When I was young and as impatient as you can only be when growing older seems to be something utterly desirable, I read a book: “Momo”, a fantasy novel for children written by German author Michael Ende, and also a parable that should change my little world and funny views in a very sustainable way.
Down to the present day, I am infatuated with the symbolisms that Michael Ende raises to depict human peculiarities, moral and social values as well as the concept of time and how to decipher and delude it. One supremely simple formula that Beppo, one of the novel’s protagonists, recommends to the main character Momo will probably always have a prominent place in my endeavour to embrace existence.
But before I give this recipe away, you might want to learn more about Momo. The story about this little orphan girl of mysterious origin is set in an unnamed city in the here and now. Momo lives in the ruins of an amphitheatre and enjoys a very special reputation within her neighbourhood due to her ability to listen. “Go and see, Momo!”, is the suggestion to everyone at loss. With open ears for everyone who comes to seek her advice, Momo helps people to find solutions to their problems – simply by listening, a gift that brings Momo many friends. Among them: Beppo, an old street sweeper, and Guido, a poetical tourist guide.
One day the idyll is broken, however, with the arrival of the Men in Grey. These scary and strange representatives of the Timesavings Bank have come to town to promote the idea of “time-saving” among the residents. With great success they sell their concept and talk people into depositing their time to the Bank that will return the savings later with interest. Slowly, all that matters to those who become clients to the Men in Grey is to save as much time as possible for later use. A gruesome business that gradually affects the entire city. Life becomes plain, sterile, hectic, devoid of all things considered time-wasting including social activities, art, imagination and sleeping. Clothing and buildings are designed the same for everyone, townscape turns into uniform monotony and life into one of hectic rush and precipitance.
The crux of the matter: the more time people save the less they have. In reality, the time saved is lost to them. Instead, the Men in Grey consume it themselves in the form of cigars made from the dried petals of the hour: lilies that symbolise time. These cigars are vital to the Men in Grey. Without them they cannot exist.
Momo, however, remains resistant to the Bank’s agents and their attempts to bribe her. The Men in Grey pull out all the stops to take care of Momo and derail her from thwarting their scheme, but they fail.
When even her closest friends fall prey to the Men in Grey and the world is almost fully in the clutches of the Timesaving Bank, the old and wise Professor Secundus Minutus Hora (the mysterious “Trustee of Time”) decides to take action. He stops time, which brings the whole world to a standstill, and asks his tortoise Cassiopeia to fetch Momo for him. Once arrived at his Nowhere House, Professor Hora equips Momo with an hour lily that gives her exactly 60 minutes to travel beyond the boundaries of time, and sends her off to overcome the thieves of time.
And I hope I don’t spoil it when I tell you that the story has a happy ending. Naturally. It is a children’s’ book - that still is a most suitable reading for grown-ups. As mentioned above, the story is not only beautifully written but also laden with symbolisms that easily can be translated into all areas of life – may they be personal or professional. The formula that impressed me so much as a child and that I allude to herewith can be found within the following original passage that I will also use to conclude, hoping that I made the book palatable to those among you who haven’t heard of Momo yet.
'You see, Momo,' he [Beppo, the street sweeper] told her one day, 'it's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept.' He gazed silently into space before continuing. 'And then you start to hurry,' he went on. 'You work faster and faster, and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before, and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop -and still the street stretches away in front of you. That's not the way to do it.'
He pondered a while. Then he said, 'You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.'
Again he paused for thought before adding, 'That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that's how it ought to be.'
There was another long silence. At last he went on, 'And all at once, before you know it, you find you've swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. What's more, you aren't out of breath.' He nodded to himself. 'That's important, too,' he concluded.
"Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart."
