Intoxicating Observation

I'm an impartial observer. I watch, analyse, judge. You could be completing your daily dues, but I'm filling my day by monitoring yours. I just spent the weekend in Darling, participating in a massed tightly organised wannabe Woodstock, and using the self-neglect of others as a personal field of knowledge and entertainment. Motherless metal-heads, intoxicated indie-kids, hippies floating so high above the ground, they've lost all feeling in their toes and misplaced their motor skills. All fell victim to my particular vindictive brand of savage self-indulgent unvoiced mockery.

You don't even have to see to observe, such is the beauty of this past-time. One can watch with one's ears; eavesdropping it's called in polite society. I was lucky enough to hear one smashed cider-coated nugget of homosexuality yell across a barren camping ground at what can only be assumed to be a fellow partaker in the joys of gayness, “you're not even gay, you're asexual. Bitch.” apparently androgyny is the new douchebag. Hoorah for glorious new ways to insult and hurt! Had I not listened in on such a conversation, this revelation of modern mockery would have sailed passed my world like those itchy thingies off a plane tree do when they fly through the air. If they hit you though, they make your life an irritational hell. This guy's insults made a brief period in my night an irritational hell. I hmm'd and erm'd for at least three minutes, contemplating the degree of cruelty that must, inevitably have been dealt his way to provoke such an outrageous attack.

Another moment of observational bliss came when a friend, tweaked on what can only be a bubbling brew of MDMA and Swaziland's finest, airplane launched herself into our tent, only to come smoothly in to land on top of myself and my bed buddy. She lay still, arms outstretched in a giggle-provoking Superman stance over us, eventually mustering up enough linguistic ability to say “I love you guys. You know that? I love you. Can I kiss you both on the head?” After which a touching ceremony of tenderness and affection unfolded, resulting in two very sloppy forehead kisses and leaving our canvas cave with a residual feeling of warmth and contentment. Who needs to take the stuff yourself, when you can so easily reap the benefits of such concoctions from the users around you?

Another point in this immaculately entertaining weekend came when a girl, adorned in neon flashes, dreadlocks and an almost fanatical devotion to trance music, elevated a giant plastic daisy above her head, only to twirl and brandish the messiah of all fake flowers like an expression of her own enjoyment. Her other-worldly smile, vacant and vapid eyes, and indigenous aboriginal dancing inspired thoughts of happiness, love and acid. I don't need a cap of the aciduous drug to feel its effects, I simply need to watch, and fully understand what it is to be off my tits. She gave me my high without meaning to, without selling or me buying, but in the perfection of observing.

Kids came from far and wee (goat-footed and balloon-wielding) to participate in this festival of daisy-inspired music and movement. I watched them shovel fist-full after fist-full of authentic butter chicken down their munchie-mad gullets. I laughed openly at those spinning, arms out and heads back, on fields, oblivious not only to those around them, but themselves in any state of existence entirely. I watched those that knew all the words to the songs bursting like bubblegum from the main stage speakers. Band after band over-exerting themselves beautifully, sweat pouring from each front-man in turn, the stage springing forth rivers of salty talent. I listened to every passing conversation from the safety of my tent, laughing at the stupidity of some, the humour of others, the drunken state of many. I watched it all, drinking it in, absorbing every second, convinced that one day, when my memoirs are being penned, I may not have many stories of myself, but others, them I can write about. Their stories and lives become my fix, my obsession.

I don't ever have a desire to understand the context within which a ludicrous statement is made. I want only the statement, the action or reaction, the one-liners that make an observers life worth further observation. And so it is that on this note I leave you, pondering the agendas of others. Possibly sending you out on a maiden voyage of not self-discovery, rather a discovery of the people around you. People who's lives can bring you joy, tantalise your humour switch, inspire thought, and rile up your bile duct. There are others out there you know. Others like you, who think and feel and live. Go see.