Immediate Importance

The people of the world are synchronic and concentric. They are isomorphous elements in a domain of endless trajectories. People are all the same. You meet the same person every day. It’s magnetic. We’re all drawn to what strikes us as unique, different, special. And so everything is normalized, everyone is socialized, and mundane things like hipsters and post-iPhone laptops pervade coast to coast like osmosis.

In concentrated circulation, every man struggles to be great, important. It’s survival. But soon, he is no longer wrestling the enemy. He has become the enemy. Adaptation isn’t a struggle anymore. It’s a habit.

I am a habitual cynic. I am not special. I see myself everywhere, on every street. My hair is pink, blue, and purple to hide red roots. And the boy at Costco has green-white hair. He is must be more unique than I could ever be. But maybe his burgundy grandma-chic glasses are fake and his jeans aren’t real. That must be why I am still superior, more special, less average. And so the desire to be different, the hunger to exceed adequacy precedes rational sight.

Competition is cyclical. We rotate, revolving in cycles, changed vaguely by the wax of a new moon, but shocked into accepting culture myths, like race. And we race to synchronize ourselves until, why bother? Why bother with introductions? I may as well admit it. You’ve met me, probably often. I am not a fellow citizen as your neighbor. I have not merely met your neighbor. I am your neighbor. I am you.

I am blown by proximate currents. I am not greatly changed by global events, but petty thefts and secret burns, festering hatreds and shallow relationships. I am not first affected by a ripple from the global sound-pellet, but neither are you.

In a chrysalis sphere, we encircle the sun. And its people cycle, sharks to the scent of innovation. A famous new haircut makes your children wear the same blunt bangs. Flux and flow. It’s the Westerlies over and over, endless tradewinds of media and monopolies.

Life changes in measurable modicums. I trade my car for the one you’ve seen as often as you’ve seen me. I’ll describe it. It cost money. I upgrade my cell and join the post-smartphone era. You can see it right now. It’s yours.
The economy rises in tides and sinks. It affects us, and we all change in unison. Yes, some of us are wealthy. Others are lazy. We differ in energy, ethnicity, and yet, we all differ equally, to the same degree of separation. Thus, we are all identical.

I am bitter. I harbor rage. I am pessimistic. Why am I just like you?

I am a withered bishop’s lotus in the desert. I am rattleweed in the valley. I am a dying pygmy poppy in the fields.
I was the favored booth’s sun cup, like starlight at times, impossible to contain in gaiety and sprite. Now I am maroon merlot of coursing vengeance and mordacity. I am venom in the blowing devil’s claw shrub, sharp without censure. And I am an orphan no one tried to create.

I am another fourth-person omniscient of a larger assembly. I know everything. It all revolves around me. I’m important. And in that, I am just like you.