Kia's World

Today was a day when I realized that there is this other world out there. I found myself in a place one wouldn't expect to find me…but that is the beauty of randomness. I had to pay a visit to the local Mall to get a couple of champagne glasses engraved for my parents' twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Now we all know just how paranoid I can be, later even my girlfriend failed to believe that I was at the Mall, but yet, there I was. In the one place I avoid as if I were allergic to it. With the highest concentration of CCTVs and other security devices (like overweight security guards) in my local area; the Mall is a place I visit only on very rare occasions, usually (like today) when all other commerce places have been exhausted…and I'm left no choice but to go to the Mall.

I watched as people walked around, girls met boys, boys teased girls, and a vast array of people chatted away on cell phones. It didn't take long for me to realize that everyone here saw the entire mall in a completely different light than I did. To me the gleaming display cases, flashing lights, signs, and kiosks represented a corporate attempt to cash in on human desire. I saw the entire mall as one big distraction from the happenings of everyday life. However, these people around me, saw it not as it is. But more as a place to go, hangout, a spend their hard earned money. A few dollars here, a couple more over there and, very quickly, you found your pockets empty…from jingling your change. These other people skirted around other people; mothers pushing perambulators, young children refusing to stay in sight of their parents, and young couples getting rather frisky for being in such a public place. Where as I simply stepped out of the way and let these citizens go about their day. Stores displayed the hottest new styles, new dazzling jewelry, and new born puppies. These people stopped and stared, captivated by their desires. I walked on, giving these displays nothing more than an amused glance. But my amusement was not at the items or the displays, rather, it was at the people admiring those displays.

Over all I found the lifestyle of the people I saw today as very inviting. As I sat in the food-court I realized I was the only person who had actually thought about where they would sit. Unlike the frisky lovers and groups of friends around me I had chosen my seat so that no one could come up behind me with out me knowing it. I chose a position that overlooked the entire food-court and the doors to enter the mall. At this point I shook my head in an almost defeated disgust of my own paranoia (an action that won me odd looks from a young child, I would guess no more than five or six years of age) and found myself wishing I could see life through the restricted vision of all these people about me. It is, almost, appealing to be able to live blissful and ignorant to the truths that we, at Kia's World, are all to familiar with. Life is so much easier when you don't know what is going on beneath the surface. To those who passed me by today the look of amusement on my face probably made me look like some person from a far off country who'd never visited a Mall before. They wouldn't be far off the mark for thinking this. Yet, I'm not from a far off country and I've visited the Mall before. But I am from a different world of understanding and I find the Mall just as blatantly overwhelming as that foreigner would…

So why did I choose this life? I could have ignored the truths I've come to know when I started to walk down this path. But, for reasons I can't explain, I didn't. My friends are a constant source of frustration, they think me crazy for seeing what I see in society. No, not for seeing what I see…they think me crazy for caring about what I see in society. So that, I think, is why I chose to live this life, in this world. Because, simply, I care. I think we all do, we may not all see the world around us in the bluntly two dimensional view that I do…but we all care about what happens to society. We want to liberate the ignorant minds and put a damper, if not a complete stop, on the progression of the spread of ignorance. So, my friends, let's stride forth. Maybe next time I'll stop and talk to that solitary person on the bench. Perhaps, in a figurative way, we are all Travelers…just waiting to change society. So let's stop the waiting…let's change society, one person at a time.

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Delta62 Thorn