Under Construction...

I usually don’t find myself in the habit of barging into a conversation, even if I know the participants, unless of course someone involved decides to test my opinion. After work one day, I ran into a couple of people that I have known for a while now, they came into the restaurant after I did and decided to sit directly across from me, the conversation started out on the light side before getting a bit more serious shortly thereafter. Each of us offered their own perspective based on our different opinions of the subject, dinner came, so the talk was cut short we all ate and went our separate ways without any further exploration of the chosen subject. But it wouldn’t leave me be. So here I am at the time of this writing, sitting up in a dark room with nothing to cut through it but the light of my computer monitor.

Mentally, I try to retrace each footstep of the conversation, I contemplate, I type and then erase, and then start over only to erase the empty page several more times. I get up and turn off the monitor and turn to the darkened living room window looking out at a sleeping world searching for a bit of inspiration, I rise to make a pot of coffee before returning to the monitor turning it back on. It’s a strange subject, I’ll admit, but something about it won’t let go of me. Walls. The way people build them. Hell, we’ve been doing it for years on end. In ancient times we built walls around us in more obvious ways, for more obvious reasons, to keep out the hostilities of the world, to keep out all the shit that frightened us even when we didn’t want to admit that there was always an underlying fear that kept at us.

The walls helped us to keep the world at arms length, gave us some sense of control, even if it was merely an illusion. Kept out all invaders and gave us a false sense of security. Walls crumble, walls fall, but we tend to keep rebuilding them. Even now, we all try at least in some way to separate ourselves from the ugliness of the world by trying to keep it there at the end of arms reach. People are still in the business of building their own walls. Oh, you can’t see them, but they are still there. We just don’t do it in obvious ways, but the walls we build are still there, keeping the ugliness out, giving us that same false sense of security. every time we turn the other way, every time we ignore the pain, and injustices of our world, the walls that keep us away from each other just keep getting bigger. Every time we close the curtains, put bigger locks on the doors, buy bigger guns, turn a blind eye or a deaf ear. every time that we choose to ignore the human condition, it seems that we become somewhat less human.

Oh, I don’t think that it's because we are bad people, I think that it has more to do with the fact that the uncertainty of the future scares us more than we would care to admit. We need to feel safe, untouchable, even when it's painfully obvious that we are neither. I am, just as guilty as the next, of it. My wall however is still under construction, and I am in no hurry to complete it. From time to time I like to venture out from under its rubble to not only view the world but to actually take part in it, I like touching upon the humanity of people, I try to see the good in us, but am also careful not to lie to myself when it becomes ever so clear that there are some people that are just not so nice.

I figure it is reasonably safe as long as I can continue to recognize the differences between the bad and the good. My wall isn’t very high, mind you, perhaps just high enough for me to feel some degree of safety when I am behind it. It's funny, every now, and again I can almost feel the hand prints that people have left there, people just trying to reach into me, maybe they are just trying to tell me that I’m not alone. Hand prints. On my unfinished wall. Hopefully, one day the world will be a safe enough place that I may even be able to end its construction, or tear it down completely. Maybe one day, we can all feel safe enough so that we won’t need to put up walls between us anymore. Maybe someday.

~Scratch.. A.B.T. copyright © 2008.~