Innocence and the Perils Thereof
A Retrospective
We all, as human beings, retain a sense of our innocence. Even the most swarthy and amoral men and women are still, in a sense, innocent to what they are, or at the very least innocent to its implications or innocent of the minds around them, in a constant judgement of their actions.
Loss of innocence is a part of life. When it hits, it can be painful or an epiphany of an experience. Some might liken it to heartbreak, and heartbreak is a type of innocence lost, sure.
But a loss of innocence is even more extreme at times, though it can also be a subtle thing. It can also be passionate, uplifting, sublime. It really depends on a lot of things.
I think one such moment for me was in late childhood. My early teenage years were spent crushing on a blonde girl who barely acknowledged me as anything but a somewhat handsome lad who didn’t have the guts to talk to her. So one day I did. I was proud of myself, although it might have been awkward for her.
A few months later was a homecoming dance. She showed up, flirted with half the boys there, and then engaged in some sort of Bacchanal dry hump dance with a handful of fellows from the football team. Actually, it was pretty weird. Satanic, almost.
I sat on the bleachers in a letterman jacket dumfounded. I guess, because, here was this girl I’d fantasized about for so long, acting in a way that I had never really even thought possible for a human being to act, much less her.
Although I had no real hold on her, no real right to tell her what to do, I guess I felt betrayed. My mind, already fragile at that time in my life, seemed to crack even further.
Distraught, I wrote her an email via social media. She responded. We argued. I continued to write her for most of that year. I guess I’d fallen into some sort of proto-incel Hellhole.
Via social media, the girl tortured me with every party I wasn’t invited to, every girlfriend and boyfriend she valued more than me. Music that more or less expressed how I was the problem. Etc, etc.
I became, to most of those people, an unspoken pariah. I did not know who spoke to who about what. But a nasty glare was enough.
I had my friends, and they were far more noble and of better stock. But what could be done about this scenario?
It took years, really, to let go of all of that. It took far longer than I think it should have, but mental health is a delicate game.
In any case, I still think about that shit from time to time, but I don’t view myself as the wicked one in that scenario. I doubt anyone or anything ever could make me feel bad about it, because I know what it felt like to be completely socially ostracized and verbally unable to say anything to help myself due to the circumstances surrounding the situation.
There was one day I tried to. I reached out a hand to her shoulder “Hey…”
“Don’t touch me! Don’t talk to me!”
I retracted. Smiled. I walked to the bus stop. She followed. We walked together in silence. Took the bus to our respective stops. And parted ways until I got home and thought of what I wanted to say but couldn’t.
It was a different time. I was going through a lot. I needed someone to be there who couldn’t be there. I needed someone else.
It’s a hot day in Bangkok. The river looks a muddy green. There’s not much of anything to do. I’ve done most everything that I needed to do this weekend. Now I’m just sitting here, thinking about innocence, and what it means, and what it means to be largely innocent.
But I guess nobody really is.
Now it’s another day in Bangkok. I’m staring at the roof, thinking about Hanuman beer. Last night, I had a beer, but not a Hanuman. It was a craft beer with some friends at a bar. We spoke about everything from work troubles to world troubles to things that weren’t troubling us at all, and everything in-between. I got home at a reasonable hour, and woke up early as well.
There is the soft hum of the air filter and the air conditioner blended into a calming white noise. The ceiling fan spins. The stars shine down upon me from the artificial night sky.
Actually, it’s six o’clock. The sun is still out. But there’s enough cloud cover to make the room dark enough.
Out there on the streets, the cat licks his paw. He’s an innocent little fucker, and he’s having a good time at it.
A car swerves around him and honks. “ii sat!” Shouts the driver “Miao!”
The cat doesn’t seem to notice, and goes on licking. When he finishes, he wanders off the street and onto the sidewalk.
The perils of innocence have saved him, it seems, from a fate worse than death. For had he been less innocent of the car, it might have hit him, and turned him into roadkill.
The same might be said of all of us.
