tsvetoslav shalev

Tenacity and acumen are privileged spectators of this inhuman show in which absurdity, hope and death carry on their dialogue. The mind can then analyse the figures of that elementary yet subtle dance before illustrating them and reliving them itself.

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

Recently, the sum of my experiences in life can be best described as trying to put together the world’s biggest puzzle. I have the box, can see what the end result should look like (according to the internet), and eagerly begin to piece things together. I progress along just fine, but a sense of wrongness begins to creep in. The verisimilitude of certain sections causes me to pause and think. Things fit, for the most part, but the image that is slowly forming before my mind’s eye appears contradistinctive to original presumptions. Gary Moore’s ‘Still Got The Blues‘ was released in April of 1990, according to Wiki. I was three years and two months old – the song wouldn’t have made any profound sense or left a lasting impression. I’m 34 today. The sincerity of his guitar-playing is unmistakable.

I find myself rubbing the palms of my hands together more often these days. I’ve even ditched shorts for a pair of cheap jogging bottoms. Ironic, given how little exercise I get (none, really). Warmth seems to want to escape my body with the same desperate determination as an alienated teenage runaway. I still remember the first time I wanted to leave my family. It happened on a sunny, yet cold morn in my pre-teens. I’d had enough of the shenanigans of my parents, so I packed a suitcase almost as large as me – random pieces of clothing, a game, meat, and bread – and left through the back door leading to our garden, where I spent the rest of the day skulking and slowly, but surely devouring everything edible I’d packed for the long journey to who knows where. I must’ve had a very good reason (reasons?) to want to be someplace, some people else, but the courage was lacking. The wherewithal, too. Nowadays, I’m well aware that while we certainly can try and run away, there’s no place in this objective reality of ours where we could hide from ourselves. And yet here I am, wanting a change from without. So singularly hellbent on this fixation of mine, that no price is too great to pay. This state of mind reminds me of an old Slavic folklore tale. A middle-aged man and woman in a horse-drawn cart ride around town, offering folks fruit in exchange for any junk found in their homes. Almost everyone who comes to them brings bags, save for a young girl who had on her but a small pile wrapped in a handkerchief. She couldn’t find much in her home but hoped to get fruit nonetheless. In the end, we find out that the man and the woman were actually looking for someone well organized, who keeps things tidy to marry their son. Personally, I commiserate with the folks who thought that they’d be getting something, for (presumably) nothing. The moral of the story is, let’s not make fools of ourselves, even if the perceived reward might be great. Oh, and good housekeeping. In every sense of the expression.

There is comfort in the known, in what is familiar even if painful. There is also bondage. I can easily reason myself into a relationship but lack the strength to leave one. And I don’t just mean a relationship with another human being, but also towards inanimate objects and conditions. To begin anew with what we currently possess, a self-help victim’s pipe dream; the unbeliever’s terra incognita. So, as with my previous writ, stop and take a good look around. If you happen to find yourself in a hole, better stop digging – there must be other ways to get to China.