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Description
I think I know her. In a city of two million, I wonder if that's coincidental, or if those of a similar mould tend to seek out the same places for the same reasons.

I'm sure it saddens many how the more people there are the less they seem to communicate. It's a nice feeling driving down a country road and an old man waves to you. Not because he thinks he might know you, but because there aren't many people out that way and he is being friendly. Or maybe it's loneliness. Or I sometimes wonder if it's just easier to make the effort less frequently.

I walked around the city for a few hours and nobody spoke to me. But I never opened my mouth either. I often feel invisible, so I try to embrace it and become that fly on the wall, except hidden out in the open, amongst the masses.

I always thought I could never be one of those people who go to the cinema alone. The fact everyone else was with somebody would just upset me. Yet when I see others alone in there, I envy them and realise it's not so bad.

I remember going to a concert on my own. It wasn't easy for me. But there were lyrics the artist sung which had given me so much strength, so much wisdom...I had to go. Even if I didn't know of anyone to take.

I stood with little wriggle space on the floor beneath the stage. Row upon row of disorder, I felt the hot, sweaty, smelly, hairy bodies of those around me.

We all shared in the wait for the show to begin. Most seemed to fill in the time with interaction...with talking...with yelling. I don't like yelling. I've had an automatic reaction to it for as long as I can remember.

Music was playing during the interval, as if it were needed to fill a silence. No silence seemed possible with so many people. Each yelled - almost screamed - at one another...at a volume common to aggressive confrontations. I don't like confrontation. Yet they were all friends. And the yelling was all part of friendly conversation.

At this moment of assessment, and of contemplation, something changed. Amongst the anxiety of the awful din, I discovered a silence. It was as if I'd reached a sort of enlightenment, like the Buddha in a rock garden.

I recall a lonely bushwalk along which I experienced an aural sensation of comparable intensity. A number of cicada bellowed a chorus from the trees. Not at once but incrementally at intervals seemless to the human ear. It was as if the defeaning noise triggered a safety switch in my head, shutting off my hearing ability altogether.

The same thing seemed to happen at the concert, except I'd simply switched focus. Listening became unnecessary. I had found peace in the chaos.

I stood a head above everyone, periscoped above the sea of sweat-coated bodies. As I looked around I couldn't find anybody taller than my shoulder. Like an isolated obelisk my skin should have been itching with discomfort.

Yet I strangely felt the opposite. When swallowed up by such a crowd, the beating hearts of those around feel reassuring. Much like how the sound of rain is medatitive, whereas a dripping tap is unnerving.

In the bustle of big city life, I often seek out others who seem to be escaping through invisibility. I usually just look at them and wonder what they are thinking, what we have in common. In a sense I'm looking for someone I can use as a mirror. I am not, however, only interested in exploring myself. The only person we know with some surety is ourself, and therefore, we must look to ourselves in order to understand others.

So I wonder again if I know her. In the sense that I wonder if I have met her, I am still uncertain. But in the true sense of knowing, I think I do...at least as well as I know myself.

Description
I think I know her. In a city of two million, I wonder if that's coincidental, or if those of a similar mould tend to seek out the same places for the same reasons.

I'm sure it saddens many how the more people there are the less they seem to communicate. It's a nice feeling driving down a country road and an old man waves to you. Not because he thinks he might know you, but because there aren't many people out that way and he is being friendly. Or maybe it's loneliness. Or I sometimes wonder if it's just easier to make the effort less frequently.

I walked around the city for a few hours and nobody spoke to me. But I never opened my mouth either. I often feel invisible, so I try to embrace it and become that fly on the wall, except hidden out in the open, amongst the masses.

I always thought I could never be one of those people who go to the cinema alone. The fact everyone else was with somebody would just upset me. Yet when I see others alone in there, I envy them and realise it's not so bad.

I remember going to a concert on my own. It wasn't easy for me. But there were lyrics the artist sung which had given me so much strength, so much wisdom...I had to go. Even if I didn't know of anyone to take.

I stood with little wriggle space on the floor beneath the stage. Row upon row of disorder, I felt the hot, sweaty, smelly, hairy bodies of those around me.

We all shared in the wait for the show to begin. Most seemed to fill in the time with interaction...with talking...with yelling. I don't like yelling. I've had an automatic reaction to it for as long as I can remember.

Music was playing during the interval, as if it were needed to fill a silence. No silence seemed possible with so many people. Each yelled - almost screamed - at one another...at a volume common to aggressive confrontations. I don't like confrontation. Yet they were all friends. And the yelling was all part of friendly conversation.

At this moment of assessment, and of contemplation, something changed. Amongst the anxiety of the awful din, I discovered a silence. It was as if I'd reached a sort of enlightenment, like the Buddha in a rock garden.

I recall a lonely bushwalk along which I experienced an aural sensation of comparable intensity. A number of cicada bellowed a chorus from the trees. Not at once but incrementally at intervals seemless to the human ear. It was as if the defeaning noise triggered a safety switch in my head, shutting off my hearing ability altogether.

The same thing seemed to happen at the concert, except I'd simply switched focus. Listening became unnecessary. I had found peace in the chaos.

I stood a head above everyone, periscoped above the sea of sweat-coated bodies. As I looked around I couldn't find anybody taller than my shoulder. Like an isolated obelisk my skin should have been itching with discomfort.

Yet I strangely felt the opposite. When swallowed up by such a crowd, the beating hearts of those around feel reassuring. Much like how the sound of rain is medatitive, whereas a dripping tap is unnerving.

In the bustle of big city life, I often seek out others who seem to be escaping through invisibility. I usually just look at them and wonder what they are thinking, what we have in common. In a sense I'm looking for someone I can use as a mirror. I am not, however, only interested in exploring myself. The only person we know with some surety is ourself, and therefore, we must look to ourselves in order to understand others.

So I wonder again if I know her. In the sense that I wonder if I have met her, I am still uncertain. But in the true sense of knowing, I think I do...at least as well as I know myself.