Omar commanded us to write a monologue A) based on something we were afraid of, and B) that told who the character was (without telling). Here's my first two.
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Zits. My face is covered with them. I have used various creams and combinations of solutions to subdue them, but they remain. Steadfast and true. Now and then they’ll subside a little bit, but they never go away. They are part of my identity, I guess. I guess that’s why they stay. Which means, my affliction with acne is not an accident, it’s not something I don’t deserve. It’s who I am. Flagrantly imperfect. Innately blemished. That’s just how it is. Despite whatever else I may do or be, there is this distracting, visible evidence of things not quite right. I want to believe the real me has nothing to do with what I look like. They say you can never judge a book by its cover. Well I don’t believe that. I saw some 20/20 special when I was seven years old, and they talked about generalizations; how, even though people like to think generalizing is unfair, in reality it’s usually accurate. A man they interviewed, he worked at a bar. “I have to judge people,” he said. “I have to trust my instincts about whether this person is going to cause trouble, how far to let that person go with their drinking, whether this kid’s ID is valid or not. And usually,” he said, “usually I’m right. You can judge a book by its cover, and sometimes you need to.” That’s what he said. Like I said, I was seven at the time, but it confirmed my suspicions of the time, and continues to do so for me today. I am sick. I am not right in the head, and no matter how long I have waited or what kind of thinking I have adopted or lotions I have applied, my head has just persisted in being not right.
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Vacuuming is the purpose of life. Consider this. Christ the Lord said: “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” Now if we apply that principle to the world around us, we notice people, everywhere, everyone, who are trying to find themselves. They’re looking for who they are, they’re trying to find their place, what makes them happy. In searching for themselves they collect all sorts of stuff by which they are hoping to define themselves. I am a scholar, I am a handyman, I am a womanizer, I am a dog trainer. I am also a singer, I am also a person who knits scarves, I am also a movie buff. I am passionate about whales, I am passionate about idealism, I am trying to save the world from sin. We collect all kinds of different people hoping that one of them is the one that has our name written on the inside of the collar. When we put it on it fits perfectly, tailor-made. Everyone is a collector of selves. We’re hoarders, we’re dragons protecting our troves, vacuums stuffed full. It’s a lot of work and it’s heavy on us, and so we get protective over what we think we got. But here’s the thing: We're meant to collect--it's how we find out who we are, BUT we’re also meant to give it all up. Empty ourselves. Why? Because, from the day we were born, we’ve been sucking down as much as we can at all times, whatever’s in front of us, we take it in. We’re so full there’s no room left for who we are, and if we have ourselves in there, we’re too full to distinguish it from everything else. In order to progress forward, we need to throw out the entire collection. We’re not meant to keep; we’re meant to sift. It’s hard to do. Put in a new bag, prepare for more. We can be selective, now, about what we suck in. So it’s not a bad thing to suck—we’re meant to do it. But we’ve got to be willing to set it aside. Or we’ll get so full we won’t be able to hold any more, move anywhere, do anything. Keep vacuuming.
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