I know that it is common knowledge that we suffer from a lack of identity, but then again how do I know? Can anyone speak for everybody?
I was talking to one of my friends over the weekend, who works as a security guard. He went on about his dissatisfaction in his workplace, the fronts that people put up, the ways he gets treated, it's all common knowledge, and normally with anyone else, my head would be spinning the words , yada yada yada, it's something I've heard of before, but from him, it felt like a special occasion, it was as if he carried all the gravitas and weight that I've felt lacking from many a conversation.
Can anyone be said to be genuine anymore? Well, it felt like he was something like that, for that moment at least. Something happened last night when he spoke. It was as if a pin had dropped in the centre of our pub and everyone had to be quiet. Was it because those words were the last thing that you would expect such a person to say? Yet at the same time it felt for me, that he was the only one who could talk about these things. The security guard, the quiet one at the party, the truly observant one, I've always suspected that the one who rarely speaks, not out of intimidation, or passivity, but from the wisdom of erudition, has a voice like no other.
He was the one who lived under the heel of a boot, where all he got to do was to watch the figure on top, pressing down on him. It was as if that if he were to speak, he would be the one to say it for everybody. A man like my friend, has learnt more about life than any university grad could ever hope to figure out. That being said, there are many security guards that do irritate me, the kind that hold on to their positions as if it was their God-given right to inflict their own brand of justice in some out-dated style of a bad ass cop figure type. They hang on to their sense of authority, or to put it in another way, their sense of position, as if it was the last thing they had in all the world. I assure you that my friend is not that sort at all, he's a sensitive soul with a hard as nails facade.
He also talked of a distaste for plasticity in our culture and in our lifestyles. In return, I shared with him my view, that in every relationship, there seems to be a measure of compromise, of falsity/plasticity, that the ability to live true to anything singular, is abhorrently difficult because whatever is true to any individual is so contorted and twisted by media. We the Hollow Men (although it's Eliots', let's claim it for ourselves) are so hungry for reality, for a way of truth in our lives, but in this media saturated environment, where everything is up for grabs and nothing sticks, the quest is even harder, even causes for good have to be marketed and approved with some incentive, some appeal, it has to become fashionable. Trends die. That's the natural progression for trends, can we learn something from that? I suspect that one of the things we've learnt from trends, is that we now understand the silent art of disposing each other, and our beliefs and convictions. When we've sucked each others wells dry, a new trend in our fashionable lifestyles can begin.
After the conversation, as he turned his back to me, I lingered on my view that moved from our balustrade, a panorama that began by looking down from the back-end of the Esplanade, then stretching up to the channel of water and eventually, directly at MBS. The dice was rolling against everything as I turned to join my friends, I felt that potential slip back into a world of compromise as we would make our way back to our separate states of being. I know I can't let it go anymore. This is all the reality I have left. Those last words that felt real over the weekend, by my friend, the security guard.
