Common tragedies in the age of perpetual repetition

Sometimes I wish I was stronger- strong enough to walk away, without ever turning back. Sometimes I wish I was weaker- weak enough to stay without thinking of the consequences. Instead, I'm just stuck in between, struggling to fight back the tears, straining to keep the anger at bay.

They offer you a fragile promise of affection; you call it love, you follow it on wind-beaten mountain peaks and icy winter seas.Then it is spent, all hopes for resurrection fading. You stumble back to the beginning, daring to dream you might one day be granted another fleeting illusion of eternity.

The past is not ours to re-live, the future is not ours to shape and the present, I fear it's sinking fast. No time for tragedy here, no space for mourners in the vastness of mortality.

Of cities and ghosts: Chapter 387

What difference does it make, she wondered. Another hurriedly consumed coffee; a few random pieces of information exchanged; an hour-long escape from reality. Words uttered were, again, only the tip of the iceberg.

She was here, he was there, and that was all there was to it. This kind of distance could not be measured in kilometers. Dreams, goals and attachments had gradually filled up the gaps, which once might still have been called bridgeable.

It felt as if something had been left unfinished, or maybe that was merely the fantasy she needed to keep her going. She didn’t even rely so much on it anymore. Desire fading as memories grew old. Blood going stale in the veins of aging Hope.

No more whys or what ifs. No tears, no poetry, no expectations. She never had a big role in this play, anyway- a fact she had come to accept as such. All she could do was watch, and nod, and smile in recognition, awed with the subtlety, the ingenuity and irony of it.

Of mutuality and compromise

Is there such a thing as love that does not care for reciprocation? I'll never try to hold you back, we say, but do we really mean it? What if the freedom we'd so eagerly grant is merely a figure of speech?

Sometimes devotion feels almost like a kind of self-sacrifice. Sometimes we seem to give up all our needs, desires and personal traits, desperately hoping it will make us worthy of another person's attention.

But after you've surrendered all you believed in, after you've wiped off all the characteristics that made you yourself just to fit in someone else's ideal, will you still be able to recognize the stranger in the mirror, and will the object of your admiration ever come to truly love this shallow reflection you've become?

So this is it. You're running away one more time. And yet you're still here. It feels like walking on melting snow. You think you're moving further, but you' re only sinking deeper.

Do you still dream of love, when you speak of freedom? Do you weep behind your seemingly careless smiles? Do you hide your weaknesses behind an iron mask of strength?

Who are you? How did they entrap you inside this mirror and why are you always starring at me?

Does every ending mark a new beginning? Do all roads lead to some sort of destination? When a door is shut, does another one open?

To live is to laugh in the face of death. To love is to embrace your innermost fears. To leave is to accept nothing lasts for ever.

Would you weep, if tears could melt the ice surrounding you? Would you smile, if they told you that truth is only a mirage?

Walk until your legs collapse under your weight. Breathe as if the room was running out of air.

Silence won't betray you. Your own voice might.

Of dreams and waking No2

When you're dreaming, don't you sometimes remember things very clearly; past events, people you've met before, places you've seen? But when you wake up, it seems that even your most vivid memories were simply a dream-construction, a special addition designed to make your dream-experience more realistic.

Where do dream-memories come from? Where are they stored? Are they totally arbitrary, built anew every time you begin to dream? Is there a memory pool that has already been created for every possible identity you might assume while asleep?

Or is it possible that all these seemingly unconnected images spring out of dreams we've had before? What if nothing is truly forgotten, even if our waking consciousness has wiped all recollections off?

What if, in our dreams, we remember everything we've ever dreamed of, so that, in a sense, we may live a million lives in one single lifetime? What if real life only happens in dreams, and what we call "reality" is nothing more than a dull, repetitive, predictable intermission?

Of dreams and waking...

Have you ever wondered when dreams are created? Are they more like movies which have already been recorded before you even begin to watch? Or are they open-ended, taking shape only as they unfold?

Is there such a thing as chance in dreams? Do we make choices and decisions according to some kind of dreaming conscience? Or is everything predetermined- every step we take, every word we utter, every person we meet?

In dreams, just like in life, we walk around believing that we are free, autonomous beings. But when we wake up, we realize that we are not who we thought we were only a few seconds ago and that all we considered real was merely the projection of an overactive subconscious.

Don't get me wrong here; I'm not saying I believe in destiny. Yet sometimes, when returning home after an intricately-woven and hardly interpretable dream, I cannot help but doubt my ability to influence what is happening around me, regardless of whether I'm asleep or not.

And on certain days, my mind may drift away while I'm engaged in what you'd describe as daily activities, and suddenly I can no longer tell if I am awake or dreaming, suddenly I do not know who I am anymore.

On certain days, this unsettling suspicion begins to creep inside my head: that maybe there is no such thing as chance in this dream, that maybe everything has been predetermined,every step I take, every word I utter, every person I meet...

Another lost generation?

Any luck finding a job? Does your employer still owe you money? Are you eligible for unemployment benefits? These days, all of our conversations sound ominously similar. Friends and acquaintances, everyone under or around 30 and clueless as to what their future holds.

We are a generation that grew up in peace and affluence; the arrogance of youth made us believe we were somehow luckier than the ones born before us.

At school they encouraged us to choose an occupation that suited us best. At university they told us we were free, intellectual, destined to create wonderful things.

At work they showed us we were insignificant, disposable, judged only in terms of our connections.We worked long hours for free, we thanked them when they offered us basic salary.

And now we wear the “unemployed” badge, before we even truly learned what it means to be paid for your labour. Still, most of us are not threatened with starvation or homelessness- at least not as long as our parents keep receiving their pensions.

We watch people suffer around us, and wouldn’t even dare to complain- because we haven’t worked hard our whole lives; we are not pursued by lenders, tax officers and credit card companies; we have no children to feed, and of course we wouldn’t even think of starting a family under these circumstances.

Our dead-end is less tangible than the one faced by our older colleagues, yet this does ot make it any less real, nor does it blunt the feeling of helplessness.

We were raised believing that we would do something in life, that we would contribute to making this world a slightly better place, that an infinite number of paths were opened before us and all we had to do was choose which one to follow.

They nurtured us with the certainty we were able to fly. And just as we were getting ready to make the big leap, we realized that someone had secretly clipped our wings.

Are they afraid of us, I wonder. This generation has lost is way. At night we wander in the streets without any sense of understanding. If they'd let us, we'd probably burn this city down to the last piece of asphalt and steel.

Sometimes we dream of trees growing in the place of skyscrapers, sometimes we fantasize of innocence. Our age no longer justifies our desire to destroy; we've grown, without being granted even an illusion of wisdom and inner peace.

Now we've stored our adolescent souls in formaldehyde, now we've vowed never to speak of maturity, now we've blocked out all false hopes of certainty and order. Every morning we wake up with the taste of rotting expectations on our lips.

If the world ends tomorrow, at least we won't have the time to become losers, a friend said long ago. Too young to die, too old to begin anew. They told us we shall fly, then they clipped our wings ; they told us we were free, before they tightened the chains.

Now is the time to re-examine everything: the universe, our asphyxiating rituals of daily routine, the emptiness hidden deep inside our aging bodies. Death does not frighten us; life often does.

It was never meant to be easy, they say, human existence has always been riddled with hidden traps and formidable obstacles and gaping uncertainties. They refuse to explain why, or perhaps the answer eludes them.

Some of us would sacrifice all that we hold dear just for a few shining fragments of meaning. I must understand, I cannot go on without that knowledge, I cannot survive without a sense of purpose, you scream, but all they do is  stare blankly as you tear yourself to pieces.

I'd cry, but there's no worth left in bouts of self-pity. I'd vow to destroy your world by challenging all that holds it together, if only  I believed it would extinguish the fire in my head. I'd take a journey inside my soul's darkest passages, yet I'm still afraid of what I might find there.

I'd like to spend my nights awake, reading poetry. Instead, I waste them weaving obsessive thougths, chasing chimairas and reluctant people. When they dare speak to me of love and devotion, I run away terrified.

The wounds have not yet healed. The past is lingering, like it always does. I miss even the illusion of certainty, the fragile clarity of desire. Deep inside, don't we all long for effortless communication, are we not all eager to share our fear and hope and existential sorrow?

The sad truth is we can never let go of our inhibitions unless we are granted the fantasy of immortality. Don't you ever wonder why?