XL - Still a Traveller

We are the decisions that we make.

When Rui Pereira, journalist for the Publico, handed Leonardo a copy of his new contract, he did so with a smile on his lips. After three long months in regime of semi-slavery, Leonardo had finally earned the right to be considered a permanent part of the team.

You’re a part of this machine now, on a permanent basis. The duration of your service: indefinite. You’re one of us.

            Leonardo, who was trying his best to smile, without great success, fiddled with the contract in front of him. So this is what the future is supposed to look like…

            December 31^st: The last day of the year. A reasonably big group of socially inadequate people waited for the bus that would take them, throughout the dark night, to Spanish lands. Leonardo was one of them.

            Having a good job is seen as a symbol of success in our western, contemporary society. No, it’s not even just a symbol. Having a good job is practically a nonnegotiable condition to even be considered a respectful member of society. After all, employment is the status quo of the middle class in our modern capitalist society. It’s a way to earn money for the middle class, and money is the master, it’s the lord almighty. Survival, freedom, security, health, beauty or dignity. For middle class dwellers, no employment means no money, which means no access to any of those valuable commodities.

            Obviously, this is not just about having a job. This is about having “a good job”. The better the job, the more money there is and the more the money the bigger the reputation. Now, not having a job, that’s a humiliation. If a job is money and money is dignity, those who don’t have a job don’t have money and therefore don’t have dignity.

            The problem is that a lot of young people these days can’t even get a job, and the majority of those that do get a job have precarious contractual conditions or re badly paid or both. Not only that, a lot of young people end up working jobs they hate just because they need to have some sort of job. Personal satisfaction is not always a real option for a lot of people. You get a job because you have to and that’s usually the end of the story.

            In Leonardo’s case, however, things didn’t have to be necessarily that way. After all, since his biological father died some years ago and left him a decent amount of money, he had been able to start paying for his own expenses. This had given him a degree of freedom that he had never had before and, among other things, had allowed him to delay, even if briefly, his “entrance” in the job market after graduating. At this point, that money meant that he could actually live without finding a job immediately. He could afford spending some time looking for his way in life instead of just diving into a conventional lifestyle.

            In fact, pressured by his family and his society to be “normal”, Leonardo had almost forgotten that he had the possibility to do things differently. This was until a Tuesday night when Alex and him met after work to drink the monotony of their lives away, like they did sometimes.

            Alex told him then: ‘Leo, if I had the money you have still sitting in the bank, just sitting there without doing anything, just picking up mold, I would take it out of the bank, quit my boring job and go somewhere cool to do something interesting with my life.’

            At the time, Leonardo took it rather lightly, laughing about it. But when he realized that Alex was actually for real, the idea started taking over his mind, slowly but steadily, until that a few days later that was the only thought on his mind at all.

            When Leonardo told Rui Pereira his decision he looked at him with a rather shocked expression stamped on his face. These days, with all the young men and women in the world practically killing each other for whatever decent jobs are available, he wasn’t expecting Leonardo to turn down his offer.

            ‘Leonardo, are you sure about this? I don’t know if I’ll be able to offer you this opportunity again any time soon…’

            ‘Yes Rui, I thought about this carefully and I’m sure I wanna travel the world and learn as much as I can about it before settling down. In fact, I couldn’t be any surer than I am. I appreciate the opportunity that you gave me though, and I’m very thankful to you for that.’

            ‘You’re welcome Leonardo. I hope you’re making the right decision. You know, when you first got here and started working for us I realized straight away that there was something special about you. There’s this look in your eyes, this thirst for knowledge, adventure, or something else that I can’t quite figure out. What I can tell you is, never lose that thirst, never become accommodated, when you do, that’s when life stops making sense… Good luck son’ he finally said, shaking Leonardo’s hand firmly. When Leonardo left his office Rui felt happy for him and wished he could find his place in the world.

            On December 31^st, at nine p.m. the bus left the Oriente bus station in Lisbon with Madrid as its destination. Leonardo was once more an explorer, an adventurer, a traveler. He had left behind his life as it could have been, as everyone had expected it to be.

      He left without a specific destination. He didn’t know where the road would take him after Madrid. His only travel-mates were pens and notebooks. Another chapter of his life had ended and a new one was about to begin. In the end, his true nature had prevailed. At least for the time being he wouldn’t become just another cog in the machine. At least for now, he would go on travelling.  

XXXIX - Tyler Says...

The life of each one of us is but a succession of choices, which collectively seal our fates. Life is like a long trip, and each choice we make is like turning either left or right in a cross-road. Often times we aren’t sure where we are going to end up, or even where we want to end up in the end. And yet, it is impossible not to keep marching forward. We can’t just stay in the same place since time never stops. The clock is always ticking, pressuring us to act.

            When he was young, Leonardo had his whole life ahead of him. The world lay at his feet, unexplored. His options were practically unlimited and he felt that he could always go back and take a new different path, if he didn’t like the path he was taking or if he simply changed his mind. Now, however, choices had begun to seem more and more irreversible. Seeing his friend Ricardo about to get married, Leo realized that a decisive moment in his friends lives and his own life had finally come. The possibilities stacked in the future, which before stood unlimited, were now being reduced as they slipped through the funnel of time.

            ‘Ricky, tell me something, aren’t you afraid that in a year from now you’ll realize that this is not what you really want for your life and that then it will be too late to change it?’ Leonardo asked his friend Ricardo.

            He had known that kid when he still didn’t even have any facial hair, and now there he was in front of him, with his thick black beard and his wavy long dark hair falling down his hairy back, about to get married. Leonardo still fondly remembered the many weekends spent at Ricky’s house when they were still in high school. He smiled, recalling how hard Ricky had tried to teach him how to play the guitar so they could form a band together… unfortunately Leonardo was never able to learn how to play more than a handful of songs. Music wasn’t his thing…

            ‘Have you ever heard of something called divorce buddy?’ answered Ricky in a humorous fashion. He had always had a fine sense of humour, rivaling Alexandre for the title of funniest of the gang when they were all still students at the Colegio de Chelas. Since then, eight years had already passed.

            Ricky’s quirky answer made everyone laugh, Leonardo included. The trip to the last village was having the desired effect. Although they knew that they would soon have to return to Lisbon, they could still fully enjoy the calmness of the countryside. They had spent the whole day walking and hiking, breathing the fresh air and appreciating the beautiful landscape made of small mountains, green fields and the clear blue sky. When nightfall was near, they returned to their house in the small village, and they drank beer and ate the meat and the sausages that they cooked in the grill in the house’s backyard. There is nothing more pleasant than a nice and quiet backyard barbecue with friends.

            ‘Look man…’continued Ricky ’when you lime someone like I like my girlfriend, I just don’t think there’s much point on waiting any longer. I wouldn’t do this if I wasn’t sure that she’s the right person for me. I’m not stupid.’

            ‘I understand actually… and I know you like her a lot and that you’ve been together for quite a while and I really, really hope that you are right and that she’s really the right girl for you. What scares me though, is everything that the institution of marriage symbolizes.’

            ‘What do you mean exactly?’ Ricky asked.

            ‘Don’t you think that getting married is like admitting, implicitly, that you accept the rules that society has laid out for you? Like if you were officially becoming part of the system? Don’t get me wrong Ricky, I don’t mean to criticize you. After all, you’re the first of the bunch to get married but I’m sure that one after the other we’ll end up doing the same thing… But do you remember when Tyler Durden said that we spend our whole lives being controlled by our mothers and the last thing we need is another woman to control us for the rest of our lives? That’s what I mean, I think…

            ‘Leo, that’s not real life, it’s just a movie…’

            ‘A movie that we watched together at least ten times’ answered Leonardo, slightly offended by his friend’s somewhat patronizing remark. Leo and Ricky, along with Alex, had formed a unofficial Fight Club fan-club while they were at high school. The activities of the pseudo fan-club included watching the movies as well s lengthy discussions about it and even collective “space monkey style” haircut sessions.

            ‘Leo, growing up mean accepting that sometimes we just have to conform to the rules that society sets up for us. I hear you but the truth is that accepting this reality is inevitable. I think that the idea of being completely free is nothing but a utopia and sooner or later we all have to accept the fact that living in society means giving up some individual freedoms in exchange for a degree of safety and stability. Even in Fight Club the main character ends up choosing to kill Tyler in order to save Marla and live a normal life…’

            ‘Yeah…maybe you’re right Ricky…maybe you already reached that stage, the end of the movie, and realized that Tyler Durden only existed inside your head after all. And after you realized that, you decided to put a bullet through his skull. Game Over. Where is My Mind? By The Pixies playing in the backdrop while “Jack” and Marla watch the big towers fall in front of them. A new beginning. The long awaited rest of the warrior. Maybe even the beginning of a new family... you got the end of the movie already and I’m still here, listening to Durden speak inside my head, talking the revolution in my mind…’

            ‘Don’t worry man, sooner or later the Tyler Durden in your head is gonna go away too. You just need to find your Marla and maybe get a job and everything is gonna start to make sense for you too…’ said Ricky, ex-revolutionary, now a worker and a family man. 

XXXVIII - A Short Escape from Civilization

Like a game of Tetris, pieces of various shapes and sizes falling every which way, threatening to create Chaos. The player tries his best to control the way the pieces fall, to create order from chaos, inserting all the pieces in their correct places. When successfully played out, all of the pieces create a solid block, and individualities are transformed into a collective harmony. Exchange ¨player¨ for ¨society¨ and there is your formula for success, your formula for civilization.

            Leonardo felt like his life had been put on auto-pilot. Every day he woke up pretty early, ate breakfast in a rush and headed to the editorial office. Luckily he lived on the same street as the office, so his commute was only a matter of 2 minutes, whereas most of his colleagues consumed hours of their lives just to get to a place where they usually didn’t want to be in the first place.

            The workday started around 8.30 on the rare occasion that he woke up before 8.15. After starting the laborious day, he’d be stuck there until 7 or 7.30. By then, he’d be so tired and mentally destroyed  that he’d only feel lie going home, eating dinner, crashing on the couch in front o the TV before finally heading to bed around 11.

            And so it was, day in and day out, that he sat there, immersed in a post-apocalyptic world replete with zombies, or fantasy worlds populated with its princes, princesses, knights and dragons, or completely lost in he adventures of Italian-American gangsters or FBI agents specialized in paranormal activity that he forgot for a few hours every day who he was.

            As he reached the end of the day on a Friday, he breathed a sigh of relief, as he always did at the end of the week. There, another weak passed by, I’m a little bit closer to the end of this internship, he thought, shoving his scribbles, folders and files into his backpack and waving goodbye to his colleagues as he hurried out of the office.

            When he felt the cold air outside, he could feel his lungs ingest and process the strange air of temporary freedom that he was granted until the weekend was over. This time around he was granted more time, being that Monday was a holyday, so he had 3 days of non-work life to spend however he pleased.

            In the golden days of college, one day more or one day less spent in laziness wasn’t anything big, unless maybe during the dreaded exam period. Now, though, every minute free from the reigns of his superiors and colleagues was a grand luxury to be appreciated and savored.

            It was the last weekend of November and Leonardo and the boys had planned a trip to the southern part of the country. It was to be a mini-escape from civilization.

            This time, the usual 4 musketeers would have a fifth element added to the bunch. Ricardo, otherwise known as Ricky among friends was, indeed, an old school friend from the Colegio de Chelas. Ricky was the first of the old “gang” to tie the knot. When he told Leonardo the news, he could scarcely believe it. After all, getting married was acknowledging that the golden age of youthfulness and college had come to a close. In other words, getting married was like saying out loud: ‘I’m an adult!’ so that the whole world could hear. All the friends, family and most important loved ones from both sides would be summoned to attend an obligatory ceremony where they would have to hear the couple declare their undying devotion and commitment to one another in front of a priest. In other words this way there would be no room for doubt now that everyone knows about what’s happening and there is no way to turn back.

            Much to his regret, Leonardo had been invited to this “sickening event”, along with other 3 in the gang. It was to take place very soon, in a church in Lisbon. There was no way to refuse the invitation. He had accepted the invitation to witness Ricky’s passage into adulthood but he was at least able to convince him to spend his last weekend as single man with his buddies. But no, it wasn’t with the intention to go clubs or to organize a party with shitty club music and eastern European strippers.  His intention wasn’t even to get drunk with his friend in order to momentarily forget the imminent tragedy (although that hypothesis hadn’t been completely discarded yet). What Leonardo had in mind was some sort of retreat which seemed to him then a great place to spend some time with Ricardo in that particular situation.

Their destination was a little village, lost somewhere between Alentejo and the Algarve. Decades and decades had passed, while the world around the village had slowly changed, dancing to the rhythm of modernization, progress and capitalism. The little Portuguese village however, stayed exactly the same as it had been 50 years earlier.

            Almost 4 hours into the trip, Romeo parked the car in front of an old house, its paint chipping off little by little, accompanying, loyally, the pass of time. More than 5 years had passed since the last time the house had received a visitor, as far as Leonardo knew. The house had belonged to Manuel’s grand parents, and had later been inherited by Manuel’s father. When he died, Manuel got the house, since his brother preferred to keep some parcels of land that were more valuable than the old house.

            Manuel hadn’t agreed to keep the house for financial reasons, but for sentimental ones. Although he was born in Lisbon, Manuel spent many glorious summers as a kid in that remote village before his family moved to Brazil.

            After returning to Portugal, when Manuel had a family of his own, he decided to restore the old house and spend some time with his children there. His wife, however, never bothered to hide her disdain for the little village, stuck in time, with no modern comforts to offer its visitors. Pedro and Lili, his youngest 2, never had much chance to enjoy it, since they were too young when they went there to appreciate the magic of the place. Leonardo, on the other hand, had been really privileged and spent a few weeks each summer there, hidden in time in the little house. Some of his favorite memories of his childhood had taken place there with his adoptive dad.

            With time, these memories had become murky and unclear, but as soon as he got out of the car, and stepped on that land and saw the house right in front of him, lit by the car’s headlights, the memories came back, suddenly, strong and clear.

            During this long weekend, he would revisit old times with old friends and would make some good memories for Ricky to hold onto the future. He was going to do the same things now with his friends that he had done with Manuel when he was a kid. He would bring them to the mountains for long hikes to the dam to see the great cascade of water down into the river valley. They would talk and drink wine and eat barbecue and read under the silver light of the stars.