The Painting

I've always thought of myself as a loner. I never needed many friends, I never told anyone my deepest fears and my darkest secrets. I had my close friends as everyone did but that was about it. There were no need for "extras" in the picture of my life. But I was never lonely. I enjoyed the time I had to myself; the time where I had no need to lower my standard of thought and understanding to the rest of the world. I didn't like people. No, actually it was more that I didn't like to be in the presence of ignorance... at least not all the time. And to me, people were ignorant. People see no difference between the good and the bad; the loyal companions beside us and the backstabbing pricks behind us. Ironically, people would rather differentiate people through race and gender. I knew I was ignorant too but how can that not be categorized as the purest and dumbest form of ignorance? How am I not to be a loner with the mass public of George Bush's and Socrates wannabes. Or at least thats what I thought.

But, not for the first time, I've been made a fool. Since I've come back from Malaysia, i've been trying to figure out what has changed. I've gone back many times before, although for a shorter period of time, but I couldn't figure out what changed me this time around. My close friends were still close, and so were my family. My house stayed the same and so did my mutt of a dog. Aside from having a car, there was no real difference on the surface. But deep down in me lurked a different side of me that was crying out for life; a different life where people cared for what I said; a life where people would contradict my ideas; a life where life was not all about me. I had lost the life in me at some point or another. I had lost the self I once had and loved. For whatever reason, I became satisfied with my own ignorance afterall. But the people I have always known back home and the many I have recently met had brought part of me back. Its amazing yet baffling how, in just 4 months, those very people had partly undid 4 years of my self-indulgence. Its funny how 4 years of my philosophies had been flushed to the drain in just 4 months. You see, those people were not just anyone to me, at that point, I realized, they were true friends. The ones many people have left behind; the ones many people misunderstand; and the ones I treasure most. Some of them might have been rude at times; some might have acted stupid at times and some I never even knew. But afterall, they were my rude and stupid friends which I never even knew before.

The life began once I saw the colours in their hearts. Some were red with passion, some green with jealousy, some pink with love, and some blue with joy but all those colours made a grand painting. A painting that I shall always treasure.