Coffee Shop Philosophy

It's a place where we meet. We watch. Maybe it's a woman in a white hoodie, wipping off coffee stains, smoking a butt and penciling in a novel that is one's effort as the next great American author. We envy the retired person sifting through the news, and look down upon the lunch hour corporate crews. Mostly, we just waste time in public. Laptops open, handshakes happen, chance meetings and familiar faces reinforce a comfortable existence. It's about being social without being social. Wasting time publicly.

It's isn't a splendid existence. The bills are in the mailbox at home, a credit card footing the bill for the 3 dollar fix. It's a lie, a tangible facade for the inner thought of "it will happen," or "things will change." They haven't. I haven't. I can spend so much time with me publicily, that it simply is a philosphy of "I." No audience, only pretense. My eyes appear above the line of this typing machine, a new navigable horizon through social landscape. People might say, "what's he working on." And the quiet dialogue continues until I think in their eyes I am important, more important, than they. Then they most likely say, "I want to be like him someday." But they are thinking of today, and forget about today...tomorrow. Yesterday.

And when I leave with a crash and retreat to self defeat, I've met only the me who will live forever anonymously. Because outside is uncomfortable...and in there, the anonymous "I" will die. Albeit comfortably.