It´s time to get serious
“It´s time to get serious”, they said.
Your age is rising towards thirty and the sweet summer days of untouched youth are gone. The innocent days of wasting time, intoxicated on drugs, people, places and new experiences have past – it´s time to get serious. No more laying on an unspoiled beach with an unspoiled heart watching the eternal night sky high above you while listening to the waves washing over the shore. No more riding fast on a motorbike, your arms wrapped tightly around the waist of a two-day-lover you´ve just learned to know; both knowing that Now is all you´ve got and your ways will part. The time of being led by Trust, of letting strangers feed and house you has ended. It´s time make a plan, to get your shit together, to have security. Because seeing strangers as friends isn’t safe, being cared for by unexpected sources, experiencing food and places you never knew existed, being led by the stars into the great unknown with only your heart as your compass, defenceless and open – this outrages wildness must end.
It´s time to get serious.
Safety is in the tangible, in the house you shall buy, in the bed you shall sleep in, in the fully stocked fridge you shall eat from, in the goals you shall work to achieve. The goals in the future that never comes shall keep you driven and occupied – give you a sense of meaning – so it´s time to stop wandering. You no longer need to explore the world, to walk barefoot through dirty cities and forests, to climb boiling volcanoes, to sleep in hammocks on quiet islands, to feel the warm breeze in your hair as you stand on a distant road with only your hitchhiking thumb and the good will of strangers to carry you further – those days are fading away like melodies in time. Uncertainty shall be banished from your life as you mentally write the book of your preferences, desires, fears, goals and personality. Who you are shall be set in stone, so it´s unnecessary to be flowy, to be able to move effortlessly through new terrain, to be a chameleon. The time of being the rainbow is dead – now you´re only grey. The warm rain of Asia that made you wet, but also alive, shall not touch you as you shelter yourself in a car you still owe money for. You will drive through the streets and see the gratefulness in the face of a soaked girl being offered roof and warm tea, while you´re barely even aware of the heavenly shower.
Gone are the days of letting the vividness of markets seduce you, of being led through tiny allies until you´re lost, of discovering a new world of colour and smell – an exclusive world that few people access. From now on you must live in the world of the majority, in the midst of the safety of the herd, enjoying the blandness of the common. Never again shall your senses be stimulated like they were in your youth, by interesting sounds, tastes, smells, colours – by the touch of soft sand against your body and wet ocean caressing your feet. The sensual experience of just being alive must end.
The song from tall mosques shall stop to amaze and trigger a sense of wonder in you, for now you shall know about Muslims through breaking news on the TV, and your mind will be painted with darkness and fear of something you don´t even know. Gone from you life are mystical rituals from ancient times; the modern times have arrived. The beauty you saw in everything shall be reduced to seeing “normality”, and life won´t be something you crave for. The longing for adventure for the sake of adventure shall die, killed by the illusions you now call life.
Yet “welcome to the real life” they say, smiling bleakly as they invite you into their house of horror.
