With the awareness of death,
after the last comforting and terrifying word of scripture,
after counting all the stars,
after reading countless peer-reviewed studies
about the lack of human meaning
in
this dark room filled with stars and planets,
and after everything is said and done
after all the warnings ignored
and the future becoming increasingly finite,
love
is
the
only light
that
can
be found
in
the void.
***
Yesterday during kick-box training my trainer stopped during one particular exercisewhere I had to exchanged two punches to the other guy
and then receive two punches in return
and the trainer told me to ”take it easy,”
cos ”you don’t know it yet but your face is drained of all color. You won’t notice it until it’s too late and then you’re hugging the floor.”
It’s true,
I didn’t notice anything until I was on my way home
and I felt dizzy and tired,
and it wasn’t until I had a good meal inside me that I felt better.
None of this is something to be ashamed of I guess,
but that’s how I feel.
I should be tough and handle this training
but apparently I’m too weak.
And whenever I leave training,
my trainer always reminds me to ”take it easy”
cos he can see that I’m stressed out too much.
It’s been a tough week for me,
at my job I’ve received negative feedback
because I make sloppy mistakes.
On a personal note,
the boss also told me that my language is too coarse
and when I come into work,
I’m complaining too much
and my colleagues get distracted because of this.
cos more often than not,
I start about something negative
and it’s tiresome listening to some naggy motherfucker all the time.
This affects the work environment.
Naturally she has a point,
cos I know I ain’t easy to deal with at times.
I can feel how uneasy she feels in my company at times
and that she doesn’t know how to deal with me.
Same with my colleagues who’ve witnessed on multiple occasions how quickly my mood switches
from casual to jolly
to depressed.
I could be having a good time
breaking balls with colleagues
then suddenly I’m lost in a ruminating thought
I start hating myself
I feel embarrassed cos they didn’t laugh at one my jokes enough
or
I’m haunted by this fear that I did something inappropriate
and they’ll talk amongst themselves
saying what a piece of shit I am.
And I’m constantly checking myself,
watching my language,
making sure I don’t touch anyone,
cos that would freak me out,
would spur on my OCD
and then I’d fear losing my girlfriend,
the one I love.
And
I know I should challenge my OCD
and not recoil into it.
The more you recoil into it
the stronger it gets.
But it’s too hard
and even after a few victories,
one failure can put me seemingly back to square one.
There’s all these things I want to achieve:
I want to be a great boxer,
and I do a match one day-
become a decent amateur (despite the fact I’m close to my thirties and I’m just starting out).
I want to be a great writer
and
create multitudes of
short stories,
novella’s
novels,
screenplays
and plays
cos there’s so many stories in my head
but I’ve wasted so many of them
and I never finish anything.
I want to be a great Buddhist,
be meditative and calm
and teach people how to approach life.
And all of these things are hard
and I guess I want too much
cos I also gotta go to work
and I don’t like this work but I gotta make money.
I gotta sleep on time
or
else I’ll be tired and cranky at work.
I gotta eat healthy too or else I’ll feel bloated
and my man-boobs will get bigger.
My girlfriend tells me
to just focus on having fun with boxing and writing
but I haven’t been having fun doing either of those things in quite some time.
I feel horrible when I’m doing it
and I feel horrible when I’m not doing it.
So I don’t do it as much anymore
and just mindlessly watch TV shows and movies
and dream about doing it in the near future.
And when I go to sleep I dream about this man I want to be,
even though I don’t think I can ever be this man.
I think it’s too late to be this man,
I lost my shot for being this man,
this interesting and inspiring artist.
I think it was there somewhere in the past
but I fucked up
and choose self-pity instead.
Cos that was always easier,
cos telling yourself you will always fail
is easier than working hard and
achieving something…
So now that I’ve gotten this out of the way,
I’m going to get some lunch
and after lunch it’s time to make myself some coffee
and do some writing.
But before I do
I’ll remember what my trainer said:
”take it easy,”
You got that?
I think so.
No thinking,
you gotta be sure.
Yes I’m sure.
I mean how hard can it be?
Just relax, take it easy, have fun.
Should be doable right?
Right.
***
So I was having a discussion with the girlfriend of a friend of mine,
a university student from America
finishing her masters in Holland
and the topic was ”white-privilege.”
A light-skinned girl, she’s intensely dedicated to the subject.
She tells me about the different experiences of races in society,
and how whitey got it easy on many fronts.
Even if whitey is poor with bad upbringing,
it could never be worse than a black man whose poor with bad upbringing.
There are hidden forces working against minorities,
they were forged from its colonial inception,
covered in the blood, sweat and tears of slaves.
”Sure things are better” she says,”but we are still behind, still make relatively less money, still have less people in high government, still get killed by gangs and cops more frequently,
cos history is against us.
Cos we haven’t completely fixed it yet.
Cos we got fucked in the past.”
And
it’s awareness that will heal us,
the white man needs to be aware of his privileges,
how much easier he’s got
cos he ain’t gotta deal with the bullshit the minorities do.
And there’s truth in all of that
but it ain’t the whole truth.
My issue with intersectionalists like her,
is that they tend to collectivize too much
and don’t grasp that suffering is more individual than collective.
Even if one group receives more shit than others,
it still doesn’t mean they suffer more.
Suffering is personal,
suffering is spiritual,
it’s in the mind.
And when you suffer inside your skull,
when you get lost in the mess of the self,
that’s the worst pain of all.
They talk about THE BLACK EXPERIENCE
and there is such a thing
but it ain’t as big as they think.
There is so much more
and so much better.
Each individual is different
even if they never had an original thought in their mind.
Some are offended more easily,
some have autism and therefore have extremely sensitive stimulus,
some were beaten by their parents
and are always angry but they don’t know why.
Some wanna change the world
others want to fix this one.
Some are scared every day
while some seek dangerous thrills in order to feel alive again.
We all suffer
and even if we got all the privileges in the world,
we can still fuck it up so badly,
we can give it all up for something ridiculous,
we might be blind to our own possibilities
and the possibilities that society can provide for us.
We might not be aware of our innate flaws
until it’s too fucking late.
We might never really know ourselves.
We might feel like we are missing something
but we can never grasp what this thing is.
We are all in one way
victims of society
but we are as much victims to ourselves
to our upbringing
to our genetic programming.
We are all deliriously fucked up.
But we are all human,
and some of us too much so.
We’re
all
part
of
the
the HUMAN EXPERIENCE,
and we come in different colors,
different countries,
different religions,
different offspring,
different cultures,
different genes
and so much differences
and most of them don’t matter
and most of them can be overcome
and most it can be solved by mere acceptance.
We gotta be aware of our differences
but we gotta be aware of what connects us,
we gotta be honest about the past
but we can’t wallow in it.
We gotta move on,
hold hands as we does so,
tell our brothers and sisters
that the road is arduous and long
and there are still many evil people out there
and so many misunderstandings
and so much brooding violence
and so much confusion
and
it’s so easy to get lost along the way.
And yet we gotta try
even if we don’t agree with each other,
even if we see people bumping into brick walls.
Even if all the signs point out
that the future is as fucked as the past.
We gotta do something about all this mess….
It’s quite something,
isn’t it-
this HUMAN EXPERIENCE.
”Don’t you agree?”
***
As a child I didn’t grow up with Mr. Rogers Neighborhood,
it was before my time and from another country.
Instead I grew up like most kids back then,
blinded by different collections of action figures,
they were all pretty much the same
but they were dressed in different ways.
I rewatched countless tapes of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
I thought Shredder,
in his modified Samurai suit,
with blades sticking out from his palms and shins,
was the most bad-ass of all.
There was the Disney Palace,
the murmur of angels in the background,
the star that flew around it,
the jingle that will forever be stuck in my subconscious.
There were cartoons bashing each other’s heads in,
those who could never die,
there was always the victor
and the sufferer
and the game never got old.
But even if it aired in my time and in my country, it wouldn’t have caught on. The world had changed too much. No matter how inviting Mr. Rogers’ smile, the kids rather want to see something that sparkles or explodes. They rather want to watch a swashbuckling hero stab a series of nameless villains then hear the wise words of a sock-puppet.
The times have changed now. There’s too much available. The marketers know the game too well. The parents let it happens, the parents couldn’t have done anything about it even if they wanted to. The parents were too distracted themselves by the newest gadgets, building up their pension and Christmas bonuses. The marketers got them in their pockets too. It’s everything you stood against Mr. Rogers. But you see, in your day, television entertainment wasn’t as evolved as it is now. Now things can be created out of thin air, by computers. Now there’s so much money at stake. So much money. And you don’t fuck with the money Mr. Rogers.
They won’t let you fuck with the money. They’ll kick you out of the air if you do.
I’m sorry Mr. Rogers but the assholes of the world have won. Look no further in how little people care now about good morals, about being nice to each other. It’s too difficult to be empathetic, it’s much easier to dismiss people’s pain.
There’s so much pain and misery. There are people debating whether or not to give people medical assistance if they can’t afford it- they should have taken better care of themselves right?
There are the unfortunate people who lost their minds through either either neglect or genetic predisposition and the fortunate ones who pass them on the streets, telling the unfortunate ones that it’s their own fault.
Or at the very least, that their pain is not their problem.
There are people in charge of the government now who favor objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand- if anyone can play a witch without make-up, it’s her- which states that selfishness is a virtue.
But you were special Mr. Rogers.
You were all about love. All you wanted to do is tell the truth and make them understand. You understood that you didn’t have to patronize the kids, that you didn’t need to manipulate them. That there was a higher goal in having a broad children’s audience.
You could teach them to be good to each other.
You could tell about the horrors of this world,
how ugly people can be to each other,
how good people can be murdered for no good reason,
how people can fall out of love,
how people are scared for things that are different,
why sometimes we get a little sad because the world is a tough place
and we have to be alone sometimes
and we have figure things out for ourselves
and sometimes we love will leave us
and they can never come back
except in our hearts and minds.
And we have to accept things
even if we don’t want to,
because if we don’t
this world will be unbearable.
And it’s full of vultures waiting for desperate children who can’t handle this world
And sometimes we let the vultures eat our children
because we don’t know what to do,
we don’t know what to do…
And I wish I was more like you
Mr. Rogers,
I wish I was as pure as you
but I guess it’s too late for that.
I’ve done too many bad things,
I have too many bad habits,
patterns of thoughts I can’t seem to get rid of.
I feel uncomfortable with children,
I don’t know what to say,
I’m afraid to embarrass myself.
And I wished I lived in your neighborhood,
I wish you could tell me
that things are going to be alright
and that it’s okay to be me
and that I shouldn’t be like you,
cos nobody should be the same
because otherwise the neighborhood wouldn’t be so colorful.
You’d tell me these bad men
who are glorified by too many people,
people who should know better,
aren’t really winning.
And it’s because they don’t see it,
even though the right answer was always there.
The higher plain,
the game-changer,
some of us see it right at the end.
They will understand that they’ve wasted so much time
worrying too much
or hating each other.
Thinking too much of the past,
building a fantasy world inside their heads,
putting their names
on top of tall buildings
in plaques made of gold.
You’d tell me:
”I know you want to change the world
but now you gotta look out for yourself.
You gotta show the world
and all its misguided creatures,
what it means to be human.
You don’t let them change you,
you don’t let them away your light.
It’s what happens to so many of us,
and if we could keep that light inside us
and share that light,
cultivating it
by helping others,
collectivize it in one beautiful image
for the world to see.
And it might not change the world
but it might change
the mindset of some,
it might make them feel better
the less fortunate ones,
the ones who see no way out.
And wouldn’t that be nice?”
”Yes it would,” I’d say,
and then I’d smile and look away,
and I would wish I wasn’t so cynical,
that I was more like you.
And you’d see that familiar glare of mine
and it wouldn’t dishearten you,
you would understand.
You’d finish by saying:
”Love is at the root of everything. love
or the lack of it.
And what we see and hear on the screen
is part of who we become.”
And I’d wipe away a tear
and tell you I need to go home
”but I’ll be back,” I’d say,
”because I like it here.
I really, really like it here.”
***
At first he pretended that nothing unusual had happened. Just another fit of rage. Just another asshole who looked at him the wrong way. People get hurt sometimes, it happens. When things cool down, everything will turn back to normal. The adrenaline helped. The adrenaline justified the violence. He kept shaking as he was holding the gun in his hand. The ringing in his ears wouldn’t stop. The victim kept screaming for help, his wife was crying was next to him. Someone was phoning the police and informing them of the address. He screamed for the witnesses to shut the fuck up and they wailed in fright.
Normally he didn’t have a gun with him but he was especially paranoid today. He was sure someone was watching him. Sometimes he could hear them in the walls. Sometimes he could see their shapes running away when he spotted them in the corner of his mansion.
Someone told him to drop the gun.
Did he knew this guy or not? He couldn’t be sure.
He saw himself shooting the man, saw him crawling on the floor, saw another round explode in his back. He knew what he asked him before he shot him.
”You got a problem with me?”
The man begged him to drop the gun. And for a second, he knew what he had done. He knew this awareness would slip away eventually and when it did, he would start running again. He would look for the monsters again.
”Just pull the trigger,” he said, ”please just pull the trigger…”
The wife of the victim would not stop crying. He pointed the gun to the woman and looked at the man- friend, enemy or hallucination?- hoping this would make him shoot him. But he didn’t have it in him. He could put the gun to his own head but he knew he couldn’t do it either. There was something inside his head that wouldn’t allow it. It needed him to live. No matter how miserable he was or how dangerous he was to others.
And I never meant to hurt everybody, I swear…
Sirens in the distance. From the window he could see the red lights coming closer. Maybe he could make them shoot him.
But that’s just what they wanted wasn’t it! He suddenly figured. That was their plan all along! ”Not me,” he said, looking down at the grieving wife, her shirt covered in the blood of her dying husband, ”they aren’t going to get me this easy.”
He bend down, the grieving wife held husband close to herself, hoping to protect him. He grabbed the husband’s hand, the other was still holding the gun. He squeezed the husband’s hand as he looked into his dying eyes.
”Don’t worry you’re safe now,” he said, ”things are going to be alright from now on. You always fear that they are stronger than you but in reality, it’s they are the ones who are really afraid. Now that they know we mean business, they are to hide for a while. But I’ll keep looking. I’ll always keep looking…”
***
On the 3rd of March 2018, on the same day that Russia would reelect Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, journalist Illya Kholodov from Novayeta Gazetta disappeared. He was last seen saying goodbye to his wife as he headed to the nearest voting polls, to watch out for any irregularities. Screaming was heard in the neighborhood and a speeding car.
One day day before his disappearance, Illya’s was visited by his old childhood friend Konstantin. Konstantin was deeply connected, a man who has long disappeared among the Russian elites. Normally he would never show up in this neighborhood, but her he was, in front of his door in his thousand dollar suit with his silver Lexus parked outside.
Konstantin’s bodyguard waited outside as Illya invited him in. Illya offered him tea and as he was boiling up the water, Konstantin pretended to admire this small and humble apartment. He noticed a display case where inside it, lay a series of old pictures, from faded color to black-and-white. These pictures dated back from World War 2 to Stalin’s reign of terror.
They sat down for tea. Konstantin asked where his wife was and Illya told him she was at her job- as one of the editors of Novayeta Gazetta, Konstantin then went straight to the point.
”All you gotta do is survey the place and say that nothing was out of the ordinary. That’s all. You write down that everything was square and that you didn’t see any irregularities.”
”But what if I do see irregularities.”
”That’s the thing, even if you do see something you don’t see something.”
”Why bother? Nobody is going to believe.”
”The right people will.”
”If I do that I will forever lose the respect of my colleagues. I’m sorry I can’t do it.”
”Who cares about their respect? I’ve something better than respect: a nice big envelop every month, for a whole. Every month you’ll have more money than you’ll make in a year. That’s better than respect.”
”You’re fucking kidding right? You know me. I’d said no to big fat envelopes for years now. If I cared about money I wouldn’t be fucking be here. Why would I change my mind today?”
”Look I set this up for you. My superiors had other ideas with you but I changed their mind, don’t make me look like an asshole here. You made it difficult for us in the past but you didn’t cause us enough aggravation to get really angry. Now it’s different.”
”How is it different?”
”The people are more restless than ever. The big guy is worried. Things need to look a little more clean now…”
”It’s not going to look clean you know that.”
”It won’t if people start looking. But we need to make sure it’s not overly transparent. If people gotta look for corruption, it’s not really there. It needs to shine for it to be real. If it don’t shine, it ain’t real.”
”Why do you need me anyway Konstantin. It doesn’t matter if this district votes against him. You’ll have enough votes. Even if he doesn’t get enough votes he’s still gonna win. Even if I say the whole thing is a giant rip-off, it doesn’t matter. You don’t fucking need me to do anything.”
”Exactly, that’s right. Even if you don’t comply things will turn out just the same. That’s why you are gonna do as your told. Cos you don’t wanna get hurt for something that isn’t gonna make a difference in your life.”
”It ain’t me Konstantin, I’m sorry.”
”You’re making an awful lotta noise lately. We can’t have that right now. You know there were a lot of people aiming for you but I held them back. If it wasn’t for me, we might not even have this conversation.”
”So I should be grateful is that it?”
”All you dopes should be grateful. We could make you guys disappear of the fucking earth. You know you don’t exactly contribute anything to this country? You’re just costing us money. And you don’t fuck with the money. There is nothing in this world that’s stronger than money. And for what? You’re just hurting yourself. All you’re doing is costing us money and wasting our time. We have wasted so many times on you fucking dopes. We’ve made it clear, we’ve made countless examples of you guys but you never fucking listen. You just don’t fucking get it.”
”The Russian people deserve better…”
”Oh grow the fuck up! How many times do we have to repeat this dance? How many bodies does it fucking take? Nothing is going to change. This is how it’s always going to be. Look at our history. Something is deeply wrong with the soul of this country. We own this country’s soul. We’ve had a chance to do penitence after the fall of Soviet-union. Yet we still fucked-up. Now it’s our time to burn.”
Konstantin got up and he buttoned his jacket he said, ”you were already pushing it last election and we let it slide. We ain’t gonna let it slide this time Illya. Just confirm to me that you will do as your told. If I go back and tell them you said no, I can’t protect you anymore.”
Illya sight and considered it, but as he looked to the left, he saw his father’s picture inside the display case. He remembered how he died, he remembered how hard he worked, he remembered how little time he spend with him. He then made his decision.
”I’m going to do my job. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Konstantin looked at him mournfully and then shook his head. As Konstantin headed for the door, Illya got up and yelled after him: ”you know what my father used to say? It’s better to die for a beautiful dream than to live in a nightmare.”
Konstantin gave him one last look and then walked out the door. He hadn’t even touched his tea.
The case of Illya Kholodov’s disappearance would forever be unsolved. One day, after six months of investigation, the wife of Kholodov visited the police department again and accused them all of corruption. She screamed that blood was on their hands, she said that God would judge them in the next world. Even though she was a woman in her fifties, it took three young police-officers to carry her out of the building.
The case-officer who was supposedly working on the disappointed of Illya Kholodov- though had long given up after certain people told him to stop looking- went home early that day and when he got home, he locked himself in the bathroom and weeped. Through his tears he asked God the same question over and over again: ”what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?”
Illya would become just another faceless figure. Another number on the long list of missing journalists. The hope is that perhaps, if the numbers are high enough, the people will rise up and demand change. If the numbers are high enough. If the numbers will continue to mean something. Maybe after six more years.
***
I’ve said this many times before and I don’t want to say these words again, but I can’t help it…
”I was doing so well. I thought I’d finally woken up from the nightmare. I would never fall asleep again. I thought it would never come back. I was too strong for it now.
I educated myself on it.
I taught myself to see the signs:
-The repetitive questions,
the way it keeps coming back,
asking the same questions again and the right answer only satisfies it for a short while
and then it’s hungry again.
-the need for confirmation,
even for the most obvious goddamn things.
You ask once and soon you’ll ask again.
You know you’ll never be free if you keep making it stronger.
-The thoughts has a peculiar feeling,
they are not normal thoughts,
they are diseased,
they smell,
the make you sick from the inside.
-The biggest question of all:
is this just OCD
or is this reality?
Don’t you have a sneaking suspicion this is reality?
All I want is to look at her face and enjoy her company.
All I want is to be left alone with her,
why can’t you just leave me alone with her?
I even gave it a monstrous face,
despite the fact that it’s nothing more
than chemicals in my brain.
It’s a monster in my head,
and it’s doing is toying with my brain receptors
and the only way to make it is to dope yourself with medication
or learn to break the habit.
Know its patterns
know the signs
and then move on.
Make it starve to death.
Start meditating again,
close your eyes,
take a deep breath,
accept what’s going on with you.
Go to the gym
and lift weights,
run the treadmill,
go that extra mile,
make yourself like you can’t take one more step.
Wear your boxing mitts and get inside the ring,
don’t flinch when you see your opponent coming for you,
take his punches,
slide to the left and hit him back.
It’s okay to bleed.
Bleeding is just what you need.
It’s okay to break some bones,
it’s okay to be scared,
take it,
learn to defend yourself and then hit back.
Get outside your head,
get outside your head,
get outside your fucking head.
Write about your experiences,
express yourself creatively,
give it a voice,
make it mean something,
draw something,
even if you can’t draw for shit.
Start a picture collage,
make random pictures of strangers on the streets,
who cares if they get annoyed?
You are just trying to get by like everyone else.
You are trying to make something mean something to yourself like anyone else.
Start writing again,
a poem, a novel, a novella, an essay, a fucking blog,
anything,
the only way to make anything meaningful is to write about it.
If it’s on paper it means something,
if it has a title,
if characters have arcs,
if it’s real,
if it’s based on your experiences,
if it was just the thing you needed to do
and made you feel so good,
if only for a while
then it fucking means something.
Make it mean something,
even if it doesn’t seem to have any meaning.
Even if there doesn’t seem to be an end to it,
even if it all seems like a pitiful joke.
Make it mean something
and somewhere along the line,
after doing all of that,
you’ll wake up from the nightmare,
probably.”
See.
***
It’s hard
not to feel alone
when you’re trapped
inside your
head.
***
So many precious memories go to waste. Not everyone is able to get their story told. Not everyone is interested in writing their memoirs. And though not everyone lives akin to the greats of history, these memories are precious nonetheless because when these people pass on, the worlds they lived in will pass on, too.
And the less information we have about the world before us, the less we will understand about the past. And the less we understand about the past, the less we will understand about ourselves.
“Radio Days,” one of Woody Allen’s lesser known and often forgotten work, is a slightly autobiographical film about the preciousness and fragility of memories. It’s unlike most of his other films in that it doesn’t revolve around the neurotic follies of romantic relationships. There’s no real story. It’s just the scrambled reminiscence of the narrator Joe (Allen) as he recounts his youth from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s.
Thus, it’s filled with innocence – but with the little wickedness that comes with being a child. We are introduced to his bickering but ultimately loving family, who speak to each other in Allen’s delicious misanthropic wit. It’s a wacky slice of life. It’s a depiction of a time and place that has forever disappeared.
A strange time when people weren’t glued to their LCD screens but received their entertainment through the radio and in each other’s company. It might be a little romanticized, as the narrator states, but he can’t help that. This is just how he remembers it.
It’s about the radio stories he heard in that time. The characters that crept in his imagination. Time scrambles our memories, so Joe isn’t entirely sure whether some radio stories ended this way or that; in one instance of the film, he even depicts several endings. Families would huddle amongst each other listening to the radio.
In the film’s most touching moments, they would even cry with each other when the radio entailed some particularly sad news. Now we are bombarded with sad news and we carry on anyway.
Things were so much simpler then. Not necessarily better but simpler. But just like the worlds before it, eventually it had to disappear. We can find remnants of this world in our museums and in history books, and as long as people who lived in those old worlds are still alive, we can hear about them.
But not many people who lived in those radio days are left. As the Masked Avenger (Wallace Shawn), the voice of a popular radio show says, “After enough time, everything passes. I don’t care how big we are or how important are our lives.” And as time passes, we wonder what it’s all about – if it was even about anything. And all of those voices, no matter how important they were to us, will grow dimmer and dimmer as more time passes.
But as long we have films like “Radio Days,” these voices live on. It might not be their actual voices and Allen’s memories might not be entirely accurate (by his own admission) but it’s the best we have.
And I’m sure that these forgotten ghosts of Radio Days will be delighted, knowing that the next generation and the generations after that, will remember them like this.
***
”You see how hard this is? Isn’t that great? Isn’t it great that such a beautiful thing is so hard to do well? Now imagine trying to get close to that great thing and working so hard to get there. Imagine yourself failing constantly, again and again. Imagine people shaking their heads, telling you to give up. But you don’t. You keep walking in that same direction no matter how many times you get lost along the way. And then one day, you realize you’re walking in the right direction. That great thing is closer than you thought. It’s still far away but it’s closer now than ever before.
When that day comes: wouldn’t you feel so proud of yourself?”
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WELCOME TO THE HUMAN RACE: SCRAMBLED NOISES FROM THE VOID 