do you ever wonder if your choice of blorbo is random baby chick imprinting, or in fact a deep physiological profile that reveals all the things you need therapy for
pirates of the caribbean really introduced an eldritch octopus man who kills indiscriminately and torments the dead as their poster villain and then you watch the movies and it’s like, “oh no, actually the worst villain in this series is a small white british man who functions as the herald of capitalism” and that was very very brave of them
And my knee-jerk response was “no, you should hear my friends talk about their lives–”
And it made me remember something.
Back in high school, my IB class did a lock-in– where the group of students gets locked into one part of the school overnight on a weekend– and after junk food and video games lost their appeal, we got to talking.
Only I didn’t really know anything about almost any of them. They were all friendly enough, but I kept to myself for the most part, so we didn’t have much to talk about once standard small talk ran out.
So I asked one of the other people sitting with me: “what’s your story?”
Your life story.
And he told me. Sixteen years or so condensed into maybe a half hour. And it was the most fascinating life I could have imagined: the places he’d been, the things he’d done, the experiences that defined him. It boggled my mind.
When he finished and turned the question around to me, I thought mine sounded really boring in comparison, but he listened open-mouthed to the entire thing. Other kids were gathering around us by now, listening in. And when I finished mine, I turned to another one of them and asked the question to them.
And just like before, my mind was blown. A completely different life, completely different focal points, defining experiences, goals the likes of which were deserving of an anime. And the same happened with the next person we asked, and the next.
By the time each one of us had finished telling their story, it was time to go home for the morning. The video games had been abandoned hours ago. None of us had slept. We were too caught up in each other’s lives.
All of which is to say:
Thank you. I do lead a very interesting life.
So do you.
It’s seriously one of the biggest pieces of advice I think I can give to anyone: listen to the stories of strangers.
having depression makes your friends seem like the coolest most put together people on earth like wow… you got out of bed, had breakfast, went to work, AND spent some time on a hobby when you got home….? that’s so impressive you’re like superman or something. can i borrow your power.
Michael A Davenport, 3,090 Degrees Fahrenheit (Oil on canvas, 2025)
30in x 48in
From the artist’s Inprnt:
“3,090 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which sand becomes glass, in a process known as the Pilkington Process. This is not the temperature of burning; this is the temperature of becoming something.”
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