In Continuum.

The Choice Of Loneliness



Eady," You travel a lot?"
Neil McCauley," Yeah."
Eady," Traveling makes you lonely?"
Neil McCauley," I'm alone, I am not lonely."

--- "Heat" (1995)

*

First day of my Junior Collage life and already I was flustered with anxiety. Being a person who was never good with crowds - not to mention a crowd full of strangers - I was avoiding every single opportunity to approach somebody or being approached. I guess that was where my sense of independence for started, the way I still feel like accomplishing something in my own time and on my own accord. Not because I am more matured, or that I have grown up like what my parents would like to think, but because I never really liked to ask for help, especially being brought up in an educational environment full of people I had no urge to get to know.

The first day I remember, and already I felt awkward in the crowd. Something was out of place, the way my uniform was tucked into my pants or the way the wind was blowing my hair all over the place. Maybe it was the sweat-drenched back of mine, or even the dorky looking school bag I was carrying. Nothing felt right that first day as a NYJC-ian, and I remember dreading the school already (Especially so when the Orientation turned out horrendous and far from satisfactory). In a classroom which looked like it should have belonged to a section of the Singapore Historical Museum, with the black board mounted at the front and the existence of chalks and those old-school wipers, I pinched myself under the desk as I sat right at the back, wondering if I was asleep or merely dead. I would've been happier in the latter case, because I soon realized that I wasn't dead, and the strange class of people around me all stared at each others' faces, confused and awkward.

From that day on, my JC life has been marked with my journey of solitude. Looking back at the old entries that I produced throughout the two years that i dwelt in that school, most of them have been observations or incidents that happened either with myself, or with my own thoughts. Most of them uneventful to most only because it happened with myself involved and only that, no one else. I was the guy you would see at the back of a lecture theater twenty minutes before the lecture starts, or the guy wandering to the next classroom immediately after the last one ended, skipping the lunch break.

When asked why i was so enthusiastic about the classes, I merely smiled at my classmates and told them that I was tired, and wanted to take a little nap before anything happens. But I never slept during those sessions of solitude to be honest. I'd pluck music into my ears, or read the book that I have brought along from home. Sometimes, the view from the classroom window would excite me, and then for the next half an hour I would be completely indulged in that, forgetting the existence of the next class until the teacher bursts in five minutes before time.

Lots of time were spent in my schooling days alone, and I never truly mixed with the JC people. Sure they were very nice people, and we weren't breathing in chalk after the first year. But there was just something missing in all of them, that incompleteness in people that repelled me away from everyone. You might have called me a class of loner, the ones that are usually condemned and ostracized in a society. But for me, I wasn't the one being left aside or ignored. In fact, it was really the other way round for me. Viewing from different perspectives, I viewed everybody other than myself as an individual, and I completely ignored their existence altogether. It must have been that urge to be anonymous in a school that drove me to that conclusion, but that was it. Voluntary Solitude, i called it. Still, i remained a sociable loner, unlike most stereotyped loners, who gather together in a group to feel lonely together. I was on a group with just one person - with myself - and at least with that person, nothing felt amiss in contrary to being with everybody else.

A friend of mine recently came up to me and asked if there was anything different about him, from the time when I got to know him in the schooling days and through the army life. He asked me to be honest with it, and I very well was. He wasn't exactly the type of person you would expect to mingle in a crowd full of girls. To make things worse, there were fifteen girls and five guys in my class, and the fact that he didn't socialize well enough with the guys either made him rather ostracized. The truth is, it was not that he was really a pain in the ass or anything, the typical jerk you would expect in schools. He wasn't like that at all, but merely because he was brought up in an environment full of guys. From Primary School until Secondary School, all guys. And he is the only son, and the only child at home as well, so that sort of made things worse.

I always say that despite all the criticisms that I have for my sister once in a while, I always make it a point to tell my friends that I give thanks to my sister for who I am today in my friends' eyes today. I mean, my sister - being a Leo - is not exactly the best person to hang around with, especially if you are a Cancer like myself. I'm not a horoscope enthusiast, but my sister really is the perfect example - in fact too perfect - of how difficult it is to deal with a woman. She sort of ' taught' me how to deal with a girl throughout my life, and therefore when I am with another, I am relatively more comfortable with her presence and my own. It's like learning manual or auto when you are trying to get a license. By learning manual you'd know how to drive auto as well, and that was my sister to me. Manual drive.

To be honest my dear friend, I wasn't all that close to you even in the army. Sure, we were in the same company and all, but we were in different platoons, and most of the time i hung out with the boys from my own and you with yours. I am not sure if you have - in any way - changed in relative to the person that you were two years ago. But one thing is for sure, that if you at least have the effort to want to change yourself, then it is a very great start to things already. The urge to change is the beginning of the end, and soon you'd find the problem of you being left out soon forgotten. I know it doesn't feel good to be an Involuntary Loner, but I guess that's how our society works, no matter how idealistic or optimistic you might be. If you cannot blend in then you stay out, which is basically how it is really. I for one, didn't care too much about blending in, I volunteered to stay out myself, and that is a totally different story altogether. So instead of me going to people, trying to be friendly and acting as if i cared, people came to me instead. I think a friendship built on absolute trust in that way, without me pretending to be a person I am not, is stronger and more real in every way.

So, from one loner to another, I wish you all the best. It sucks to be a loner but, you just have to remember that a good socializing skill wouldn't require you to TRY at all. It should come naturally and comfortably, remember that. The choice of loneliness is with you, and it is up to you if you want to make yourself feel lonely, or merely alone. There is beauty and serenity in solitude, one which you cannot obtain from a bunch of friends surrounding the pretentious you. Keep that in mind my dear friend.