On May 3rd 2010 Gordon Brown made a speech to Citizens UK. Right from the off I'd like to point out that I do not know who I am voting for on Thursday, nor am I - or have I ever been - a Labour supporter or fan of Mr. Brown. It has to be said, none-the-less, that there have been many great speeches in history: Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a dream"; Winston Churchill's "Greatest military defeat in history" speech after the evacuation of Dunkerque; and President Obama's Inaugral speech on Capital Hill to name but a few of my favourites. This, I feel, must be added to that list. The power and passion Brown thrust into his supporters during his speech was exquisite, compelling and truly awe-inspiring.
The inhabitant of No.10 compelled me to think about those I care most for, I feel that one must not purely vote for one's self but also for those who are important to one and without whom our own happiness is fickle. I want to take this opportunity to talk about two of these people. The first I've already spoken of in a blog and the second is yet to be known.
Gwa... My ginger friend and someone I care more about than myself - as with the others in this post -, if he needed me I'd be at his side in a flash. He comes from a working-class family, an artist in the role of mother and a chef as father, both exceptional people and two that Labour are most certainly out to gain votes from. Himself; he's an instructor, living away and doing what he loves the most. An intellectual but not an academic, an artist but not a sculptor of marble and granite, a philosopher but not insane and a wordsmith but not a poet. He works with his hands, his feet and his mind; one wrong move and tragedy. An inspiration in-the-making and a friend to everyone. He inspires my creativity and relieves my fears in life. He knows exactly how to calm me down and, by Newton's 3rd Law, how to drive me crazy. We make plans for rainy days and plans for sunny days. We improvise imaginary sword fights and we devise ways to cause mischief with no direct victims or consequences. Once upon a rainy Friday English lesson we thought of introducing a debating society to our school and what grew from that was nothing short of immense!
Without Gwa I wouldn't be who I am today.
Loz is the same but different, a year ahead of his time, he inspires me in different ways. From a modest but comfortable background with an adoring mother and a family who love him sprung an amazingly intelligent, intellectual gentleman with quiet tendencies not from shyness; but from a commendable prudence and a preference for listening. He knows when to be honest and when to keep it buttoned, when to laugh and when to empathise. The mind he possesses far surpasses my own and the joy this brings me to have a challenging conversation is insurmountable and cements why I could not live without him.
We set ourselves challenges, things like learning a new method of solving a Rubik's Cube; learning Morse Code and, most recently, gaining a thorough understanding of lift on a particle level. He and I have shared many deep conversations and once spent a few hours sat on garden furniture in the dark of night under a clear, starless sky in close to freezing temperatures.
The two of us have led lives as similar as two new pins.
It's as hard to believe I knew neither of these people two short years ago as it is to imagine life continuing without them. I find it hard to go more than a few days without talking to them so God-knows how I'm to cope when my future leaves us all as islands floating in an endless sea.
They both know things which could could destroy me and they both know silly little things like what song I want played at my funeral and what my wedding cake will look like. These things may seem trivial but a great man once said that it is the little things that count.
I believe certain souls are destined to meet;
I believe people come into our lives bringing something we must learn and that we must, in return, teach them;
I believe we cannot leave this world until we learn these truths.
There's one more person I'd like to introduce, Z. Come on, you didn't think I'd use her real name did you? The blatant anonymity I surround my friends with in my writings on here should have shown you that by now. I once pretentiously called her a chav. She isn't actually a chav, nor does she appear to be one. It happened when we first met. I've never called her it since, just for the record.
The reason I chose to write about her is; as with the other dramatis-personae mentioned here, she has changed me. Before I met her I was a cynic, I was bitter about the world and I acted complainingly about just about everything.
Her smile could make a boxer - just out of the ring - melt with joy. In the face of total adversity and every hardship she has remained happy. Her family adore her as do her peers. A teenage mother returning to school to finish her A-levels and a soon-to-be university student, she strolls through it all with a cheerful grin on her face and a merry skip in her step.
Her daughter is beautiful. I've only had the pleasure of meeting her once and she was surrounded by cooing, clegg-manic voting-age girls which; sadly, isn't a situation I'm able to truly be myself in. None-the-less I felt patriarchal at first sight. As with all her friends, I saw Z grow into a glowing mother-to-be and then I viewed her as a joyful mother with a child I'd been looking forward to meeting for months. We were all kept closely informed of everything during the pregnancy and; as such, I and a few of her other close male friends feel as much of a father to Little A as her real father does.
What Z showed me above all else was that with a smile on your face and a bit of charm nothing can get in your way. I keep a Christmas card signed 'Love from Z and Bump x' as the bookmark in the book I'm reading at the time to always remind me to be joyful and thankful.
It's hard to have anything but respect for Z.
These people are who I'm voting for, they mean the world to me and I could not go a day without thinking of them. I love them all dearly and they are a big part of why I will succeed in life.
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one."
-- Spock
Alex
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