They say I am a classic man. They say I am afraid to venture into new genres and styles because I am too classic. They say that I love classical music because through its rigorous measures and rules lie the true colors of my character. They say I love classic literature because it was written at a time I was supposed to be born in. They say I still hold on to the classical views of yesterday’s heroes because I failed at being a hero today.

I must say they are right about most of what they say except for a few things here and there that might make all the difference or might simply slip their minds without being even noticed. Yes I am a classic man and I belong to an age that may not exist now anymore, or maybe it still does in me, and I am the one who is going to revive it, but I live in my world most of the time inside myself first and then I venture into the wide world and know my place in it because I know what I want and who I am.

I never cared about how they lived and I never minded the way they laughed and to whom they smiled and on whose face their hands fell on slapping, nor did I ask which hands their lips were kissing and the arms they chose to be wrapped around. I never asked because I have always believed that I am searching for humanity in me, which I cannot yet find in them, and they, as well, cannot find in me. Well, I am not sure they were looking for their humanity in the first place.

I searched their world and I liked what I liked and I hated what I hated, took the things I wanted and left the things I didn’t, but above all I respected what I didn’t take first and I honored what I hated because I knew then as I do now that I am not a god to pass my judgment and I matter not to anybody as I matter to myself. I knew that I had only myself to judge, to criticize, to argue with, to fight, to love, but never to hate and regret for my choices are me and have nothing to do with them, and my likes and dislikes are also me that I like for myself and I miss for myself for they say I do not know what I am missing. Well, once more they are right; I do not.

Their world is a perfect world without me and they cannot enjoy it until I become one of them, like them or better yet die so that they have their pure ethnic world that is full of them only. However, my world is perfect because of them; because I could have never learned the things I want in life without facing the things I don’t want. I could have never made my way through the crowd if there had been no crowd at all. I can never be different if they, the normal ones, do not exist. I cannot live without the richness they add to my life because, after all these years of struggling with myself, I got one important piece of knowledge that yes I am unique myself but to make their world special; I am classic myself to keep the heart of their world beating; I am a poet to make sense of what they say; and I am here because they are, and I am just one more piece to complete this great puzzle of humanity just the same way it is. With all our flaws and imperfections, we are perfect, for who would want us to be boringly the same. And then, here we are, the most interesting species of all. Perfect or not, classic or not, I am happy to be right here, right now. I am happy to be a part of all this.