being there

I do NOT believe that people in this world are motivated by selfishness.

No.

Instead, I believe that they are motivated by lonliness.

In this world, there are two kinds of people: those who want something from you, and those who don't want something from you.

I find that people want things from me all the time, but the biggest and most common thing they want is for me to just be there.

I don't mean being there like the Jackson 5 singing "I'll Be There" or like Chance the Gardener in Jerzy Kosinski's Being There. I'm talking about being in the same geographical location as someone else.

The number one thing people want from me is to not leave them alone. I am more than happy to accomodate this, so long as I have nothing else going on at the moment.

Unfortunately, lots of people want me to be around, and so I have to make my rounds. Some people outbid the others for my free time, but I always have to make up for the appointments I postponed later on.

The people who want me to be around make me feel welcome on a good day, but they trap me on the bad days.

Then there's the ones who don't want anything from me. I want something from them. What do I want from them? I just want them to be around, to be in the same room as me, to just stand there. We don't have to do anything-- all they need to do is be there. And they don't want to be there, for whatever reasons. They don't see themselves the way I see myself in regards to those who want my time-- they cannot understand why I want them to just stand there and do nothing.

They don't understand the security in prescence.

I'm not someone who can't be left alone, but there are certain people in my life whom I simply want to surround myself with, and they don't get it. They never will get it.

So from now on, I go where I'm wanted. I go where someone just wants me to sit on a chair and say nothing, in comfortable silence. If it gives them peace of mind to have me like an ornament in their lives, so be it.

After all, there are worse fates to suffer.