The Seconds Sell

I had, for a long, whiskey soaked while considered titling this ‘Dead Man Waking’. But I eventually realised I love Susan Sarandon too much to fuck with her.

So you have to live with the above.

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There was a time in my life when I had given up on myself. I use the past tense because I know how ephemeral it is. And just how likely it can be that our demons pay us a surprise visit. Therefore the guilty pleasure of flaunting it while it lasts. Having said that, right now (as of writing this) I am looking forward to myself in a way that is both new as well as sad. I shall come to the ‘new’ bit in just a dram. The sad bit is more interesting. Because it has to do with a death.

When we meet our former selves, they always remind us of who we could have been. Smug sonsofbitches, fleeting in and out of mirrors, old emails and that new thing called Facebook memories where the fucking software tells you who you once used to be on that same day many summers back. These fuckers (us, once upon a time) always score home in reminding us that we needn’t have. That we probably could have held on, knees weak but kneecaps intact; spine stressed but spinal column straight and chin bruised but still existing. And when the tide turns and the moon shades yellow, when the wind sounds like wolves drinking and the night is just a tight, black hug — you probably sit in your crowded solitude and wonder, ponder what might have been. But the morning of the middle class does not allow pointless poetry for too long. The alarm bell of ambition will edit out the parts not infected by motive and add whole, loud paragraphs on planning, producing and plotting. Entire epilogues will be written in the deep, dark ink of inflation and I am sinking in an ocean of metaphors. Or idioms. Or similes. I no longer know.

I died the day I woke. And it is sad (as I classified it earlier) because any death while interesting can also be depressing. I died not because I had to. But because I wanted to. And that is surely a good death — one where the dead is not mourned but looked forward to. The corpse isn’t really a farewell receptacle but a magic vessel holding what is to emerge. This death that I mention here is a preface. A prologue with a plan, instead of a sudden epilogue. And I died so that I could be free to be who I think I want to be for the time being. A new anything has to do with a dead something. That is how the universe works. And since the universe does not work overtime, it is pretty much how it is going to be for a long time.

So now, we can come to the ‘new’ bit. The bit where we talk about birth (meh) and …one second, you are wincing at the ‘meh’ bit, is it? We are a country of 1.3 billion plus and fucking. Before you can say con-tra-cep-tive, we have made over 50 babies in a minute. That’s more than a baby per syllable. Want to contest that ‘meh’ again?

Anyway, birthing is a process that leads to a new something. Anything. That holds within itself the possibility of a redemption, a beginning and a fresh start. A second chance that actually feels like a first blush. The ‘new’ that I refer to is one such — a second stab at being precise. A heightened sense of both self and surround, the way the cookie crumbles really. This ‘new’ is important as a rite of passage, a transition and a closure. Funny how some closures can really be anticipation in disguise. Either way, it is here to be.

So now, as we close this to begin that, as we end this to kindle that and as we wrap this up so we can really cut the ribbon on that — we feel united in our feelings. Our deepest fears are all of the same colour and net worth, even though our strutting has varying statuses. And here probably lies the point of it all.

While firsts are desirable and beautiful, they are also more often than not utopic and thus overrated. It is the second that is real, admittedly messy and laden with secret suitcases full of regret scented pasts, but still real. And in a world spinning like a gorilla’s hangovered head, what more can one ask for except a repeat of real. Let the firsts be, it’s the seconds that unite, console, kick ass and make meaning.

Here’s to another shot of second.