Messi and Putin once combined to score a goal for Paraguay

musings on David and his way of being his self

I met David yesterday, and he carries a charm that is hard to decipher. Does he have it together? Is he well-off? Is he funny without any traumas to carry? I take a hard look at the man, and he breathes easy. He is well-collected from the outset and doesn’t voice any nonsense. He complains only when there is a solution to be reaped. He often spends his time dreaming and avoiding people, but that is not what makes him ‘decoding-worthy’. It’s his style, which he carries, without fail, that feels simple and without any existential load. When he laughs, it is from the heart. When he speaks, there is a need to include everyone and every angle of a subject. When he sits, he is unbothered—like a secluded lake without any soul.

I ask him what’s going on, and he says, “I’ve been good,” and there is nothing to prove otherwise. He, in fact, looks good. His sunglasses are smudgy and they lack care, but he wears them and looks beyond everything. His presence has gravity, and people find themselves pulled to his aura. He just sits there being himself, and he never has to sit alone. Yet, he would love it if the opposite were also true.

“I want nothing,” he told me one night when I offered him a sip of Korean whiskey. And when he said it, I believed him. I would believe him even if he said, “Messi and Putin once combined to score a goal for Paraguay.”

Without fail, he never ceases to amaze me—and all he does is become himself.

I would be lying if I said, I havent tried to copy what he does. I tried not to care and carve out my authenticity, but I was already failing his impersonation—because David doesn’t even try. I am me. So, I would have to try not to become me. To be something different, you have to escape who you are. And escapism isn’t my strongest suit, even though I fantasise it.

Every second of being me, I am reminded that I am not David. I can never be him.

And even though being different is the core of humanity, I’d rather be free, and talk freely, and laugh from the heart. And if for that, I’d have to give up myself and be David, I wouldn’t think twice.