Asocial

From the hidden archives

July 22, 2015

I seldom write these days.

But I think about it often.
What to write about...
Next....
Or later......
Or maybe someday.

If I do write, dare I display it?
Who would read it?
Who will it offend?

It will always offend someone, even though I don't like offending people.
I don't like conflict.
Offense is conflict.
And then there's defense.

Offense.
Defense.
Us.
Them.

As I rode my bike today, my thoughts meandered to one of my often-thought-about subjects.
I have become somewhat asocial, in a sense.
Not anti-social.
But asocial, not social.
I seldom seek the company of others.
I often analyze how I have come to this place of solitude.

Perhaps solitude is the wrong word.
I'm not a monk or a hermit.

But I am alone often, but not really alone because people are all around.
Alone in their giant tin cans on wheels.
Talking on their phones or listening to music.
But not live music, recorded music.

Before the gramophone, all music was live.
People picked up instruments and made music.
People sang and whistled and hummed.

That is something else I often think about.
As I ride my bicycle alone on the Greenway.
With music playing into one ear.
Songs coming from my cell phone to my Blue tooth via satellite from Pandora which creates algorithms according to songs I have preselected.
I don't know what an algorithm is, but it's a fun word to say.

Sometimes I choose to turn off the algorithmically-selected music.
I take the ear bud out of my ear.
I let birds sing to me.
And the leaves.
And the breeze.

And people occasionally pass by.
We always nod to one another, and sometimes speak.
A couple days ago a biker caught me dancing beside the trail as I listened to the music playing through my earbud that only I could here.
He laughed heartily.
I did too.

See, I'm not anti-social.