Jam Session

‘I don’t think it’s all that deep at all,’ I said, preoccupying myself with my shoelace as I spoke. ‘Too many people avoid speaking about the shit that really matters. It’s either too deep, or too philosophical or they’re in a hurry to some or other place. I'm not a philosopher. I'm just saying ... When did human beings become cyborg androids, you know?’

I looked up. She was looking directly at me. Our eyes met. The room seemed quiet, even though there were five of us in there.

‘That’s beautiful,’ she said. I frowned. I noticed her eyes wander at the same time as I became aware that my smile had turned upside down. Even though I was dismayed at how she too had fallen for the magical pull of my words, I could not help but marvel at the predictability of the entire exchange. I smiled again. Our eyes locked once again. She smiled. I continued speaking.

‘Thank you, actually. That’s a very nice thing to say. But you see, I don’t want you to say it’s “beautiful”. It’s really not. It’s a fucking travesty! I mean, think about it. The Middle East has all but nuked itself. Black people are still killing black people and blaming white people for it. Then enter the black conscious revolutionaries preaching the African Renaissance. I get it, it’s important. But we’ve had so many underdog renaissances already, why spark another. Why not simply accept that this has already been done, thank those who have already died for the ideals of a ‘renaissance’ and put the time in to perfect one unified ideal as a human species? It’s easier to fight than it is to understand with love and patience – and that’s why there’s human suffering. But just because this is our reality in the present does not mean that it’s our future by default. There is no point where the present ends and the future begins. It’s all one thing. What I’m saying is that right now, at this exact moment, you and I have a choice to see reality differently. Your cup can either be half full – in which case, in the moment, you have the capacity to fill it; or your cup can be half empty – in which case you work on the false notion that tomorrow exists and you’ll, by default, get another guaranteed chance to fill your cup tomorrow. I pity people whose lives today are lived for some or other imagined tomorrow. Tomorrow doesn’t exist, you know? I want to have real human moments today, right now.’

I stopped talking, surprised at myself for having said all of that without having dropped her gaze once.

‘I hear you,’ she said. I stared on in silence, hoping it would work. It did. She continued speaking. ‘But you cannot deny that white people have had it easier.’

‘I can deny it, actually,’ I replied. ‘If you think about it, the white people I have grown up with – which is every white person who was raised in my immediate context – has had to deal with the exact same socio-political bullshit I have been dealing with all my life. Regardless of whether they’re rich or piss-poor, they have suffered from bullying, from peer pressure, from being forced to sit inside a classroom for an entire day learning pointless shit that they don’t really remember or possibly ever will. We all know what it’s like to feel stifled. We all know what it’s like to feel emotionally drained. We all have hearts that have been broken. We all cry. We all feel. We all want to shine because we’re all born with this light within us that wishes nothing more than to be seen. We all shit, we all piss, we all have sexual tangents which we cannot truly explain because it’s all so fucking subjective. So who the fuck are you to try own my consciousness and put a label “black conscious” on it because I’m black? I know, you didn’t insinuate anything … I’m just venting … you know? We are all human. It’s not right to put some or other label on a cause because that takes away from the grander narrative. The story of human evolution. Charles Darwin was right. People simply didn’t always understand him. Evolution has very little to do with physical evolution. It doesn’t matter whether we come from apes or not. In fact, it should be regarded as an honour to be descendent to those marvellous creatures. I’ve never heard of an ape waging war. Even in those movies where apes roam free, man and his ego start it.

‘Evolution is about changing from one form of consciousness to another. We are born, and then we live. In life, we are constantly – at every second of every day – choosing between whether to love or whether to fear. Fear comes naturally because, well, we live in a fucked up world. And so the choice to love quite literally becomes the only choice we have to make every single second of every single day of our waking lives; bearing in mind that time is relative and my internal body clock varies a lot to all of yours subjectively. So where one of you is fully captivated by my rant right now, quite literally someone else is wishing I would stop.

‘But they won’t say anything, because they don’t believe in love. Oh, they know of it – but to know of something and to believe are two very different things. I believe in love, and so it doesn’t matter how what is said to me; I hear only the very best that can come of it. I choose to hear only the very best. It’s not naivety. It’s simply how I perceive my world – which is, I assure you, different to all of yours subjectively right now because all minds are always on tangents because we as a species are filled with so much noise that meditation is seen as a foreign concept. So much “othering”, man. It’s insane.

‘Anyway, even though my tangents vary from all of the ones you’re having right now in response to what I’m saying, it remains the same for me because I’m simply sharing my own reality into this shared space. Projecting what’s on my mind into yours that we may all, in this moment, begin to do the same and take it in turns sharing what’s on your own mind. Like, if you think about it – we don’t really have to do anything right now but stay pretty, intelligent, educated and alive … and live …’

I stopped speaking and I was greeted by the most beautiful silence I had ever encountered. It was one filled with looks of thought and processing. My job was done. I smiled, spread out on the floor and closed my eyes.