I Will Keep Myself to the Side

January play with no stage directions

“So, what you are saying here is that you would sit with me here without a chronometer if you were old?”, I say.

“Of course I would. We all progress to return to a basic human connection. OK, I know you don’t appreciate that word”.

“What word?”

“Connection.”

“And why is that? You tell me…”

“Because you wouldn’t be here, if not me, if not the connections…”

I look around.
”But yes, you prefer a word relationship.”

“Progress we all want…?”

“Invent the antibiotics to move away from them, to go to homoeopathy, skyscrapers to build again from earth, clay, to appreciate that no Zoom can replace a coffee and cake”, you say.

“And on top of that, I dare to keep stuffing myself with biscuits from your delicatessen, because who bakes cakes these days…”

“But please—by all means. I will bake them when I get old. When I get old, I will bake bread too…”, you reflect, looking at me, eating the most tempting biscuits of all (Well, who is?).

“That’s sad”.

“We are sad.”

“You said that. I keep myself to the side.”

“Yes, we devote ourselves to work, because it’s better than being badly accompanied, that’s what we say. All those songs are about it.”

“Until we are old enough not to work and invite a friend for a cake and coffee…because it wasn’t a bad company after all, but the one we couldn’t accommodate in our busy lives.”

“I will work till my last breath, me! I will still invite you on the weekend. Not to worry.”

“So if you did, what would you tell me, you know that old guy who discovered better things in life, the old stuff…?”

“That shyness was in the foreground, that I was shy of my shyness, But there was also some inner matter at work.”
”And I’d say: You don’t seem shy anymore? And the work will always be there, because we are never done. Until we are?”

“Of course, not.

Everything is complicated—because I am shy, and yet at times shameless, something I know perfectly well—and perhaps this contradiction is visible in my behaviour too, since you have examined my life quite thoroughly, as a kindly inspector. I took little part in things beyond writing. Certain things embarrassed me: imposing myself, taking the floor, playing the wise man, being an instigator. All of it somehow struck me as being in poor taste. And I cannot subject what I did—this writing—to a deep, searching analysis, because I am ashamed.”

“So you are ashamed. And I, what am I then?”

“You admire those who envy. I don’t say the envious, because that word carries a faintly diminutive aftertaste, and I speak with respect. Envy is also a kind of energy, a powerful force that pushes a person forward. One searches, after all, to compensate for inner pains and unease. You are terribly full—filled, namely, with no envy, I, with an abundance of shyness. What I’m saying is painful for me, but I try to be honest with you. I’ve been ashamed all my life—ashamed of everything, really, starting with the fact that I exist, that I live—and at the time when I will talk to you, I must also be ashamed of my age—down to the smallest details of everyday life.”

“So then I would ask you for an example, to comprehend, perhaps…”

“For instance, when I was twenty, to ask someone for something trivial, it became a tremendous experience for me: torment, the gathering of energy and strength. I didn’t know how to disturb my surroundings with my presence, to demand anything, to expect anything. If I had to get something done, I felt gravely ill at the thought that I was creating a problem for someone, that someone must have taken care of it, taken care of me. This may be somewhat of a national trait: self-sufficiency. Manage on your own. I won’t analyse this further, because I am still shy, and it could easily turn into self-praise. You know how those processes work… And returning to envy—you must say honestly that you did experience it, but in terribly brief flashes: three-second moments of envy? And your inability to muster a healthy, creative hatred meant that at best—only with effort—you could achieve a harmless dislike, a modest, misty sort of aversion. Why are you looking at me like that? Am I saying something wrong? Then correct me.”

“Please, tell me more about those modest, three-second envies—you mentioned, attributing them to me, they’re intriguing. Whom, for instance, did I envy?”

“Whom do you not envy? I’ll tell you. For example—and let me strike a lofty note—you do not envy God, because He has so many of these self-created problems, namely—humans, here on this tiny planet, those treacherous humans, always knowing better what’s better for them. That one truly no one can envy Him. And whom did you envy? I would like to say something to enliven the conversation. Well, you know, certain cravings, life-desires pursued at all costs—they may be a kind of reflection of envy. You desperately wanted to join the leading newspapers, and you had a great desire—almost an urge—to use a drone, you know, the taxi-drone. But it passed quickly. You drove your SUV and, with time, gave up on drones. Drones would need to be heated in your climate, so you stuck to your fancy car, you could heat up from your apartment block before coming down.”

“Aha. And what would I say then to that?”

“Of course, you may say that, after many years and from a distance, you were minimising your actions, your presence there. That is possible. You are no longer young. Everything has faded somewhat—the world, this existence around you, as if it has lost much of its charm. But yes, if someone had observed you throughout your life, if anyone cared to do so, they would grant you a little right.”

“You speak now rather abstractly about wanting things, whereas you spoke of envy, which is more directed… Everything may—but does not have to—have its cause in how my life unfolded.”

“I would then say, after all these years, this syndrome of semi-orphanhood we both carried had an influence— a partial one—on the shaping of our personalities, our so-called ambitions, our life-desires, our behaviour. Above all, your behaviour. What’s interesting is that you were always pulled and pushed toward being beside. You, and I perhaps too, had a fear—a kind of inner fear—of collectivity, of what the collective imposes. Certain behavioural styles, mutual displays—this all made both of us uneasy.”

“Fine, you claim we were both always on the side, but who was at the parties?!”

I wait for your reply, but this doesn’t arrive.

“I’ll tell you then—though you may not believe me. You may take it for self-justification, and perhaps it is self-justification; perhaps my obliging memory embellishes or corrects the past. But between us—really, in confidence, because it will look like dodging life’s responsibilities—we were both drawn to the parties. I don’t know why, for what reason. I must have seemed attractive as a speaker, perhaps; your family danced well... Very strange.”

“How many parties did we go to?”

We both burst into laughter, looking at each other, then turning our backs and counting on our fingers, forcefully, staying there, wondering if any more could be added. When we realise that not, we turn back to each other and give each other a warm smile.

“Or perhaps I’m lying. Perhaps I no longer remember that…”

“That… what?”

“That it was work, after all.”

I laughed this time. “And I begged, sobbed, to be accepted at any cost? But you know me a little—well, that wouldn’t be my style…”

“Neither was lengthy dancing my nature, so I liked the cameras swirling round, it created motion, without moving much. My own way of finding justification for my situation, for my place in life…”

“So after so many years, you were still to justify…?”

“… Not being inclined toward collective actions, toward rivalry, toward the desire to show off. That’s what I say—but perhaps I’m making it up. Or perhaps I’m not. I say it and immediately cast doubt on it—that’s my habit. I don’t know whom I’m quoting—Darwin or Kant? About succumbing to the desire to stand out. If one is aware, if one remembers, that there are seven billion bipedal mammals, it is depressing. Those small towns I mentioned earlier—London, Paris, Vienna and Rome, they were closed little worlds where ambitions were easier to fulfil. Now this global awareness attacks us more and more—virtually without pause. Even when you walk down our street—it constantly reminds us that we live in a…”

“…global village? That famous saying isn’t wise. We don’t live in a global village. We live in a company. In the company of seven billion fellow beings. That is deeply depressing, and hence the necessity to stand out is so strong. It’s a natural desire to demonstrate something “indecent”—indecent in quotation marks—something against our established customs. And this is often effective, at least temporarily. Time will examine everything and discard what does not serve the collective legacy, and preserve what is durable—because among these excesses there are also things interesting and right. Doctor, you are terribly silent. There is a shadow of concealed cynicism in your gaze.”

(pause)

“One might say that the silence is ominous now. But what can you do to me at this point, really?”

“I can say this because it’s too late—nothing can be undone now—that you took me on.”

“Perhaps I also belonged to those people who live carelessly, hurriedly, waiting for the real life to arrive. I, for example, feel guilt toward my—”

“I can see that.”

“But it’s not good that you see it, because I should always be export-ready: attractive, interesting. Complex. Complicated.”

“You would like to be complicated. But you are a man!”

“And again that look. Ask me something—ask, for God’s sake!”

“Ask you what? Hypersensitivity is the greatest cause of exhaustion. You flinch at ordinary sounds. You feel overwhelmed in crowds. You need to recover from basic social interactions—yet you can’t fully rest either.”

“So now you play a doctor while mocking me with this title? I can self-diagnose—dysregulated nervous system. And there is your approach that goes deeeeeper than just avoid triggers.”

“Extraordinary. Necessary.”
”We shouldn’t be saying this now.”

“Why? Because femininity constantly dominates and, I don’t know, somehow pacifies the cruelty of our lives.”

“There was something extraordinary in that, my dear, a kind of higher necessity.”

“OK. OK.”

“So should we be saying all this now, here, instead of waiting for old age?”

“Definitely, we shouldn’t. We shouldn’t be sitting here; I shouldn’t be stuffing myself with biscuits with no chronometer.”

“And for what reason is that?”

“I might have the flu.”

“You must be joking!”

“I haven’t tested.”

“So why don’t you go to the real doctors but here, to spread all this talk?!”

“Isn’t it you who said that people come back to homoeopathy, after all?”