Sloane, Alone.

Many, many years ago, in a Bahasa Malaysia SPM tuition class, the Cikgu noticed this person you shall now know as the author of this piece, always sitting alone. Well, to this person, tuition classes 2 months before your SPM is an emergency guilt-insurance you take out, in case you really did as badly as your forecast results, well, foretell. I didn't notice the significance of what the Cikgu noticed - that I am a lone ranger. Later on in life, I have been 'labelled' other things; the peg that will eventually find its hole, spinning on the same axis but in the opposite direction, a free-spirit.....They were trying to sound positive, of course. 

Being so connected with the cause, pains and hopes of others while liberatingly alone has been a feature up til now. And it doesn't look like it's going to change. I will in the end,  belong in a club specifically for people who thrive being without associations. A few posts ago, I deliberated about why I do not belong, not even when my current profession allows me to be a member of a proliferating association. I cannot do any of the things I do best and delivering it to the masses without belonging to a group - I cannot write screenplays, songs, act, sing and gain some degree of popularity condusive to earning an honest living, without actually belonging to some troupe or other. I cannot preach at a pulpit, be a published columnist or an online community.....not cannot, would not. 

And now I know why. I thought it was me all along, me and my brand of stubborness. As a child, I often consoled myself that 'Some day, my fit will come'. But I'm not the weirdo. The others are. For how can any of us function as original versions of our selfs if we have to constantly abide by the rules and conformity of others?

I know now that people join groups and associations not so much because they want to help, but because they're unsure about what they're supposed to do. They're looking for validation and confirmation, mostly. There are always the few, the pioneers, especially, with the noble intentions of spreading a cause, creating a platform. But within a generation, the order of the day deteriorates on its own. 

Freshness of mind and action upsets the equilibrium in group dynamics. I am not advocating solitary confinement. I am saying that I understand now that me being alone was necessary for my freshness in thought, my originality. We are all products of programming. Yet, the less programming and the more original thought, the better. And thanks to a lifetime of unconformity, I withstood quite a lot of programming and the liabilities that programming can cause in a person's choices in life. I did not conform to infatuation-laced nor tradition bound marriage, the stereotype of the single mother, the stereotype of the orphan, the teacher, the rebel, the Muslim, the non-Christian, the Buddhist, the this or that. 

I have no form. I have no spiritual or creative form. Long ago, I asked God if He would be angry at me if I chose only a way of Life that encompasses the things I find logical and helpful and which I understand and excluse the traditions which would require me to know only the labels but not the thing itself. I said He could strike me dead anytime soon or take away the gifts that He knew I most cherished - my ability to love and be kind, and my ability with words. I offered them up to Him if He is a God which requires obedience and not thought. I said, because I loved Him and the Life He has given me, so much, I am willing to take my chances, Heaven or Hell, and I will still Love him there. 

During those times, I had a strange dream. I was in a sort of Western town, in the first floor of a building, by a window. The moon was bright. Several buildings were aflame. A group of religious fanatics were going around scouting for non-Muslims to murder or force a confession from. The full moon cast a bright light through the window. They were approaching and soon will be upstairs. I told God I am keeping my promise - that I will have no religious form. The arabic words for "Allahuakbar" was suddenly cast like a shadow into the moonbeam, on the floor. There was nothing on the window. In the moonbeam were written those words. God told me, in His own way, that His presence in me and mine is His, is above anything a human can force out of me. They burst through the door......and I was invisible to them, they could only see the words, "Allahuakbar" on the floor in the moonlight through the window. 

Of course I don't believe I am some spiritual messenger. It is our subconscious showing us what we want to see. Divinity lies within ourselves. It is the divinity in me that gave me that dream. That is why anyone who is sympathetic to any cause will find themselves dreaming of that and making that a prophecy or sign. The only signs we're getting are the ones our own divinity is sending us. The fact that different people get different signs is because we believe in different things - and the fact that they are different does not matter. It is the love and conviction behind the need to believe that drives us to take whatever form that can help us get there.

But Form is a two-edged sword. It is like training wheels. There comes a time when you need to abandon the form without feeling angry towards it nor feeling like a traitor to it. The form is the material world's way of taking us where our subconscious wanted us to go. Our Divinity wanted us to go. When it's time to get off the trainers, we will find ourselves tripping over and being in conflict with our form. Time to get off the training wheels, take them off and getting back on the rest of the journey - without form. 

Actually, to be a lone ranger is in itself another version of a type of form, except that it is a less restricting form. I know I will be branded an eccentric sooner or later. A question I've always wanted to know is - are the people we call crazy really crazy, or is it the rest of us that lives in our own lunacy? I suppose I will be able to find out in this lifetime. 

From where I'm standing right now, it is the rest of humanity that is crazy. They plunder and destroy and find this and that disgusting as long as they get a sanitized view of the really disgusting things. They complain over the same things they created for themselves. If only they stopped and listened - every single human in the most destructive civilisations, stopped their patterns for a week - the skies would clear like it did the week Beijing hosted the Olympics.....we could hear the birds and smell sweet scents. We would find the beauty in nature and our loved ones. We will see the beauty and coolness of water or the qualities of a rock or life-giving soil. 

When you come up with a few novel ideas for life or things, people call you smart, a genius. They applaud you. Then you come up with more, they think you're a maverick, then a revolutionary. And from a line in The Dark Knight, you either die a hero, or you live long enough to become a villain. In our case, an eccentric, or branded a lunatic.

That is the price we pay for not deteriorating like the rest of humankind. As you move further and further up the top in any evolution or hierarchy, the view gets better and clearer, you can see further, it becomes quieter and then.....you finally realize, you're all alone.

It seem that the road to salvation does not lie in group hugs, associations nor states and religions. It lies in being able to shed the layers of conformity heaped on by collective order. There is a difference that is often overlooked when talking about non-partisan views. We live in a world so used to the doctrine of solidarity and its definitions that we do not think other forms of collective can exist and be, in fact, even more effective. 

There is another form of collective - the Collective Consciousness, which does not rely on conformity and associations. Like a powerful legendary Pokemon, each entity can function on its own but finds SYNERGY through the same frequency. They do not set out to gain an advantage by having a structure or team but come equipped with the same awareness and knowledge that each is able to decide on a course of action for each one of themselves which they can collectively act upon without conflict arising or egos obstructing. 

Being alone doesn't mean I am anti-social............I need to keep my thoughts original and fresh, for only then do I have the strength of conviction and passion for my purpose. I will not be as much confused whether those convictions were mostly mine or mostly inherited, dictated, instructed, obliged. I will not face that conflict once I'm deeper into my involvement with mankind. I am alone not because I hate society or am against the status quo for the sake of rebellion - I do not conform because the only way to get out of the mess we're in is to be able to explore the options outside of the systems that had entrapped us.