Enjoy Responsibly

Enjoy responsibly. A simple yet loaded message to drinkers across the world. What is responsible drinking? First that crosses one’s mind is to not drink and drive, to appoint a designated driver. Two very responsible things to do. But it is beyond not operating heavy machinery, is it not? Drink responsibly could also mean to not drink to a point beyond which one loses control over one’s actions, emotions, and ability to reason, not only with people around but with oneself… as well as being in control as to not hurt any beings around deliberate or not, physically, or otherwise. It is all fun and games until it is not. But that is drinking. What about enjoying the other things the world has to offer. Like art, entertainment, music. I am not speaking of pirating copyrighted works of art. The law has that covered. I am speaking of the sense of responsibility between the entertainers and the entertained. It has been mostly a commercial relationship. The entertained pay some sum to the agents of the entertainers, and the entertainers entertain. Fair and simple, everybody walks home happy… But does that arrangement create a sense of mutual responsibility between the two that goes beyond monetary gains and temporary spike in dopamine? Because some four years ago, we all saw an example, whether realising it, of an extremely lopsided relationship between an entertainer and the entertained at a scale of a global proportion where both sides ended up on the losing end. Chester Bennington. His passing means there will no longer be more melodic screams, no more poetic renditions of a man’s suffering and no more songs edgy middle-class teens in the suburbia could (try hard and miserably fail to) relate to… and this void he had left saddens me more than I had expected. The sudden implosion of his stardom had created a supermassive blackhole that even after nearly four years, it yet gravitates all light of joy towards it. We have not been enjoying his work responsibly. From Linkin Park’s first album Xero in 1997, Hybrid Theory in 2000, to Meteora in 2003, all the way to One More Light in 2017, two months and a day before his passing, our beloved Chester had been not secretly crying for help. Over 20 years of being at the forefront of the global pop-culture, he had been literally touring the globe crying for help. It was all in his songs. It was in all of his songs. Their albums are sold across the globe, pirated by everyone, bought through iTunes store by all gen Ys, added to Spotify playlists of the millennials. We paid hundreds of moneys to see him begging to be heard. What did we do? We sang along and thought “this song is so me, OMG I can sooooo relate to this song, and that song”. 20 years of entertaining us, and none of us got to him in time. And now he is gone. The person, who had been suffering for so long that he made a career out of it, he even gave interviews about the darkness in his mind, how it was a dangerous place to be alone in (there’s another story form another conversation here, but next time), one, merely days before the fateful day of his passing and no one amongst the millions of fans and family and friends got to him in time (yet another conversation that threw my assertions here out the logics train. Aren’t you the wise one)... If the millions of us can overlook/ignore the reality behind the renditions of a dark mind of man we claim to be so dear to us, what of the silent screams of all the nobodys amongst us? Look around. Notice. Care. When you meet someone you know, even only barely, ask “how have you been?”. Say “hello” with a genuine smile. You will be surprised how much someone will open up to you. You would probably be the very stranger that that someone needs to release some of the troubles in their dark and dangerous minds. Notice the slightest of change in another’s behaviour, outlook, choice of words, choice of clothes, the shape of their smile, the sorrow in their eyes, even the strange way they cross their T’s and the dot their I’s. They could be oddly wearing their wristwatch upside-down or on the wrong hand one day. Notice and ask. They could be walking to the store when they usually would drive. Notice and ask. They could have hugged you for that extra second that morning, or have taken that one extra turn towards you just to see your face again, just for that one last time, before driving off. Notice and ask. They could just call you on the telephone at a random hour of the day like never before. Notice and ask. Most of the time, it is probably nothing. But what if… just what if, after all the “nothings” that followed your every noticing and asking, what if the day you decided, “nah, he’s fine, he’s just weird like that”, is the day he swallows that bottle of pills, or the day he pulls that trigger, or the day he leans forward out that opened-window sill of the 13th floor flat farther just by that extra decisive degree, or the day he presses that razor blade harder into his wrist only ever so slightly,? What if? Notice and ask. After all, if we are not here for others, then what the fuck are we doing here?