Ghost People and their Impressions
The concept of ghost people started as a friend of mine and I looked through an old yearbook we had found. For a while we casually talked about people we saw in the yearbook and how they had changed. Later an idea emerged where we were to go through the book and give at least one word to describe each person. We tried to go about it nicely and avoid words such as “slut”, “whore”, “dick”, and “you’re horribly anoying and socially awkward, you should probably kill yourself” (note: Suicide is awful and I’m obviously an asshole for joking about it. My apologies for all who have done away with themselves and their families.), yet at times there was no other choice we could see to describe some people. Many a time, when going through our huge class, we found no other words to say but “I don’t know them.”, “I’ve never seen him/her.”, or “Oh! That’s what their name is.” My friend invented a name for people such as these. He referred to them as “Ghosts”. This idea got the gears turning in my head.
Ghosts, we all have them. We are haunted by them. Through our day to day lives there are ones whom we see. Faces we give no thought to. We pass them in the hallways of traffic and in the workplace. We sit behind them on the bus, we see them walking down the street. We bump into them while rushing from class to class, from meeting to meeting. We see these people everyday, yet we know nothing of them. These faces have no meaning to us. Like the people that send you friend requests to you on FaceBook and you are like “who the fuck are you?” then you notice that they have a ton of friends in common and you go ahead and friend them. These are the ghosts among us. Their stories may be interesting, but they seem to have no interest to us. Their lives may have meaning, yet that meaning is void to us.
Mysterious beings these ghosts are. Oftentimes I find myself noticing one of them. I start to see them everywhere with the realization that they are every bit as real as me. (Unless one of my most dear conspiracy's is true.) They have hardships unknown, potential unrealized, dreams unaccounted for, secrets untold, and a fate yet to be discovered. A fate that could be somehow intermingled with my own. My life,of which all is known of my past, hardships, dreams and thoughts.
I look at the ghosts and judge them. How horrid this practice is I cannot describe. This is the impression of them. Not the “first impression” that we hear of so often, but of a ghastly impression. Ghosts don't have the lasting “first impression” due to our interaction with them being few. The impression that comes upon us as as we see them is based solely on the way they carry themselves and their appearance.
A ghost has been realized by me lately. I have had no notice of him previous to now. From what I can tell this ghost is annoyed with the world. Alone and frustrated, yet humbled and and damned to the continuous fate and never-ending struggles and confusion of his day to day adolescent life. I feel sorry for him, frustrated with him, and intrigued with his decision to let fate take its course.
Yet how do I know this to be of the truth? My judgements are based on his bored face, slumped shoulders, rolling eyes, and sealed lips. For all I know he could be a jolly young lad without a care in the world.
One giant misjudgement of my time was when I met a ghost who has now turned into a close friend that most people only wish they had. I never saw him before but as I sat across from him on that first day of school I thought he was a stuck up, rude, cruel, stupid, asshole. What I did right then was horrible, but as humans we have the tendency to judge. In sixth grade we shared what they called “lockers”, yet in reality they had no locks. They were basically just tiny closets. When told to put our books in them we both wanted each other to go first out of courtesy. In the moments of arguing with my friend over this stupid matter I realized the wrong in my unfair judgement.
See, the thing that scares me about this concept of “Ghosts” isn’t that I may not have the privilege of getting to know some really cool people due to their ghastly manner in relevance to me, but that there is someone haunted by me out there that I am only but a ghost to. One who notices me not. A haunted person that is uneducated on the true personally and unique awesomeness that I hold. I am frightened of how I am judged by them, and worse, if they judge me as awful as I judge others. I wonder if the haunted see me as a depressed, cynical, disrespectful adolescent brat. However part of me, the part that is full of pride, says ”It is their loss.”
I encourage you to meet or at least become aware of some ghosts in your daily life. Perhaps you will make lifelong fiends, learn new things, or have a interesting life experience. Attempt to cease haunting others around you. Break a little out of your shell and make a name for yourself. A name that reflects your true personality. Maybe you can help a few people along the way and open doors to new opportunities (both figuratively and literally).
As the haunted, we will never be without them. They will always be with us. We will see them about and fail to notice. Just as so the haunted will not notice us. However we try to rid of the unknown we shall fail. We are the unknown, we are the unknowing, we are the mysterious, we are the frustrated, we are the judged, we are the judging, we are the unjust. We are the haunted. We are the ghosts, tremble at our erie presence.
We are the Humans.
Please don't be a zombie and DFTBA.
~Benthejunebug
