The Backgroundsmen

"The problem with being smart is that nothing misses your sight and you're blind to everything else."

Roll Camera, 3rd Person:
We have grown used to the idea that everything somehow gets better towards the end. Everything gets fixed, the Hero gets the credit, the girl and everything there was to get in the plot. Drop curtains. Roll credits. Pretty good story, right?
It's always been about being 'The One', the desire to fit in the shoes of someone essential and absolutely important is embedded deep within the human emotion. You see, this person, is someone who always makes the right moral choices and so, he is 'bound' to succeed. He can do no wrong. This brief sense of elation that we get when seeing this guy on screen getting everything is the same as we ourselves get when we fulfill our dreams.
The problem is, somewhere, the lines of reality and truth gets blurry and gets tangled up with the one we're fed at the theater with over buttered popcorn and soda.
You see, we are the most important  person in our lives. We think it's rather fair that our lives be like 'The One's' - Actually, we take it for granted really. We like to pretend that everything that's happening around us will eventually lead to better things for us. This is a well kept lie of our lives.
But such lies have their own way of coming to light.

Camera, Shift to 1st Person:
Things which are complicated enough, are often false. That's what I always say. Anyways, this here is not about the guy riding on his horse into the sunset but rather about the guy who lost everything and took the blunt of being in just the background. I like to pretend that what I do is good. You know, the writing and stuff. It gives me a a right to condescend without facing moral dilemma. Stuff that I do, make me superior than most so obviously, it's all about me and some more of me. Bow before me, worship me and bring me neat stuff.
Alright, where were we again?

Shot, Back to 3rd Person:
We are often faced with a situation where we are at crossroads with our morals. We cannot go ahead with our lie. We have to face the truth. It has accumulated over time and now is much potent. The most protected lie is usually the one which breaks you. Because you would do anything to keep the illusion of false hope and go on with your life. If, say, there comes an impasse, we try to get around it - understanding fully it isn't possible. Making new lies to protect the one.

Roll over to 1st Person:
I'm really in a sort of dilemma. The confusing lines of moral authority that I thought I had gets distant day by day. I'm losing the grip on my thoughts. I run around writing things that make no sense when read by someone other than me. Historically, not good for any writer. Na-ah.
Such admittance is usually characteristic of people with issues, mine comes from the fact that I'm have a lot going on in my mind than in my life.
Everyday, I wake up with a renewed zeal which goes down with the incessant barrage of inflicted and projected emotions. What was an exercise in Logic and Reason before is now a  muck of conflicting emotions for me. I guess this outta diminish my life's joy a bit.

Switch to 3rd:
There's always a person in your life you want to beat. I'm not saying you want to go behind the alley and kick his ass, or that you just want to see them miserable and scream manically 'I win, you lose.' No.
It's more like there's a person who has what you want but either he doesn't value it or that he doesn't treat it the way it should be treated (by your reckoning).
But as the comic nature of our tangled plot hinges on this other person getting the thing, there's hardly anything you can do to make it otherwise. You see, it's the classical paradox. You are given a choice which has no effect on either the present or the future. You can take it as your moral values are put in question while others around you suggest not to - either making no impact on the truth. It's a kind of kid's game where at the end, everyone wins and so, everyone loses.
That's always fun, right?

Pan over to 1st Person:
The point where I cannot live with your self and decide to take things in your hand is the day I went turbo. I told myself that maybe the future has more in store for me, because that's how it works. I have been brainwashed to believe that I'm important in my life.
From that moment on, I tried the move the immovable rock of destiny. And watched my morals get squashed ruthlessly. I think, things like these leave scars. The eventual buildup to the tipping point suggested a grim outcome and it wasn't wrong. I'm afraid things will turn for the worse from here.
I can't force someone to make a choice they are actively trying to avoid so I guess I'll have to make it easier for them by withdrawing my candidature.
Pretending to be happy while you're tortured from inside - It's a good skill to have when most of the time you are putting on a brave face for the world to see.
I do believe that some gestures are more comforting than most but these lose their value when the person getting them holds the optimistic secondary position in the priority.
The convoluted nightmares of falling from heights have a new meaning to me now.


Won't say anything anymore. Told you so.

©2013 Aman Gupta