castaway??? gimme a break

There used to be a time when I had romantic notions about being castaway. I thought I'd be able to do a much better job of it than most people I know.

See *this is how silly I really was*

Now I am proud to say that I know different.
Being castaway indeed. It'd drive me mad. I'd throw myself at any shark that came along.

There was this extremely wise lady that I spoke to a long time ago. I was telling her that often I thought that I should have spent the day doing something much more productive than talking to people. Why isn't talking to people productive, she asked. I told her I wasn't learning anything new. In fact, I'd only spoken to them about myself; by extension, about things that I already knew about myself. You've got it all wrong, she said. You've no idea what productivity is, she said. I pooh poohed her and immediately concluded that all she did was talk to her right side neighbour about how the left side neighbour was embezzling funds and talk to the left side neighbour about how the right side neighbour didn't get along with her mother-in-law. Maybe she was. But what's really wrong about that? I just really don't know. I've just been brainwashed into believing that it's alright to know how many legs a millipede has- that's learning and useful knowledge, but knowing that the neighbour embezzles money is outta line. Which is going to help me lead a safer, more secure life? Right. QED. Okay, one can argue that the examples I chose were self-servingly chosen, but that is the WHOLE POINT OF EXAMPLES. They are self serving. Why indeed would anyone use the wrong examples to illustrate a point. Anyway, what I mean is, I need to talk too.

I need to talk rot if it comes to it. I need an audience. I need to tell someone really badly that I saw this woman whack the daylights out of this man because he was feeling her up in the bus. I swear. I saw this happen- three days ago. And I haven't been able to tell anyone. And it's driving me crazy. (Telling moms don't count. With me, telling my mom, is like telling myself).

I come back to this great line in shall we dance. I think I have only three great lines I repeatedly quote. But as long as it's different ppl listening each time, I always come off as very *knowledgable*
Anyway, the shall we dance line is powerful.

We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything--the good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things--all of it, all the time, every day. You're saying, 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.'

My point isn't get married, it's more about having someone to notice you.

We need someone to see us. How the hell is that going to happen when you're a castaway. Every single day we underestimate the therapeutic power of being around other people. Not buildings and cars and infrastructure and qyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi. But people. Any people. The worst kind of people. But people. The worst thing is not having someone to talk to. It's cruel in the "it's not so bad so you oughtn't complain about it because there are ppl dying in iraq and getting lynched somewhere else and not having someone to talk to isn't half as bad but in fact it's bad precisely because there's no one who will agree that it's bad and therefore you are stuck in your own pot of self pity and beyond a point self pity is noxious toxic waste" kinda way.

I'm kinda glad that I'm woman enough to admit it. I wouldn't have been a coupla years ago. And I'm not going to mask it with important sounding words like vulnerability. I've just begun to hate the idea of giving everything a name as though that's explaining it. Sorry.

Anyway, there's nothing romantic at all about leading a life as a castaway.
I stand, thankfully, corrected.