07102012

On flexibility and freedom.

As an semi-idealistic young man I feel almost obliged to feel free. Freedom is a state of mind, a necessity, a never-ending hunger of self-actualization. Freedom is in the constitutional law, even. I think most of us consider freedom to be able to do what you want to do at any given time at any given place. Freedom is sleeping in on a Monday morning. Freedom is shouting out loud in a public place. Freedom is wearing piercings as a part of your look.

So, does freedom make us happy?

It's a fairly clichéd thought that freedom comes from restriction - in order to feel free, you must have or know some boundaries. I suppose most people derive their freedom from breaking these boundaries. Doing something moderately socially inacceptable - sleeping when you 'should' be awake, shouting when you should be quiet, not looking like everyone else. Breaking the boundary with a crow bar gives you a feeling of triumph, of success, and you feel free. You don't necessarily feel happy, though.

By spending a year doing 'whatever' I wanted to do where I wanted to be at the time I wanted, I ended up traveling, working a little, traveling some more. The ideal of a human life? To be able to see the world not having to work that much, not having to worry about the society, peer pressure or bed times? I realized that if anything it doesn't make me happy.

My happiness comes from eating two eggs for breakfast every morning, reading an article about finance on the newspaper, biking to listen to a lecture, eating lunch, going back home, exercising, going to bed at a set time. Jeepers! Am I a boring guy or what! Routine is happiness, admit it or not. You become happy because of the things you are used to, the things that force you to accomplish something, the things that limit your daily schedules. You become happy because of the normal way of your life.

A disappointing, discouraging thought? Yes. That's why we need freedom. The idea, the hope that someday I might break out from my daily routines and be even happier. It's not freedom that makes us happy, it's thinking about it.

270912

Delete, home and end.

The last time I wrote something here seems like a yesterday stuck in time. There was a time when words would just dance on the paper and write themselves down, me being a mere guiding force behind the stage. Now I feel like I have five thumbs on each hand, trying to push the right letters but every other letter misses a beat and every other gets one too many. The words want to delete themselves, they're not comfortable. The words feel they're not sufficient to be here whereas once they were all that was here. I guess the words are like me. They want to delete themselves once in a while. Become nonexistent. Not existing at all. Exist, feel the word on your tongue.

Words need a home to rise back into life. Everyday life is not as inspiring as we'd probably like it to be and sometimes it's impossible to write down anything that would feel important. Today I woke up, took a shower, ate two and a half eggs, accidentally took a shower again, ate, slept a bit, woke up, ate, slept, woke up, ate, slept, up, ate, down. How can I draw inspiration from that? By finding a comfortable spot on the couch, feeling like I'm home. That's where the inspiration to write comes from, home.

I thought I had seen the end of writing days when spring ended and summer began. The longest summer of my life, the ongoing Tuesday afternoon when the week seems like it will never end. The summer deleted my words, made me look for a home and forced me to end a phase in my life. I find it ironic that the summer was probably the most boring I have lived to see but no doubt it will be one of those summers that I dare not forget.

15052012

Purpose, and the lack thereof.

I felt like writing about my rise, my trials and my triumphs before I started running. Halfway through the lap I realized that I wasn't running, I was escaping. My breath wanted to seize me and my muscles told me to stop, to rest, so that there would be no more pain. But I couldn't. All I wanted was to run away from my life, all the meaningless, trivial details of it. Forfeit the battle, surrender the war, cloak myself into a white flag and flee.

What drives me towards this great escape is my purpose, which has kept me up two nights in a row. My purpose, which was supposed to be a fortress to shelter in, a banner held high and a horse to ride on, became first a faint figure in the mist, then a ghost. I wanted to write about the phoenix of my identity, a rise from the ashes of a forgotten purpose, newly regained and fought for. The newborn bird was shot before it hatched and all that's left is the ashes, blown away in the cold wind that feels like spring but tastes like autumn.

At the moment when I had the enlightenment of realizing my escape I felt unpurposeful. My stalemate life was now visible in front of me and the strategist in me saw no ways for victory. Forgotten, void, useless. Just another man in the vanguard who at first thought he was something, then realized that his life is shortly lived in the front row. Just another lover without a rose.

I don't feel like writing about my rise anymore - there never was any ascent. I don't feel like writing about my trials - there will always be trials to write about and the important ones will be written about without any hesitation. I don't feel like writing about my triumphs - a man with a purpose has triumphed over his obstacles, a man without has not.

09052012

I suddenly feel empty.

 

Empty from the inside, like a glass bottle with only a white marble whirling within, making the kind of sound that irritates, yet captivates you. I braced myself for this feeling eight months ago but I never knew that I would need a heavy-plated armour to take all the blows, and still have something to fill the shell of the armour with. An armour without a man inside is a forgotten relic, an unknown soldier and a dignity without a person.

I wonder if someday as an old man I'll find these texts from an archive and think to myself, Oh, what a foolish young man I was back then, worrying about the way of the world without a worry in the world. Why is that always the worries of the youth are considered as just 'part of youth'? Does becoming older grant you the power to judge who has the right to worry? Is there so much wisdom in being old that you can consider yourself an authority in everything emotional?

I've been told that due to emotional immaturity and the lack of a phenomenon called the experience of life, young people can't advise their elders, can't write books to be taken seriously, can't give perspective on issues. I firmly believe against.

From what I've perceived, it's mostly old people who are the empty shells of their former selves. They are the ones who look back on their mistakes and gaze at the past with sorrowful eyes. Is that wisdom - to know what you did wrong in the past, to realize where you made the mistakes? Is it not wisdom to be able to foresee the mistakes you might make and avoid them?

03052012

Last night at the pub.

"...and the sound of the kettle on his hearth was ever after more musical." -Tolkien

After an intense seven month period I settled back on my bed sheets, typing texts that will have shortly lost their purpose. Coming home is ceremonial, glorious for a short period of time - specifically for the time when you can still enjoy the luxury of a hot shower, the kind of breakfast you like, the people you love. The feeling of having all the things enjoyable is luxurious.

But that period of time is a shooting star. After the light has diminished, you feel like you've never left.

I think the people of the world are divided into three separate groups. The first group of people consists of the people who don't travel, the second of the people who'd like to travel and the third of the people who travel. The groups might have people in-between, but the division seems to be quite strict. The first group of people is your home, the second your reality, and the third your dreams.

I've spent the first few days back home with the people from the first two groups and I've felt the division in my bones. When you can't share experiences, you will talk about the common things in your lives. When two people out of three have read the same book, it's boring to talk about it for the third person. When a person in a group has traveled and the others have not, it's likewise boring.

It's weird to feel somehow condescending towards the people who have not traveled but somehow I feel it's just. I've already occasionally felt like an outcast with my own friends. I know it's a feeling that will pass once I get my routine back on but for the time being, I have not been a part of their year, no matter how much I would have liked to have been. It makes me feel lonely.


What, for me, was the most eventful year of my life was an evening spent at the pub for others.

30042012

Blue lagoon.

29042012

Reflecting, last night.

Tonight is the officially last night of our grand journey. It all ends tomorrow, comes to a stop in my home town, the small town of Imatra on the Russian border. That's where this all began not more than just seven months ago, which at some point seemed like a forever infused with an eternity and at some point a fraction of a second. Regardless, the hour glass is empty, the grains are gone and all that's left is reflections.

A few days ago I finally discovered the meaning of this journey for me. It wasn't about realizing my dream about travelling, if it would've been I would have chosen other destinations. It wasn't about becoming indepent – I have been independent for a long time already, because that's what I've been raised to be. It wasn't about meeting new people, gaining new friends – my previous year, the first year of my studies, was a great year for that. It wasn't about new experiences, extreme sports, trying out new things – I'm curious by nature, so I don't need to set out to experience, to feel.

It was about a small piece of paper with letters scribbled in black pink, written by a finally steady hand. A page torn out of a travelling notebook with barely any emotional value. A list.

I had always thought I had planned my life well and thoroughly. Every piece of my life's puzzle was already fitted with each other and everything seemed to be in place. And I guess they were in place but they were not me.

I wrote a five-item list. It tells what I want my life to be like in 10 years. I had never actually given it any thoughts, I just went with the present, trying to forget some of the past, not really concentrating on the future. This list I wrote is, in my opinion, the epitome of my youth turning into adulthood.