The Company You Keep

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When you are left with the least company you usually meet, you get to rediscover who you usually forget.

When you grow older, you get to terms that you must be alone once in a while but you still dread becoming lonely. Friends are like your soul sustenance and keep you feel outside of yourself in the great big world. Their value is understated but you know without them, your world is a bit weary to live on. Your dependence on their existence is so familiar your life would feel a lack in that space they have filled individually. 

The people we are fond of usually have similarities in who we are. They can tell you good and bad things about the world - and yes, even about yourself - but they remain beside you at all times. And somehow, they always find a way to make you laugh and cry almost simultaneously the reasons why they are in your life does not find an answer at all. 

But how about the people you randomly meet? How about the strangers on the bus looking at you without uttering one single word. As human as you are, you know that if you do not give something of a worth, they do not matter at all - at least to you. The perspective you gain from different personalities who you cross paths with can influence you so subtly, you would not notice unless you pay extra attention.

But as the universe has some applicable laws no matter how cosmic, these people who do not matter to you at all has somehow found their way into consciousness. You are connected to them - be it at the same time you see each other on the cafe at lunch breaks or the guy that reads in the newspaper stall before you reach work. You do not know them, but you recognize them and your routine would not be the same without them being a part of it. 

So, do they matter at this point? Even if you haven't shared drinks or exchanged numbers yet or do not even bother to say hello?

You see, they can remind you of that one person you always have by your side but you do not acknowledge - yourself. You have been told to always thinks outside yourself to be able to become humane. But does ignoring your sense of self, makes you more noble?

It is a tricky question to answer. When you say being selfish can be deemed bad, but not knowing yourself is foolish - you are stuck. Your efforts of finding the id and ego work together can be challenging. 

But if you get to spend more time with yourself and feel like you are outside looking in, you can doubt how well you know yourself. They say if you cannot keep your own company bearable, who can you spend your real self time with?

Can you look at your own shadow without wincing at what can stare at you back? Is there something about yourself that you like most or least? Is there something about you that you have not settled with?

Being introspective can help you ground yourself once in a while. You might not like yourself totally, but you can learn to accept what you are and what you are not. 

And by doing that, when you look at people, you can see they are all like you. Just finding out who they are by living the life they know. Getting lost, ignored, bothered by everyday life and neglected philosophies are all but human experience. An attempt to answer the most important question to ask yourself:

"What am I here for?"