Strange people

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

We are strange people ….

We are trying to do so much in this crazy life, and as a result of the daily race for our own illusions, we forget to do something most important, for which there is simply no time left …

We tell ourselves that we need to learn from the mistakes of others, and at the same time we strive to do as much of our own as possible, so as not to wait for someone to make mistakes similar to ours …

The future often seems bright and bright to us - almost the same as in that beloved old film with a happy ending, which we are ready to watch over and over again, and we try by all available means to look ahead for several years, forgetting that leaving in the past something very important that should be taken with us …

We constantly do not have enough time to implement our ambitious plans - simply because we spend most of it trying to imagine what we really want. And trying to grab the most and the most important thing with our eyes, we sometimes do not notice that life is not tempting prospects of the distant future, but the very little things that we sometimes bypass, considering it an impermissible luxury to devote our attention to them …

We are strange people …

We naively believe that each of us was born to be happy, and has every right to suddenly come, great and eternal, undeserved happiness, which should accompany us from the first cry to the last breath. We wonder why this does not actually happen, and we begin to complain about the evil fate, when we suddenly realize how much we were wrong in our expectations. For all the feverish attempts to catch luck, in the end we simply do not notice her when she finally knocks on our doors and leaves, because no one opened her …

We fight against lies, and at the same time we constantly use it to cover up our misdeeds, calling it"

We are strange people …

For reasons we do not understand ourselves, we so often cannot tell close people about how we feel towards them, and one day we suddenly realize that it was too late to pronounce these words, because they no longer have any meaning …..

We prefer to live for many years in the sweet captivity of illusions and childhood fantasies - only in order not to experience pain when faced with the cruel laws of the world around us, not realizing that sooner or later we will have to face reality and fail in an unequal duel….

We talk about other people's political convictions, about the law of universal gravitation, about the possibility of life on distant planets, and at the same time, somewhere deep in our hearts, we believe in children's fairy tales and sometimes secretly reread our favorite ones, turning over with a smile the slightly yellowed the time of the page of grandmother's books retrieved from the far shelves of the cupboards….

We loudly preach common truths and believe that it is enough to go to church a couple of times a year on major holidays and light a few candles in order to receive absolution for our sins and the next day to start committing new ones….

We are indignant at the heartlessness of our neighbor, who threw a helpless puppy out into the street just because her son suddenly developed an allergy to dogs, and she simply has no time to look for suitable new owners for the unfortunate creature, and after a few hours we fearfully recoil from the half-ripped hungry mongrel with sick yellow eyes who growls angrily at everyone passing by, because her memory has not yet completely disappeared from the memories that she once had her own bowl and rug in the corner of a small bright room, and because she still does not understand where all this has disappeared and most importantly - why?….

We are strange people….

We are frightened by such words as "white death" and "drug addiction", which constantly flash on the pages of fresh newspapers, immediately causing the desire to just not think about it until all these problems have touched us personally. And even without knowing a single letter of the Latin alphabet, we can confidently pick up the Russian equivalent to four letters unfamiliar at first glance - AIDS.

We see the pale, twisted faces and insane dark eyes of those we call "lost people" on television, and we condemn them for taking the forbidden path, but at the same time, so many of us succumb so easily to the temptation to follow them., self-confidently declaring - "After all, this will not happen to me!". After a couple of weeks, they begin to convince themselves that it is enough just to want - and you can easily return to your old life, and after a few months they finally realize that the way back is tightly closed as soon as they crossed the permitted threshold …

We are strange people …..

In the morning, we lively maintain a conversation with employees at work that a chemical plant in a neighboring city has a terrible effect on the ecology of the area and that it would not prevent the authorities from taking appropriate measures, and that same evening we do not hesitate to throw into the bushes along the sidewalk a wrapper from just eaten chocolate candy …..

When for several years we dream of buying a car and finally, through hard work, having accumulated most of the required amount, and borrowing the rest from close friends, we get a chance to drive it around the city, because it stands near the entrance, we are right there we begin to regret the hasty acquisition, because it suddenly turns out that a neighbor changed his old car a couple of days ago for the latest Volkswagen model….

And only once, when we succumb to the inexplicably surging nostalgia and start leafing through the pages of family photo albums, we suddenly realize how many truly happy minutes are forever preserved on these pages that preserve our youth. And having turned the last one over, with a light sigh we return the album to its original place in the drawer of the writing desk in order to forget about it for the next few weeks….

We are strange people …..

Albina