Can I bark please? • 11.06.07
3:30 am. My phone is ringing. The famous Cingular ringtone is playing, and I start wondering about things. It is someone with a relationship issue on the other line; someone I met last week in class. “Ok, tell me in detail what she did.” It is someone called Bes, and he is complaining to me. His story goes on for hours, but the alarm clock says it’s 3:30 am. Is the clock not working?
What’s going on?
I don’t know. I have never seen Bes complain like every other typical person out there, maybe including you too. Some girl is after him, and he doesn’t want that. This girl is really aggressive, and he doesn’t want that. For some reason, I sense that something else is bothering Bes. Maybe it is not a feeling of being bothered, but maybe a feeling of feeling some unidentified feeling. “What is it Bes? Tell me…” He becomes quiet. That scares me. That really scares me.
All his life he has been quiet, and it can be hard for him to not be quiet sometimes. When he’s in public and in a joyful mood, he can keep on talking. He can keep on entertaining. He can keep on negotiating. Aaaah yes, negotiating. His life is based around negotiation. Negotiating for life. Negotiating for happiness. Negotiating for things he thinks are right not only for him but everyone else too.
Sure, most people overlook such things as it is hard to find a selfless person but he keeps on negotiating, keeps on hoping, keeps on trying. But he is quiet now on the phone. It seems like an eternity. It is a very strong, silent moment, and I wonder if he’s still on the phone. “Bes…” I say, and I hear a very calm “Yes.” He’s there. The clock still says 3:30 am for some unknown reason.
I don’t know what to say.
So I say “hmmmm…” He loves that word sometimes, as if it was his lover that he longed for from time to time. I am not sure why; I doubt even he knows why. That word, among a few others, has become part of him. “Hmmmmmmm.” He says. After a few moments of silence, Bes finally says “99% of the world only hears what others say, while I am somehow stuck with only listening, or not getting a good listener to actually listen.” These moments are very rare; Bes rarely talks about anything on his mind.
Sure, he entertains others, he can keep on talking. But no one knows him personally. No one knows whether he is single or not. Most don’t know where he lives. No one knows about his childhood, about his life, about his current situation. Most don’t know why he does things, or what he does most of the time. Most don’t know his birthday. Most don’t even know his real name. Do you?
Yet he keeps on listening, canceling his movies for those who are sad, not going to classes for those who need him right that very moment, selling his own things to make money for others, giving free and real honest advice to both business and non-business people and their needs, and actually sympathizing and feeling sad in his real offline life if someone online is sad and needs any kind of attention. Other people have become part of him, and he likes observing and analyzing things around him. There comes his own self interest; observing, analyzing, helping, caring, and hoping to be returned some favor. What is that favor? I don’t know. I doubt he knows either. It just hasn’t happened much, or at all, yet.
People know the listening Bes.
People say he is funny and a nice guy; however, very rarely does anyone inquire much about Bes the way he inquires about others. He shows real interest in other people because he has real interest in other people, and he revolves his current life and everything around almost any person he hangs out with. I come back to my senses and look at the clock; it still says 3:30 am. “You want someone else out there like your own self?” I ask. It can be pretty hard to ask Bes any personal questions, for he is a master of detours and can easily answer things to your satisfaction without revealing anything about himself, even if he wanted to. “Heh“, he sighs heavily in a cheerful mood and then becomes quiet.
I hope he says something, as even getting a response on my question is a miracle.
“When I was in the hospital last year,” Bes said, “the hospital sent a student nurse or a psychologist-in-training for 2 nights straight to allow me to talk to her so I don’t feel depressed or anything because of being stabbed. Usually, people who get stabbed get someone to talk to them afterwards to make sure they are ok. This was 2 days after I gained consciousness. After 2 nights of her coming and not being able to get me to talk about anything personal, I spent the next 8 days listening to her problems, her cries and her issues and told her what I thought was right or wrong.
Being in a bed allowed me to actually sometimes make sarcastic fun of some of her issues also; my intention was not to make fun of her but to show what I thought. Here I was, in yet another almost-death situation and I had a chance to express myself and as usual, I didn’t and it didn’t bother me, and instead I ended up being the listener as always…..”
I wondered if he had stopped.
I had to make sure I knew what was going on. To be frank, I had no idea about the exact purpose of what Bes said but I knew that what he said had some element in it that was the focus of everything Bes wanted to say. Bes never says “I feel we should do this.” and as the only thing in a conversation. He likes explaining things, and if he ever talks about himself, he wants to explain himself perfectly. That is why he rarely talks; he is good at realizing when people may be bored, and thus he caters any conversation around to what people want to hear. He is good at that. He is very good at that.
He can excel at communication, at helping others, at realizing what people are made up of, what businesses are made up of, what things are made up of, solving problems for people and businesses, but Bes’s personal life is part of him, and it rarely comes out. He is more happy than most people, probably you too, and he is also more sad and worried about things than most of you, probably you too. Maybe it was his childhood that made him this unique. Hmm, yes, it must be! Or maybe it was how he tried to control his childhood instead of simply responding to it.
I quickly move my hand and my head and look at the phone to check its battery power. My phone still has full, 100% battery. Hours of talk in this phone call and the battery life is still 100%. I wonder why, while putting the phone back on my ear quickly.
Businesses, personalities and external people love it.
Sure, businesses love that, the very thing Bes has become on the outside, as he can work perfectly and do miracles even when his personal life is in chaos, for he rarely loses his cool, he rarely shows his weak point, he rarely shows his inner self. He never wants to show anything personal to anyone who does not care a full 100%, and thus he rarely feels the need to express himself to any individual most of the time. But Bes, himself, knows that such a thing, even though it is alive and well, can maybe go through a change. What kind of a change? Who knows. I wonder if he knows what kind of a change he wants. I do know that he is tired of being only a listener in all personal situations. In businesses, he is more than comfortable in almost anything, so that is not part of the topic here.
“Whatever man,” Bes says, “I know many things are not going to change because of my efforts.”
“What is the solution, do you think?” I ask.
Bes becomes quiet, and giggles.
“Haha“, he exclaims. “People spend years trying to figure out why they are gaining weight and never find the solution. People spend years trying to figure out how to stop their health from deteriorating and they never find the solution. People spend years trying to figure out how to improve their lives and they never find the solution. I have spent and am spending my entire life trying to figure out something, and it is not the solution. Heh, maybe that is the reason I keep thinking a lot. Or maybe the current state of thinking is the answer to what I’ve been seeking, or a tool for it. I wonder how it feels like to try to find a solution for things first. Heh.”
I look at the clock again. It’s 3:30 am.
Bes is quiet now. I know he is thinking of all the stereotypes people have. He knows how the world does not allow easy non-sexual interaction between males and females, how the world does not permit non-selfish interactions between people, and how the world does not allow certain characters to thrive, characters which can easily go from one realm to another, one perspective to another, without being hogged down to a single frame of mentality. “Ok man, sorry to wake you up. Go back to sleep. Tomorrow is a busy day, filled with squirrel pursuits, meeting people, and avoiding talking about person things in front of stalkers and fake listeners, resulting in no personal talking at all.” I bid him farewell, and I put down the phone.
I look at the phone again, and it is all quiet, and asleep. I look at the clock after a few moments. It is now 3:31 am, and the world is on my shoulders. It always has been. People focus on the end result; I am focusing on the reasons. 2 different quests; 2 different paths? I wonder if I will ever be able to actually explain to an actual offline person who is close to me, on a personal level, anything about me, and what I’m all about.
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