Reciprocity

Lyrical Essay exploring themes such as loneliness and friendship.

Loneliness can take many forms, from the obvious to the quiet and disorienting kind. Being alone in a strange town, Wendover Nevada comes to mind; a small casino town located in a valley right on the border of Utah. It is a place of no consequence, soulless; the absurd abounds there.  There is also the clichéd, alone in a city full of people, cities like New York. There patience is just an abstract concept and if you’re not walking, you’re walked on. It is a place of beauty and contradictions, elegance and rudeness. There girls smile for the camera and spit on the pavement. The ocean has been forgotten as has its shores. Lastly there is loneliness that can encompass a man’s life, this is what happens when one is alone in the way they think and/or experience life. This ailment, its cause and treatment are my main concern here.

Shared experiences, visiting malls, seeing films or sporting events, these can all create an important sense of community. Sheering for the same team, win or lose; as if there’s a shared hand in the ultimate fate or walking through a public centre and rubbing shoulders with your fellow man; Or quietly staring at a film, only sharing the silence held and the attention given. These experiences can help or maim, depending on the quality of the experience. Still, when the final act is complete, so is the play and there is only the final bow as you head to the exit.  At night alone with your thoughts, unable to express the loneliness, for ears don’t always listen and lips don’t always speak and a voice is one thing and nothing without reciprocity.

Reciprocity is “Namaste” to some and recognition to all. Herein lays the struggle, the lack of focus and continuity. If one speaks of philosophy and the other of sport, there can be no reciprocity. In this digital world where all can be found, yet all are seemingly lost, here there is only reproach or false reciprocity. Without warmth and flesh, reciprocity becomes a retort or a reply. Discourse grows stale without proximity as does respect and there is no warmth, here the seeds of that great loneliness are planted. Those that cannot establish a true friendship will experience no reciprocity and will experience a loneliness that is most debilitating. In chasing this reciprocity one must know its true meaning and value.

In the act of true reciprocity, men can exchange ideas and experiences. Thus acquiring knowledge that can lead to empathy and understanding; this becomes the path to friendship and in turn enables warmth to be endowed upon those that draw from the fruits of said labor. There is a need of a witness to life and a need to be understood. Moreover men want to see that their lives are common and incredulous as well; they too are beings of contradictions. Engaged in conversation, be that over a meal or a pint, there time slows down it seems.

      As the last act draws near and men grow near their last breath, those that wear the emblem of friendship will find that the curtain puller’s hands tremble with trepidation. For loneliness, fear and death had become another glass or another puff and the struggle is somehow pushed back for the morrow. While this argument may seem romantic in nature, I can assure you that the examples are countless; how friendship can save one from the darkest of fates. Even Sisyphus made a friend of his rock. Upon the common moment shared across time and flesh, it is the warmth that seals the true purpose of reciprocity and all else is flung back revealing the laughter in the face of life; that reminder of death.

             

 

Reviews

[Shweta]

I liked the flow. The write is such that you find yourself going with the flow of the write. I think that's important for a long write up. Cool write Inda.