Can I Get A Witness?

.:Can I Get A Witness?:.

We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying "Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness."

- Quote from the American version of "Shall We Dance"

As a blogger, I've always archived bits and pieces of my life because my greatest fear has always been Alzheimer's. That someday, my mind would be so battered and bruised that I could no longer even remember my own name.

For me, it's the worst way to go. It's not as agonizing as cancer, I'm sure, but it's every bit more torturous and humiliating because you don't even know you're dying to yourself with each passing day, as Alzheimer's eats away at your memories.

I blog because I want to archive my life. I keep telling myself that somehow, when I pass on, good or bad as my blog may have been as a whole, it's still a time capsule of my life. Something that could sort of be my stake on immortality, allowing me to still exist beyond my own lifespan, if only as written memories. It's a testament to the fact that at one point in history, you existed.

I preferred the Japanese version of "Shall We Dance". I saw that version for Fr. Nick's Asian film class, and I thought it was a great movie. The American version didn't have the nuances the original did, but I still appreciated it, nonetheless. I especially appreciated it for the quote up there.

Blogging is one way to archive your life and pretend to have some measure of immortality. It's one of the major vanities of why I blog, and I've never kept that a secret from people. But I think about the quote, and I realize how happy it would be if I had someone who could be a witness to my life. Someone who would care about every high, low, and plateau of my life, and give me every right to care about their life just as much. Someone who will see every quirk and idiosyncrasy I have and find it amusing or even endearing, and love me all the more for not being perfect.

Sometimes, I worry, with the way I live my life, perhaps, I'll never find that witness. Perhaps I'd continue being alone and just blogging my thoughts into nothingness, hoping that somewhere out there, though not to the level I'd wanted, someone is a willing witness to my life, taking the least bit of interest in what I have to say. Is it vain? Yes. But it's a basic desire, to have someone who does care about you, who does give a damn about your life. Let us not pretend that we are truly free from this conceit and simply accept it as a fact.

But I guess that's the way life is, and some people just aren't meant to find that witness in their lives. Among all the billions and billions of people in this world, what are the chances you would be so blessed? I suppose in reality, not too much.

One's life is so insignificant in the face of the cosmos. It's just another one in the countless throng that we can't even begin to make heads and tails of. Is it any wonder then, how meaningful it is when someone looks at you and validates your existence, telling you that from this point on, your life is not insignificant. Isn't that the magic of love, as sappy or trite as it may sound?

Can I get a witness?

Perhaps not. But I pray I can.