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ME - AN APOSTATE?

(Dawn of a cold morning. On a relatively isolated mountain top, they are silent. A word-war ensues.)

SHE: You are an apostate.

ME: Who, me? Huh... For that I have to belong.

SHE: That's a given.

ME: To you maybe.

SHE: Kid yourself, fine. But mine is the true language of the definitions of belonging, as we have known. So I can't be wrong. You are a deserter.

ME: In that case I am not exactly happy.

SHE: Then come back to senses. Back to a definition. Back to a solace of belonging.

ME: Tribalism isn't for me. I stretch myself beyond ephemeral human realms.

SHE: How?

ME: You see the sun rising over the vast civilizational invention below us. It is 0600 hours. In about an hour the sunrise would unleash multitudes who would go around pretending to be from somewhere to deal with somewhere.
   (Aurangabad- Courtesy Feroz Khan - LT)                        
SHE: Just like we do. Point being...?

ME: I don't pretend to be from somewhere.

SHE: Nobody does. By default, we are from somewhere. Its not a choice.

ME: That's why I am unhappy. I know, to claim no belonging seems foolish, when down the hill we will drive and melt in the furnace of civilization. I am not that metal. Yet, I am a constituent of the melt with presence in it, but not unique to it. I am the biosphere, I am an animal, a human, a citizen and so on and hence I am none.

SHE: Whatever dude! You are one of us.

ME: I thought you just had decided I am a deserter, an apostate.

SHE: You don't belong to us in the way most belong. It's a relative term.

ME: As I see, I come from nowhere. I simply go from here next to a comfortable somewhere. This is my survival instinct. This somewhere can be termed a nation, a religion, a community or a family.

SHE: Let's go. You are a confused fellow. Disguised as being a stubborn one...

…there is a reason why one feels attraction, care, concern even jealousy or hate towards members or the institutions themselves. This 'comfortable somewhere' is a place where we voluntarily belong. You choose not to belong. That's why you are an apostate.

ME: Again. Is the belonging really voluntary? Or is it like a seed being planted in a certain way in a certain environment. If it is voluntary then maybe I am a non-conformist. If it is not, then there can be no apostasy.

SHE: You don't fit the definitions or the definitions as we define and accept them. That's it. Hence, you do not fit the bill.

ME: So, by rejecting a consensus of accepted norms I am a deserter, though I voluntarily never belonged to any association? It just happens to give me a convenience, which I am now used to accepting graciously, being conscious all the while that I could be anything or anybody.
Hence, I don't make a fuss about belonging particularly.

I agree, this makes me invest emotions in these associations. But loyalty could also be brought by threat or incentives. I simply choose to be aware of this fact while being amidst people, without necessarily having any affiliations.

SHE: Your creed, community, your nationality, your human nature never can be disowned. Only whether you accept, how you accept and when you accept this fact may be your choice.

ME: Choice should make all the difference. What I believe matters most to me. That's enough.

SHE: It matters to your so-called involuntary associations too. That's why your fate is simply not only yours to control. You can be killed. By me too. You ignorant apostate.

ME: Okay, if you say so... If your convenience is going to save me then that makes it my convenience.

SHE: Shut up and let's go home and your apostasy might be forgiven.

ME: …

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