Brave New World

Seven months of silence. Icecold and cruel quietness. Instead of words I bled unuttered thoughts and mute sentiments onto empty pages. I still had a lot to say but I had nothing to share. Private happenings had excavated an unfamiliar medley of anxiety and anticipation and had brought a swarm of feelings to light that rummaged about under my rib cage month after month. In silence. Eventually, these happenings and their flustering side-effects resulted in one big wonder. The world as I knew it was shaken up and turned upside down - in the most wonderful way.

Today, I have settled down in this marvel and I am dwelling within it with a heart as light as hydrogen. I am more alive than ever and each day spits out so many new memories that my inner photo album is bursting with cluttered pages. Everything is "good" now, and my quest to embrace and conquer this world never tasted sweeter.

It's merely my return to my home country that leaves me slightly unsettled - ironically enough - and doubtful. Discussing this very matter, a friend of mine recently said: "Every decision is a good decision. Simply because you can't go back and take the alternative route to check where it would lead you." I entirely agree with him here. Regret is an unknown emotional reaction to me. For when I do something, my venture was either thoroughly verified by my ratio or it was driven by an emotional impulse that was too strong to be controlled by means of rational willpower.

In this case, however, my decision to "remigrate" created a sensation of failure and regression. And this is something that I agonise about. But there is more to it. Munich feels different today. The traits that I once respected, loved and missed today spawn tedium and pity. I have mentioned the homogeneity of the Bavarian capital more than once throughout my compositions, and I don't want to belabour this perception but this uniformity that naturally mates with a great deal of intransigence becomes uglier the longer I look at it. The fact that my negative feelings towards monotony intensified during my Italian adventure surely also enters the equation.

Munich didn't change during my absence of four years. But I did. I became acquainted with different cultures, different cities and I came to appreciate the heterogeneity, the ability to compromise and improvise that I credit London with. Let alone the artistic and creative potency popping and sprouting from every crack and crevice and of course all the people that I fell in love with as well as the memories and friendships that I carried home with me. London turned me into an altered version of myself, a version that I like better and that struggles to feel home again in its hometown. When I wander about the streets of Munich today, the familiarity doesn't touch me anymore. I somehow pity all the efforts this city takes to keep everything in order as this "overstructuredness" induces a rigidness that thwarts creative outbursts and individuality.

I miss London. And I will miss London every day that I will spend away from it. So, let's see how long I will be able to resist London's call or how long it will take Munich to reconquer my heart with its forgotten beauty. Right now Munich is the right place, and I will embrace the boredom the homey familiarity entails to focus on the excitement of the new world that I live in today.

"Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty - his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure." ~ Aldous Huxley

The Dust of Spring

With our hands, we dig in the dust
no sticks, we find

no stones

just drifting sand

It’s not the present-day

that weighs heavy

that weights light

In our pouches

 

It’s the past

as what is the instant worth

if it sinks into oblivion

when we forget

 

It’s the foretime

as the present only merits

what it becomes

when translating into fame or infamy

So we dig, deep

for the dirt may stick

under our fingernails

and reflect some unknown colours

Our knees bite on to the ground

and yet when we stand up

no marks, no signs

just the stolidness of negligence

We walk off

our feet stomping firmly

our arms moving in time

and ahead lies nothing but the change of season

"Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower" ~ Albert Camus

Some dreams just linger

Tonight I dreamt I was cold.

I dreamt that the bestial eyes that I saw bleeding in the sun

glared with barbarity.

I dreamt that the ruffled feathers on the ground

were carried away by a gust of irony.

I dreamt that I dreamt.

I dreamt that I woke up.

I dreamt.

Today I am stuck between the sun and the ice.

You are both. The sun. And the ice.

I am cold.

I am hot.

I am stuck.

A connection, you say.

A link.

Ice melts in the sun.

Sun light is reflected by the ice.

Don't you think?

Tomorrow I will dream.

About the sun and the ice dancing in the wind.

About you and me.

"Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice" ~ Robert Frost

The Naïveté of Dreams

 

Careful what you wish for, my friend. The worst punishment the Gods can inflict is to have one's wishes fulfilled. Sadly enough, I am convinced in the empirical sense that this saying is laden with more truth than one should assume. What harm is there to wishes, you might laugh? Believe me, wishes, ideas of perfection, mental images of the alleged personal happiness resemble naïve paintings. Not only do they lack the third dimension but also do they lack all the unknown factors that would come with what we envision. Even if it sounds hackneyed, every coin has two sides; nothing comes without a counter-part and surely – in a state of desperate desire – we will miss out on anticipating the side-effects attached to the things we wish for.

Let’s take love for example. In the absence of the latter, we become most miserable fools whining and crying for that one soul mate to rescue us. We wallow in loneliness, bathe in despair and paint colourful images of what life in love would look like. We turn an abstract concept into the key to concrete fulfilment whilst neglecting the circumstance that factual love has nothing in common with the concept itself. Surely, I am not in a position to philosophise about a great topic like that claiming to have found the one universal truth, but I can confidently assert that personally I have found the answers to my amorous questions. Love has many faces, many phases, many layers and dimensions. No love is like the other whereas the idea of love is always the same. As soon as our call of love is answered, as soon as our object of desire turns towards us mirroring our sentiments, the great generic image we carry in our pockets is perturbed with an utmost non-generic but individual reality. Two people collide and create one individual love that might fulfil everything we wished for but more probably will leave us unsatisfied in various respects. When I was a young and brash man, I was certainly and painfully aching to meet my one true love, that person that would be closer to me than anybody else and that I would hold on to forever. And, I spent a great deal of effort and many years to hunt down that person. Today, I know that the desired elements of closeness and foreverness thwarted the fulfilment of my wish. It was pretty much like chasing the horizon. With every stride you move towards it, it retreats one step.  If I had been less blinkered on my quest, I would have found out a lot earlier that distance and the sacrifice of temporal aspirations would have brought me a lot closer to my objective.

But let me return to our original topic. What I am trying to bring across is that a dream can’t turn into reality in all its details. Our brain is far too small to factor all possibilities into our equation, to consider all variables. Don’t expect life to follow the storyline of your fantasy; don’t dream to fulfil it explicitly. Dream for the sake of inspiration and motivation but be aware, life is the epitome of surprise and waywardness. Dream to move forward but don’t forget, once your dream has become true it will be a lot worse than you imagined and a lot better than you hoped for.

But now I am tired, these know-it-all monologues cost me quite a bit of energy. And, besides, who am I to judge.

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential - for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never." ~ Soren Kierkegaard