WHITIN

I haven’t written in a while. 

Not for a lack of trying, or an absence of intense need. 

I’ve just been… distracted. By work. By life. Its ongoings, you know? 

Paying bills, commuting, being out and about in the world. 

Being a citizen.

Each activity, its very own kind of draining. It sometimes leaves very little room for introspection. Plus, it seems, sometimes, too tall a task. Reconciling all that is happening out there- with all that’s happening in here. 

Within. 

I do a great deal of inferring as to the nature of my relationship to the world without, and those living in it. And I mean really living in it, you know? 

Shaping it. 

Even if this shaping is often in their own image; it must be, I imagine, one that conjures a sense of safety. 

It makes me to wonder if this is the price of apathy. Of inactivity and inaction. 

To simply act as a witness, to the shaping of the world. By those who act, based on their perception of how the world should be.

I must admit that at times, it scares me, to give it any more than a passing thought. 

I mean, can you imagine it?

A world in which every soul is either, shaping the world in their own image, or witnessing it happen. Slack-jawed and afraid. Giddy and jeering. Apathetic and…

distracted. 

Never knowing what to say or do, paralyzed into inaction. Into safety.

I mean, man. What a world.

Then there are the voices. Soft and quiet. Loud and cacophonous, coming from everywhere, all the time, all at once. 

Sensory overload, to maintain the paralysis. 

Ah, what a world! 

I’m laughing to keep from crying. Not waving, but drowning, as they say. And not to wax poetic but, do drowning men not leaves messages in bottles? 

At any rate, here’s my voice again, soft and quiet, joining the chorus. 

You play by not playing. Humanity is the world’s oldest team sport. And so many sides to choose, too. So, to keep with the sports metaphor, we all gotta come off the bench sometime. 

Whether you are the confident, “put me in coach”, type, or the unwilling, self-interested witness, a stance is taken.

The responsibility that comes with choice, or the consequence that accompanies its lack. 

It’s how I express my freedom, my feelings, my frustrations- through choice. The ability to make my motivations a bit clearer. My aims.

I could choose to remain a witness, or I could, at the occasional periods, come off the bench, and contribute myself to game, if not with my body, then with my voice, as only those of us on the bench know how to do. 

With ardent fervor, for those of us out there. In the game. Taking those risks, and doing it as much for them as for the team. 

It’s kind of the aim of “A Writer From Kinshasa”. Its so I can share, in the most me way possible- what’s going on, 

within.