Shut up. Listen.

"If that illusion is indistinguishable from reality..we have no choice but to accept it as reality and deal with it as best we can. Otherwise, we might as well sit in a corner, doubt the existence of everything and just..do nothing." Jadzia Dax, Star Trek DS9:Inferno, by Judith Reeves-Stevens
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I don’t know that I can but I will sing. I hated music when I was growing up because my two villainous sisters just loved drowning the conversations in Bioman or Astroboy or Shaider with the radio. TV was my world and music was theirs. Growing up in my corner of the world where MTV couldn’t conquer till much later, music and TV never went together, specially when stereos had bigger speakers that they seemed to reach into all the rooms of the household. Not only that I was the youngest of three siblings, I was also outnumbered in terms of preferred kind of entertainment. I learned to control my rage.

I grew up. In addition to hating music, I hated academics. I hated routines. I hated whatever was impractical. I couldn’t understand why I had to measure the shadow of the flagpole and the angle of the sun to figure out how high the flag actually was. I didn’t think I’d spend my life trying to find out how high a damned thing is, though I might want to pull it down to earth, exactly like what I’d want to do with the stars. But I loved the stage. I’d like to think I spent more time on stage listening to myself talk and to applause than in classrooms with no decent air-conditioning systems.

I grew up some more. Now, I don’t hear anyone clapping. I’m doing my fcuking best okay so gimme a standing ovation.

I went out with some friends one time and saw this idiot twit who went on stage to jam with the band. He delivered. The mob rose to a mindless applause. And I clapped.

The world is different now. I still need to be on a stage but I gotta play a different game. I have to sing and I can’t do it out of pitch.

I need the applause.