Looking at living life well from a 'Grand Scheme of Things' is clearly a feat that comes naturally is to most children. And I say 'most' for reasons that I did not only have a strange childhood, but a even weirder life than most of the children my age. Like the day that it dawned on me that my mother was trying to pimp me, found out I had a illicit desire, or the realization that something queer was happening to the senior student body in my class.
The first time that I began to notice that my peers were suffering from a lack of logic and somehow failed to grasp any regard for the 'Bigger Picture' was during puberty. Much like the day that I was accused of cheating without any idea of what it was, the reverence. Though at the time I'll admit I was none the wiser, what was happening to my peers was the onset of Puberty.
Without having recourse to any play ground politics and after spending most of my entire teenage life hiding from public exposure and running away from any activity that would require social interaction I somehow found myself in the middle of a raging storm of illicit arousal and embarrassing attraction that exacerbated the alienation I had always try to deny. It goes without saying that my confusion was partly due to the neuro cognitive developmental changes that occur in the neurocortex pathways and of most teenagers minds, but whereas they were forging neural networks to facilitate the faculties of social cohesion, success, reproduction and matrimony I was struggling with much bigger issues, like what to do with my own aberrant arousal, how do I live my life in sin and shame, and why was I born with such a despicable affliction.
Being a normal teen is all about the playful discovery of mutual relevance, and developing the skills to manifest shared intent, while my interest was considered to be abnormal, abhorred, deviant, sacrilegious and sodomy. Looking back in hindsight my own indignation and dismay at the reckless behaviour of my schoolmates was rooted in a early childhood realization of my duty. A responsibility born of the expectation that I would become the 'head-of-the-house' and would have to take care for my mother in the unlikely event of my father's demise given that he was working underground for a diamond mining company at the time. Unlike most children age three I took my dad's daily pep talk before he left for work each with a conviction that bordered on the obsessive, and drove me to physical illness at the mere thought of where to begin. Soon after the birth of my sister I had the first of many Status Asthmatic Seizures. Looking back at the moment it was probably the beginning of my lifelong quest for answers, and the first time I found myself struggling to find the reason for fighting to tackle each and every breath that I take.
Unlike most middle age men I had the good fortune to have survived a string of near death events starting at the age of three and live to tell the tale of what you can achieve if you aspire to what society consider worthy, or by living life well regardless difference. Like most of my life story the memory remind me of how frail and fragile my reality was, and still is in many ways, the folly of my worry and fear, and how my futile concerns and grand schemes and expectations add up with me being in the here and now and present notwithstanding. I can't help but smile when I think back on my brave and courageous past, how big my aspirations were and how daunting the task I had took upon myself. It makes you realize how much ado about nothing is a waste of perfectly good living, and even if it takes a lifetime to find out out why, life is worth living well regardless.
