Brain Storm

The man on the bench

I stand there. With my athletic, 6"3 frame, watching the man on the bench. And older soul. Late 50s, early 60s. He sits there and watches the people in the pool. I watch his chest take quick, dyspneic breaths. I feel my heart sink, seeing the trouble his body is going through just to breathe. His face at first appears inquisitive. Though after looking at his breathing his face looks rather nostalgics, in a fascinatingly depressed way. Maybe I'm psychotic, standing here, watching someone breath and looking at their face to see what they're feeling. He looks lonely and regretful. Funny how you can interpret so much about a person by so little of their expressions.

I look in to the pool, to get a gage on what he might be feeling. I see youth and innocence in the kids splashing around. I see love and happiness in the couples swimming together. I see wisdom and maturity in the older people. All in all I see peace. I see peace between generations of people. People whom may have different mindsets on life, but can still co-exist peacefully. That, to me, is the beauty about humans. When we put aside our differences, we are such a beautiful species. Though, like many other animals, it seems to be rather hard to collectively live peacefully as one species.

Maybe that is what the man on the bench is seeing. Tranquility and equity orchestrated by Mozart himself. Maybe he sees things completely different. Maybe he sees how separate we are as a species. All the different groups and factions of swimmers. None of which seem to mingle outside of said groups. He sees how divided we've become as a people, and how he wishes he could change that.

Maybe I'm just using the man on the bench to think about my life. Maybe the man on the bench is just a symbol. A symbol of character, that can be interpreted anyway you please.

The man on the bench doesn't know you, but you know everything about him. You are the man on the bench. Everyone is a man or a woman on a bench. We humans are rather curious. We study someone, whilst someone may be studying us, so on and so forth. Kinda crazy isn't it. To us, as individuals, we think of ourselves as the base or normal and sanity. Though to others we are weird and crazy.

The man on the bench is the definition of humanity. Trying to interpret the life of another, through our own eyes. Sure, maybe I'm just a fucking weirdo that does this. But think about it. Why do we put very old pets down when they don't have any medical problems? Because to us, life isn't worth living at such a fragile state, at least to some.

The man on the bench let's you explore your own character without you realising, until you take a step back and look at what you're doing of course. And if you can catch yourself doing it, it's a rather beautiful thing to witness.

I wish to meet the man on the bench again sometime soon, though I probably already have.