Conversation

            A conversation is a series of reactions all spawned from a single phrase, word, image, idea, or some other incitement to speech between two or more parties. It is the fundamental form of communication through which living beings of all shapes and sizes grow to understand each individual’s quirks and habits along with their ways of thought and attitude. However, within the human race, there is a certain phenomenon that occurs in many conversations which render them all but useless for the purpose for which they were created. As humans have grown more and more complicated, making their lives more and more difficult with layers upon layers of values both moral and material, the factor of one’s ‘image’ has taken on an all important roll. And with that people have taken to using conversations not as a key to greater understanding but as a stepping stone towards promoting one’s own prowess and fame. As was stated in an article a friend of mine read recently, most people spend the majority of the time while someone else is speaking thinking not about what is being said but about what they themselves are going to say in return. In this manner they manage to completely overlook the fact that in order to actually converse one has to respond to what was previously said. Thus the act of speaking suddenly loses almost all of its previously glorious meaning for speech that is not heard might as well by wind blowing by the ears. It is, after all, the art of listening that really grants humanity the ability to grow.

Romance

    Romance, the ideal of millions for which they search with all their hearts and souls, drawn on by their as yet still delusional belief that there is such a thing as perfection in the world, is a thing that calls to many but is solid and true for few. Embedded in its letters amidst velvet drapes and soft candlelight is the strange, human desire for something that will bind another to them, that will lead to eternal devotion and happiness for all time. From this is spawned the millions of books, movies, songs, plays, and more all circling around the one concept of romance—all drawing hordes of thirsty admirers to the storefronts and theaters, gluing their eyes to TV screens and turning simple human beings into rising, immortal stars. And yet…this ideal—this dream—is, for most at least, nothing but that.

          Look for example upon the story of Romeo and Juliet, the story that myriads have proclaimed a classic work of romance. The characters in this play have been used to describe those who are supposedly madly in love, and yet this thing they call love is nothing more than the love of how another looks—a standard that is sadly superior in most modern minds. Like those of our darkening world, these two met only briefly—a day, in their case—and decide in that vastly limited span of hours that they are so deeply in love that they must marry and will die if the other is not there to carry the burden of life with them for the rest of eternity. And yet Romeo, the supposed romantic, was pining similarly for another woman but earlier that day. This sudden morph of interests is the mark of the insincere who believe wholeheartedly in themselves. It is what has been taken to be love but is only a love for beauty, something that has been adopted without question by almost all who dwell in our own time.

          The need to create happiness through the eternal loyalty of another never considered the loyalty of the self, and thus this need is a sign of one’s own weakness and selfish desire because to leave one’s own happiness in the hands of another’s fate is to give up one’s own control of life and long that way for happiness. It is perhaps not true in all case, but there is always something more than the simple element of romance that is all most consider before leaping into these chaotic waters. It is folly to seek only for the flowers and the letters because candlelit dinners cannot last a lifetime.

          Those who promise it either do not understand the true rigors of dedicated life or are lying through their teeth.

Sarcasm

Sarcasm—the water that keeps our spirits alive and free of the droll chains of society. It is the remedy to that greatest enemy called boredom—or so it has become.

For example, if you had just had a terrible day and you sit down with your best friend and he or she asks you "How was your day?". You could be plain and save yourself some time by just replying with "It was terrible", in which case you will receive a sympathetic pat on the back and the world can leave you alone for some peace for a change. The only problem there of course is that you know said friend will probably give you a sympathetic pat then, being human and thus cursed with the human desire to hear of all the grizzly details, ask you why it was such a terrible day.

Thus a more elaborate answer is usually in order. Something along the lines of "It was grotesque. I missed my train then the next one was delayed so I was late for work for the umpteenth time and my boss got mad at me and I just might be fired. I didn't have breakfast, lunch was rushed, and dinner looks like a bowl of cold soup". Thus you have satisfied your friend's—nosy and sometimes irritating but endearing all the same—curiosity and everything is well. Only now you have reminded yourself of exactly why it was such a terrible day, making it all the worse.

Therefore, one can only turn to the delightful term of which we have all grown so fond of—sarcasm. All we really want to say is "Oh, it was absolutely wonderful", with so much insincerity packed into the word that even a deaf man couldn't possibly believe a single word of it. Then you can go on to tell them everything you have kept pent up inside your head all day.  "My alarm clock decided to die on me at the most convenient of times, as usual, and the train pulled out just as I was stepping onto the platform. Then some giant rat or something equally mundane made its way onto the tracks and the next train ran right over it, somehow managing to lose that one wheel that has been loose for only the last year and a half. Then of course they had to fix it and it would just have to be the only train going my way. By the time I reached the office my boss had a face like a ripe tomato and I could have sworn there was steam pouring from his ears. He told me it was the nineteenth time I had been late these last wo weeks, which of course is more than is humanly possible, not to mention polite, thus if 'you don't pull yourself together, you could lose something you really need at the moment', a.k.a. a job. Then of course you run off to work because duh that's not happening anytime soon. The papers just had to have piled up three feet high by then and I had maybe half a second to breathe before they swallowed me whole. I could only manage to extract myself from their strangling hold long enough to swallow that disgusting, pitch black brew they call office coffee and something hard and chunky I might have heard was a biscuit but really couldn't have been anything quite so civilized before I was drowning all over again. By the time I could decently leave without endangering my career—when my boss had finally left the building and was no longer breathing down my neck in anticipation—the last train had already gone and, what do you know, I have to walk the two and a half miles back home, only to discover now that the electricity is out and all I have that's edible is this beautiful bowl of cold, slimy, two-day old noodles that'll probably make me sick before the night is out, meaning it'll just be a repeat process tomorrow only with an upset stomach for a crowning touch."

And that, of course, is a far more satisfying rant and will leave you feeling far more accomplished than you have in years.

Existence

            Existence is an ambiguous term, for what does it mean to exist? It is said that it is simply so—you exist, it is a fact—but how can one truly deem one’s self as existing? Could we not each be but a figment of imagination? A illusion in some whimsical mind?

            Thus it is that humanity as a whole relies upon the presence of other forces—such as their fellow men—in order to define themselves, for it is only through the presence of an influence and a subject upon which the influence can act that existence can become defined, as without it there is no measure by which to decide where one thing might end or begin. The perception of those around us give us a shape, a purpose, a place, and—to a certain degree—a fate as well. After all, one may call another ‘friend’ but there would be no ‘friendship’ without that reciprocating label placed upon the giver—and yet to give the view of friendship is in itself a mark by which one defines another or is defined by another (“Oh he is my friend” is in effect “Oh so he is your friend” for every mind to which the thought is presented). This intricate web is something that cannot be escaped, and thus in every human being there can be found a desire, varying in degree depending upon the soul in question, to seek the higher opinion of one’s self through the eyes of another. It is, after all, the only way most people can find to give themselves that sense of accomplishment and higher standing—it is a thing that must be given.

            And yet we still have those who believe firmly in judging one’s self only according to one’s own standards, codes, and goals—personally, I am more inclined to be of this ilk—but is this truly a separation of one’s being from the influence of others? After some contemplation I have come to find that this must not be so. After all, is not the very wish to not define one’s self through others a mark of the influence of others?

            In the end, there is no such thing as a separation of one’s being from that of others, for even the absence of a presence in one’s immediate vicinity is an effect enacted by said presence. Existence is, after all, only a collection of perceptions, and without the presence of more than one force there can be no such perception as there is no measurement. We are only what the world makes of us, and the world is only what we make of it—like how existence is only as real as we make it out to be and we are only as real as those who exist around us see us as being. Thus we have created fate, a web of expectations, beliefs, labels, duties, and desires all given to us by the world and that we too give back to that very world in an impossible yet undeniable balance.