So I wrote a monologue. Not for fun, but for English, because I no longer have time to write for fun. Yes, it's a sad world we live in. Or I live in. Whatever. Anyways, obviously I like this better when it's performed, but as I don't actually want to post a video of myself performing it, I'm giving you the text. We were supposed to write about a controversy, which I didn't quite do, but I'm pretty happy with the result. Obviously there's a lot of things in here that I put in to convey that it was a believable character speaking, but it looks really annoying in writing, so ignore the "like"'s and the "you know"'s. Without further ado, here it is...
You know that famous poet? Kabir? Yeah, he inspired me a lot. He’s Indian, I think, but there’s a lot of different stories about how he was born, and where he was born and stuff. Some people think he was Muslim, but other people think he was like, rejected from Islam or something. Anyways, he says in one of his poems, something like “The Self forgets itself.” That really hits me, you know? I feel like he really knew what he was talking about. Like, we keep wandering around like we’re the most important people ever, but in reality, we don’t matter at all. Like, people halfway across the world couldn’t care less about us, you know what I’m saying? But we forget that. “The Self forgets itself.” Yeah, he knew.
And what really gets me, you know, is that everything he said, it’s true. And that’s not really the amazing part. What’s amazing is that it’s true after all this time. Isn’t that kinda crazy? Like, how did he know all the way back then, that the world would still have the same problems now? And this guy was like, back in the 15th century or something! I’m telling you, it’s incredible stuff.
It really bugs me, this whole thing about everyone thinking they’re so important. It’s like, shut up, you know? You aren’t important, I’m not important, nobody cares about us, so stop being so full of yourself! They do these experiments, you know, called stuff like “Six Degrees of Separation”. But it isn’t true. I mean, sure, it might be true that we all know each other through six degrees of separation, but who cares?
In the long run, who cares if we are connected to someone through someone else? We’re just so full of ourselves that we don’t get that the world isn’t about us, you know? Like, it’s like the way we’re seeing it is: (draws a circle in the air) here’s the world, (points to self), and here’s ourselves. That’s the ratio in our heads. That’s how small the world is to us. But everyone else’s lives don’t revolve around how they’re connected to us…
I didn’t used to think this, you know. It didn’t used to bother me that I only thought of myself, because at one point in time, it was every man for himself. But I hate that now. I realized, you know? I realized that it doesn’t work. Because I care about other people, you care about other people, we all care, and if we didn’t, well damn, that would suck. I tried to follow that, every man for himself, but it didn’t work out all that well.
(chokes a little on the words) Because you know, when my grandma died, I cared. I couldn’t help it, I cared. It wasn’t some sob story, like she got cancer, or had a heart attack. It was just old age. And I wasn’t someone who couldn’t let it go, or couldn’t ever be happy again, but I cared. And it showed me something, because people change, you know?
So I never would have realized that it wasn’t about the self, and it wasn’t about me, and it wasn’t about someone else either. I mean, people are gonna cringe when I say this, but what it’s about, what it’s really about, is all of us. Can you imagine if I had just kept on being my cold, heartless old self, who only cared about my own success, my own failure? But people change. And thank God for that, that people change.
