A week is a long time in cliches

I enter the room.
The music blares. The crowd are enthralled. In the distance, between momentary gaps created by the jostling mass, I spot the unmistakable colour that is skin. As I make my way to the bar, I piece together the scene from the fragments afforded me. It's a girl engaging in a form of entertainment from the distant past. Burlesque. The tassels covering her nipples are rotating in time with the music as she gyrates her breasts. I look at the crowd, mainly children of the mid to late 70's. They are captivated. Kids, it's just skin. It, by itself, is not erotic. What controls the skin is more important. This is not personal. I feel no connection. I turn to the bartender and order a beer. The scene doesn't evoke in me the intended outcome.
The scene dissolves into another. I don't see the crowd anymore, just individuals. There is Heroin chic, Fitzroy royalty, others in awe of the previous. I overhear someone say that it's way too cool for them. I turn and look again. What makes them cool? What is cool? Who decides? Does it matter? All I see are people. What they wear has no bearing on what they think or do. Their words and deeds will reveal their true character.
Someone I know greets me. But their words are betrayed by their body language. They don't really mean it. They talk a lot but say nothing. Conversation is meant to involve listening. I listen, but they don't. The encounter is short. They move on. Is this the same person that I knew? In the past, talk was vibrant and diverse. Now it's all about "me" and shekels. I see it amongst the crowd. They are so engrossed in themselves that they fail to notice what's around them. As I am thinking this, a couple crash into me on their way to the bar, "Sorry", he says, "I didn't see you." I had to laugh.
They are so intent on reaching their goals that they fail to see that the journey, not the end, is life. Don't they see that the end is the same for everyone? Books, movies, are not just one sentence, "Character begins, character ends". If you picked up a book that contained just this, you would feel ripped off. Yet they live their lives like this. The journey is where the excitement happens. That's when you encounter the new. You learn far more from these experiences than from the end itself. If being human is about learning and understanding, then there are some who have lost their humanity. I have a better understanding of some of them then when I arrived. Somehow I don't think the reverse will be true.
I leave the room.