So then, how do you spend your time doing nothing?
I walk past four seniors who are sitting and resting in the shade under the few trees that line the street. They curiously look at me while I curiously look at them. All four of them nibble on ice cream from the nearby ice-cream place. Some look rather content, others expressionless, seemingly lost in thought, lost in daydream, ice cream. Who thought humans could be so cute?
As if to say, "Yes, this is our reward. We survived. We’ve made it this far" they in fact look quite tired. Tired of nature’s natural forces or simply because they arrived at the end of their long lives. This sweet melting instant gratification however makes them for a moment forget the next and anything else.
We moved from the beach to urban scenery: The main street is lined and littered with Chinese shops, Irish bars, and places where people trade all kinds of goods and bads. While some are busy earning an income, others are busy spending theirs. Big bellies hide under tight shirts that read "Active Lifestyle, 1978"; makeshift divas practice their drama for tonight’s open-air telenovela; customer-hungry restaurant employees prey on innocent passers-by. By the way, why are bicyclists so reckless?
Everything and everybody is in motion, people are very much alive and pretend to be terribly busy. We are in a rush to make sure we get everything the very human experience has to offer. Let’s not miss out on anything. If you thought that siesta suggested stillness, think again; it is merely a time to consider our next move. We give our ambitions a short rest only to jump-start and hurry back into frenzy mode the very moment we hear the clocks ticking away the time. It comes as no surprise that some of us don’t even do siesta.
Sugar, sex, stress and sometimes even sentimentality; these socially accepted addictions take their time and their toll. In this movie of life we throw ourselves into roles that we would easily laugh at if seen on a big screen. Did you ever hear that life is too important to be taken seriously? Well then; Lights, camera, action!
Whatever is meant by Texmex, Asian or glocal, we feast as if it was our last supper, and before we catch our last breath, we talk so much and so fast, we babble on as if we have forgotten everything and everyone around us. Ironically, all because we simply want to connect. Our attempts might appear absurd at times, but indeed, we are desperately looking, longing, lusting for connection and we try to reach out into the immediate universe because the answers must be out there.
Language, funnily enough, comes to hand, while our gestures speak more than words. The childlike waving at a friend, the obscure homie handshake rituals of grownup kids or the openly explicit and barely legal grabbing of mating partners - and I was told justice is what love looked like in public; we are clinging to one another, looking for hold, comfort and warmth.
Make a guess: The majority of us would rather die suffocating among, or be suffocated by, family and friends, than to die alone floating lost in space. We have to know that we are not alone with our feelings, even with the vacuum that we sometimes feel in our hearts. That the nightclub on the fringe of town runs by the name of “Contactos“ is not a mere coincidence.
Next to huge supermarket signs that stick out like giant Google map tags, smooth anthracite highways make our lives better, they connect us and get us faster from A to the beach while we sing along to Joni Mitchell’s “They paved paradise…“. Talk about virtual reality in an analogue world with phones that are designed to make us stay connected and look smarter? Let’s not even go there.
Whether over an ostensibly romantic dinner at the lonely-hearts club or while frolicking on any beautiful wild beach we do our best to look for love, or whatever idea we have of it. Rarely are we aware that our clumsy attempts to establish any sort of meaningful connection resemble those of the young teenage couple sitting there on the steps in front of the bus stop, their alleged stairway to heaven, and more than often - no matter how well disguised - these attempts are accompanied by rather animalesque behavior.
In short; we spent our time doing nothing by trying to fill it with meaning.
So then, whatever facilitates the connection and brings us together to unite as one must be seen as the natural course of things. After all; we all try, don’t we? Like beginner drivers with an “L sign“ placed in the back of the car, we all wear invisible triple L’s pinned to our human uniforms or our naked selves: We are life long learners; and if life is the school, then love must be the lesson.
Part II. A short tourist-friendly essay written for the holiday reader. (Unearthed from 2014.)