out of bed in the morning.

Modern society makes it hard to find a balance between the two. The glass is half empty or the glass is half full. You get labelled and put into a niche, and if you don’t fit, you get pushed out into the cold and I think it’s supposed to bother you.

No one listens to me, so why should I listen to them? Why surrender to convention?

I’d rather be in the cold.

I want you to know that i have been surfing around this site for months. I havent registered because i havent seen anything worth adding any thought to. When i read your post i felt like i was listening to myself talk about my sister and friends. For whatever it's worth, there are people out there who think like you. The problem is, were all afraid to get shut out by those 'snipy' looks or "dont really want to hear it" response. Please dont give up. You know what is real...even if they fail to see

reply to post by elmotox


Wow, thank you. I'm actually honoured that something I posted encouraged someone to join. If you need a hand with anything, let me know, I'm always happy to help! And enjoy ATS! We're great when you get to know us...

Very dark, I enjoyed it mostly because I've been down that road. It's never smooth, it's never easy, but it always makes you a better person.

The thing you always have to remember is that all the injustice and suffering is a message for you. That message is to become the balance the world lacks, to be the light for others so that they may be guided out of their caves and into the morning.

It's not easy, but it's worth it.

reply to post by Ayana


Some of us listen Ayana! I just was, for every single honest and heartfelt word.

S&F... Well enjoyed, and thoughts provoked. Thank you so much for sharing!

~Heff

Thank you, both of you.

When some * tell me that his lifes bad. I tell him, compared to what, you mean Baghdad? Gaza, Basra? Me and you are cool you got a car, I got a plasma. Kids today got Nike Airs by the pile, while somewhere else in the world for water a likkle mans gotta walk bare foot in the blazing heat for more than nine miles. Life could be so much harder, you've gotta love and live your life.

- Not the most acceptable song to quote, socially, but I like the message

reply to post by Ayana


So people like me who live a life with no privacy what so ever should be glad as someone somewhere else is dying.

So the uk gov and police can do anything to my life as others across the globe are being murdered. Thats absolute nonsense.

reply to post by Ayana


Obviously the short story is inspired by your own thoughts. You are not alone, and if you think you are think again. We all should have a code for identifying each other in public. Any suggestions? (I think the foot tap is taken lol). I would like to talk with more people like me. I would like to discuss things of importance. I hate small talk. It is small and pointless. I hate doing "it" the way I am supposed to, because society says so. I never hurt anyone is that enough? I try to be as honest as I can with people and then they think I am weird. Do they not realize I am reaching out to them? They laugh amongst each other because I do not fit the mold. What mold? Who made this mold--those poor souls! When I came into this life I was given free-will to shape my perception of my exterior world. Have these others forgotten they had free-will? Did they not realize free-will was not based on decisions made in the physical realm; rather, internal perspective of viewing the world which controls those physical decisions?

reply to post by andy1033


No, that isn't what the point of that quote was. The point is that people find things to complain about and say that their life is awful when it really isn't. No matter what, some one, somewhere else will have it worse. Especially for many of us in developed countries like the UK.

reply to post by ExPostFacto


Yes I agree. We should put tinfoil behind our ears or in our hair or something so we can recognise each other I mean, I have an ATS t shirt. But I can't wear it all the time. Sometimes I need to wash clothes.

But yes, this is based upon my own feelings and experiences around others.

reply to post by Ayana


Wait... We aren't already supposed to have tin foil behind our ears???

Looks like I've been trend setting yet again!

~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide


LMAO! I'm gonna start putting it in my hair. Tin foil flowers and stuff

Fantastic stuff Ayana, I feel you have struck a chord with many of us here on ATS. I wish I had the ability to phrase it all as eloquently as yourself.

reply to post by woodwardjnr


Thank you so much. I just write and see what it becomes, that's why there's usually loads of mistakes. If I start thinking about it, I lose my point. So yeah. Glad you've liked it.

reply to post by Ayana


That was a really good read and I could completely relate to what you were saying,
I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts in the future.

P.L.U.R.I
-B.M

reply to post by B.Morrison


Aww, thank you