Pandora, thou art cruel to Poor Benjamin!

My world is my own to comprehend. I may let you in, most reluctantly; however, it wouldn’t make sense to you. You wouldn’t be able to comprehend things by the rules you and yours have made and the way you see the world. My world is inside me. It would be difficult for you to come to terms with the fact that someone who isn’t delusional or schizophrenic or perhaps not mentally ill at all would have such a view of the world. My glasses are neither rose coloured nor tainted. I don’t view my world with glasses at all for the matter.

All I want for you is to accept it all as it is and not taint with how you want it to be. I like my world untainted, untouched and unhinged. My world provides the right to exist for everyone no matter how unconventional or conventional or quirky you are. And, I am disappointed, of course, all idealists are.

I thought I was a realist; however, the root of my pessimism and perhaps the undying shreds of my optimism can be attributed to my idealism that eventually, maybe a major chunk of the world’s suffering population wouldn’t need to suffer one day and that too without dying. I am Orwell’s donkey, yes that ass literally, the one who knew it all. He was the antithesis of what ‘Ignorance is Bliss’ stands for.

Orwell’s donkey, Benjamin knew what will happen, he always did, you know, the been there done that syndrome. His was the absolute lack of passion. He knew it was too good to be true and it turns out he was right. I am Benjamin in the sense that I know the logical outcome of many micro and macro events and I still let people choose their set of beliefs. I don’t impose mine on them. I am far too pessimistic to influence someone else’s opinion on anything. Another reason is that despite being a pessimist, I am an idealist and I want you to be true to who you truly are whether you are the ultimate embodiment of evil or an angel reincarnate.

In the process of letting people be my passion has died. It was suffocated step by step. Right after I steadied my steps and become an efficient runner in the 3rd grade, we had a chapter one day in one of our English Textbooks that tells us the tale of Pandora’s Box. How evil is it to tell children that the world is full of troubles that because Pandora, a woman opened a box that she wasn’t supposed to the whole world is now infested with troubles of all kinds imaginable. How cruel! However, the only saving grace of the story was the last line that says ‘Hope is always with us.’ Even though the troubles have unleashed, we still have hope.

And, it is this hope that a better tomorrow is sure to knock on my doorstep one day and I will be optimistic enough to let him in instead of shooing him away. Him does not only mean companionship, it also means passion and consistency and ultimate acceptance of my unconventional ideals that are too liberal for conservatives and too conservative for liberals.

People never fail to surprise me when they screw up. Despite being so convinced at the pessimistic point of view I have of the collective, the individual never fails to surprise me in a bad way. It is almost paradoxical when the collective always makes things worse but it is in the individual that I still have hope, hope for something much better. I wish we all did things to redeem ourselves and not just out of guilt but out of pure love and compassion.

Can my world not ever materialize itself where everyone would be accepted? It’s like the San Francisco of the 90s without the homeless population. Nothing is perfect but we can always strive for the ideal, the perfection. However, I am pretty okay being me, imperfect, emotional, idealist, pessimist, part optimist, over thinker and someone who is really too good to be true. That reminds me to let a better tomorrow in the next moment he knocks on my door!