Scaling Fences

By Guessaurus

Def: n A structure serving as an enclosure, a barrier, or a boundary, usually made of posts or stakes joined together by boards, wire, or rails

Everybody knows what a fence is; everybody has had to scale one, to be behind one and to be outside one. Fences are built to keep people in, and they are built to keep people out! Undesirables are kept out and in.

In prison I would assume everybody wants to be on the outside (not had any personal experience there), same in boarding school (had loads of experience here). In Morocco people die trying to scale one to get to this side (Europe), but they being the undesirables are killed by the guards who are trying to keep them out!
Like marriage, there are people who would scale heights to get in, and there are others who would burn bridges to get out!

So you are in wanting to get out, or out wanting to get in. I, on the other hand am building my own classification of humans – that of the fence persuasion.

Def. 2: Idiom: Undecided as to which of two sides to support; uncommitted or neutral

See, I knew in a roundabout kinda way we would get to the point, just too many damned fences to scale before we got here:)

Being a human in this day is a challenge, we all aim to maintain our standards, culture and values while still keeping in tune with the 21st Century. You can accommodate both the old and the new together, but there will always be some arse trying to tell you how to do things, when to do them, we don’t do them this way, you are eroding your culture, you are too old-fashioned, mum does it like this (said in a whiny 4yr old voice) etc. Like someone I know would say “Where is your mum so I can spank her one before showing her how it should be done”

I refuse to be railroaded into the notion that I have to please both old timers and new comers – but its not that easy. Different strokes for different folks and all that. So I end up wanting to erect a really high fence, and sit there watching the warring factions, telling myself I will come down when the fires have died down.

Of course you can never succeed in being a spectator in your own life. Hence, when you come across a fence, you have to either jump over it, pull the wires apart and crawl to the other side (but if its electrified, you might end up looking like M when he was separated from his luggage and couldn’t find his afro-comb:)) )or scale it.

So in an ideal world (or on the fence whence I am sitting) I would watch people contradict themselves over and over, ruffle a feather here and there, get into all sorts of muddle based on societal expectations and the do’s and don’ts of the genders. I would happily laugh with the knowledge that I am not a party to that, and that I could watch but not touch, so to speak. I wouldn’t be tainted by their (mis)deeds and would never have to worry that my actions, whichever ones I can manage without falling on my face and by perfecting the balancing act, wouldn’t have any consequences to anyone else but me.

On my fence, there would be people invited who can manage to stand on one foot high up from the ground and laugh heartily without falling over; people who realise a catch 22 when they see one. People who know that the world is changing, different times call for different actions, and reactions. What your grandfather did for a living is all noble and shit, but it might not work for you if you want to do it. How your mother cooks and cleans is all good, we are all proud of the son/daughter she bore and raised well, but damnit if I have to bend that far to emulate her – might be a reason why you still don’t live at home, I might be wont to point?

We are all complex beings, and with that comes our ability to think independent thoughts (I swear that is what it said on the wrapping paper when I was ‘born’, or so I was told coz I couldn’t read then, and now the paper may be lying somewhere, all yellowed and wrinkled and nibbled off by some rodent or other, or some identifiable flying object, but so much time has passed that no one knows where it is, or whether it is) and our inherent (speak for yourself) ability to identify and use common sense, with or without the benefit of a good education, a good upbringing, or a good woman behind us, should teach us when to fight and when to take flight, when to stop and stare and when to leg it, when to speak and when to shut up.

It should, I am reliably informed by my right frontal lobe, help us understand that perfection is not a gadget bought from the Argos catalogue, nor is it a fashion accessory or a daily survival necessity. We each have our best points, and our worst points. We all know that if the roles were reversed, we wouldn’t date a different gender version of ourselves. Why? Allow me to inform you that it is because we each recognise our own shortcomings and quirkiness and would probably not tolerate it in a partner, so what in the heck are you doing expecting another person to accept it off you?

So before class is over, and before I open up a recruitment drive for people to join me on my fence-sitting foolery, I would like each and every one of you to look at yourselves (preferably in the mirror, if you cant manage to see yourself without looking at yourself) and repeat after me: “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”. Done? Good. Now, get out of here and don’t you keep running around berating others for being different and doing things that do not ‘conform’ to your ideals, or the society’s, the tribe, the country, the continent, the gender, the home, the culture, the whatever else it is that you have a big box in the closet waiting to be filled with. Ride the tide, go with the flow, get with the program and whatever other clichéd sayings that mean live and let live (or die, as it were)

Because like you, they too are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Now M help me up this fence

Listening to: What kind of man would I be? Mint Condition