Remembrance of Things Past
Part 3: The Long Gone Nostalgia

People change, have you heard?

There is no such thing as knowing someone well and to the most minute detail; those who claim so, who are they trying to fool. Even if you have known him for some time, how would you know if he is actually letting you in. One's past is one's darkest secret, one's biggest shame, one's vital weakness; no one shares with others his complete past. Self-censorship among friends is second-natured; the concept of a true friend, the caring listener, the reliable shoulder, the sole solace, is thus, flawed, a farce, an oxymoron. I truly pity you, for deep down inside, all of you are liars.

People change, have you heard?

Two wandering lives intersect each other at a random tangent in this pointless space-time continuum, and behold, the electricity of interest, the chemistry of the opposites, thus, the birth of a bond. While it lasted, the bond provided glimpses of you from the viewpoint of someone else, the life that could have been yours, the person that could have been you. His life story becomes yours and your life story becomes his. Then, the transient nature of the bond soon prevails; personality clashes, interest fades, conversation saturates, glances awkward, smiles hollow, two lives drift apart.

People change, have you heard?

You know someone only from a certain period of time. Your memory serves you the image of a memorable face that you assign a familiar name to, and all the intimate details that you know of him from that nostalgic period. You reminisce the day that you two stumbled upon each other's path, the silly incident that introduced you to the new person, the new possibility. You remember the way he talked, the way he played with his fingers in awkwardness, the way he smiled himself from the embarrassment of his friends, the way he tried to not look at you in the eye. You felt that his smile was honest, and that he was shy due to innocence, and that all that matters in a man was standing right in front of you. Then, you remember the day he left you for a whore.

People change, have you heard?

We come from a culture that loathes deviation from ideality, that feels shame in being not according to plan, in being different from the majority. We live our personal lives by what the next door neighbor's first son has achieved; look at him, how young he is, and how success has greeted him with a healthy grin, why can't you be like him. We live our free lives dictated by an invisible schedule stapled to the back of our head. By age 20, you must be in college. By age 24, you must have a degree. By age 28, you must be married. We live our precious lives so that expectations could be satisfied, datelines could be met, homework could be finished, preprogrammed tasks could be done. We live our private lives under the scrutiny of others. We live our individual lives to become a product of massive design.

People change, have you heard?

In a parallel world far far away, wisdom reign supreme. Identity used to be one's strive for uniqueness in an overwhelmingly conformist lifestyle. The definition of cool varies over time, and so does the level of maturity. Nowadays, maturity comes in a scroll of paper that you toiled years of priceless youth into, and wisdom comes in a huge picture of you receiving the scroll of paper from a corporate dumbfuck, and identity is killing your back for a monthly paycheck by using the given scroll of paper. To conform is cool, because no one gives a damn about what you really want in life. Being in bliss with what you like to do for a living is not enough to feed your children. Who wants to pay a dreamer anyway.

People change, have you heard?

We grow up to be a mold for others after us. The first son must set the example for the second, and the second the standard for the third, and the third the limit for the fourth, and the fourth is to be the family's little black sheep; so that the fifth could bark at his older brother one day in the future, saying, you failed our parents, thus, the successful man that I am today, why should I show respect. We grow up in a hurry because our parents are getting old, and we fear the day they leaving us without having the chance to show them that we could also achieve what the next door neighbor's first son had achieved. We grow up in a time when time is money, not gold, and money fluctuates with time and is tainted with interest, and gold is a piece of jewelry at the pawnshop that your mom would like your dad to buy for her, but he could not afford it off of his government's servant meager wage.

People change, have you heard?

A group of friends got together and they shared a meal. The weather outside was freezing; so, they flocked closer to each other's collective body heat, and suddenly, the urge to kill time, there it was, lurking awkwardly. Someone mentioned something hilarious and thus, as expected, hilarity ensued; laughter broke out like an infectious disease, and small chunks of chewed food fell out of their giggling lips. Those who could not afford to laugh, those who fear that a boisterous guffaw would ruin their air of mystery, their scent of charm, and those who are too busy picking up the few grains of rice on the carpet that blurted out of their nose at the suddenness of the joke, they gave the crowd a silly smirk, as if to show, yes, I am with you, I am here, the show is alive within me. Then, the decibel subsided, and more chewing followed.

The long gone nostalgia of yesteryear, how silly they seem now.