... tell me about yourself..

... tell me about yourself..

 Just the other day I was asked by a new found friend to tell them about myself, and with the so much I am, the question triggered a whole new perspective…

One of the biggest blessings of my profession is the opportunity to interact with the prominent, and the successful. You are trained to converse and dine and dress and gesture like them so much so, you even forget yourself. You forget it is just an act you are putting on and imagine that this must be your lot; to eat lavishly and live large

And there you quickly see the biggest curse in my job! The yawning gulf between what I must pretend to be the whole day and what I must be reminded I am in the night when I retreat to my little shanty. It is like a little reminder of high school, you play and dine and joke with those you presume to be your peers until you have to pay for a trip, or enroll for extra classes, or go for sporting day, or a music festival, or more accurately when visiting day comes, then you see the social chasm that separate you.

‘We are all equal’ is a statement I have come to hold with suspicion (I have read and reread the American affirmation that all men are born equal, I have mused at it and wondered how further from the truth it could be). I have observed with curiosity the ease and automation with which some people seem to find happiness, friendship, health, achievement and attractiveness. And I have known how precariously I hang on the edge of exhaustion, moral bankruptcy, loneliness, and sadness, all in a quest for a living. I have compared and contrasted and concluded either we are not the same or we do not admit to each other the cost of our struggles.

This dual existence has a very strange effect on my life and relationships. I will identify with the people who are like me during the day and also those who are like me during the night. I will find a discord in personality in one and a discord in ambition in the other (the elegance and refinement as you can only get from affluence in the one and character and fortitude as you can only get from hardship in the other). And will wonder who it is I love more, or even more troubling, where it is I should belong.

Before it all sounds like thoughtless musings, a while ago, on an over lunch discussion, a colleague of mine noted hoteliers do not live more than three years after retirement, those who lose their jobs before then will literally have invested in nothing, even a few decent cloths. It was as though they lived in one world, and woke to discover they belonged to a totally different one. Their relationships are even more intriguing. Hoteliers seem to pick up second wives and concubines so quickly who befit their ‘illusionary stature’ (or may be more appropriately, the industry stature). The old social spots no longer measure up, and she must be elegant enough to accompany them in the new found life. The tag between the ‘day acting life’ and the ‘night real life’ will toss around the poor fellow until the day he wakes up in retirement with 3 families and no savings.

It is in that dilemma I stand, a young man, looking to grow, and succeed and fall in love and bring up a family, and leave a legacy. It was as though I am groping in the night tossed to and fro, trying to find where I belong, and who I should call my kind. In trying to tell who I am, I discovered I had no clue. It is like the possessed man assaulting himself by the tombs that Jesus asks ‘who are you’, and he answers ‘my name is legion, for we are many’. There is too many of me rioting in the streets of my heart. Oh that he may evict the ‘demons’ and let he that remains in me be the real me! And may be then, I can tell you who it is I am and which side it is I belong. I am sorry, I did not tell you who I am, precisely because I do not know yet. We have a lot in common, but I am not sure whether it is with the real me! And am reminded… life slips away just like hour glass sand…