63.

The news bores me to death sometimes. Not because the content is boring, but because every likely comment, debate, opinion, conclusion and recommendation that comes out of it has been beaten to death, resurrected a few months later and beaten again. Hell, if it wasn't for this blog I would have forgotten half the bad news I've heard in the past year or so. What is frustrating is when even feelings become redundant. "Oh wait, I've already felt that before," is the worst possible reaction to news-unless of course it is the kind of good news we have been hungering for for so many months.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter at all who is behind anything, or whether we win or lose. What matters is how many people defend the disturbing minutiae of injustice in defense of a greater good. I've heard a new world is coming and that her arrival will be punctuated by minor skirmishes. I've heard apologetic statements about bomb blasts and blasphemy laws and getting worked up over an Ahmaddi calling his mosque a mosque and not "place of worship." I've heard that all countries go through hiccups and burps and teething and various other infant-related analogies, and that Pakistan will develop kneecaps and stumble into toddlerhood soon enough. Oh well. Oh well. Oh well. Life goes on.
I used to analyse everything, but now I don't bother. At traffic signals and on street corners, I look at people and perhaps instinctively like them, but second-guess myself and wonder what filth may be found if I peel away the layers of normality. Hello, I love what you're wearing, are you a closet racist, classist, homophobe, Nazi apologist, imperialism-lover or Blackwater spy? I rather like the way your spectacles make your face look, I've always wanted frames like that. But I worry I won't like you once you start talking. You see, I am a bit bored of hearing cliched opinions, including my own, regarding the news. Because the news is all we will talk about, if I roll down my car window and make friendly conversation. Oh, you won't roll it down? Well, neither will I, because I am afraid of getting mugged, as are you. God, it happens all the time.
Allthetime.
It amazes me that I can write when there is nothing left to be said, or thought, or felt.