On the road -Old Style /English Vers.
Lesedauer 2 MinutenIt’s a mystery to me
We have a greed
With which we have agreed
You think you have to want
More than you need
Until you have it all you
Won’t be free
Society, you’re a crazy breed
I hope you’re not lonely without meEddie Vedder, Society, «Into the wild»
Two young men started three years ago. “On the road! For one, the journey began in northern Italy, while the other started in Marrakech. They are searching. I don’t know what they are looking for and even they don’t know it. The Moroccan wanted to escape the ideas of his parents for his life. They are rich, even very rich. The Italian didn’t like the life in Milan.
“On the road! That sounds like Jack Kerouac, Hemmingway, Bob Dylan, Allan Ginsberg, Jon Krakauer, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Lynnyrd Skynnyrd and other names full of sound. Freedom, time, adventure, seemingly endless streets and vastness. “On the road!” is also hunger, thirst, the search for a place to sleep, no money in one’s pocket, sitting on the floor with a guitar and watching people pass by with a stone gaze. Sometimes being alone with one’s own thoughts drives one to the strangest places of the psyche.
Both are highly intelligent. They speak several languages, play their guitars, are well versed in classical literature, philosophy and natural sciences. What could they be looking for? The human being in himself? Real life? What do people really need? A life beyond greed? Does that still exist? One beyond advertising, consumption, artificial needs, generated fears? Are there still real people out there on the street?
Recently, the Italian has started to collect wealthy waste on the beach. He can be enthusiastic about a small doll’s arm that has burned fingers for some unknown reason.
A toy sieve, a piece of wire, an old water canister, a plastic three, he has been stuffing everything into his plastic bags for days. A psychosis triggered by drugs or a sympathetic attention to detail? I don’t know.
Both write their own songs. Songs that are about life. Lyrics about speechlessness, which they bridge with guitar playing. Is there something in them for which they have no words? The Moroccan started to read Charles Bukowski with enthusiasm. Whenever I meet him, he quotes a new paragraph from “Portions From a Wine-stained Notebook”.
Don’t we all collect some stuff every day and put it in invisible plastic bags? Aren’t they all begging for attention and sitting on the floor with a guitar? Don’t they all play their songs every day in the hope that someone will know them? What will the two think about this life “On the road” twenty years later?
The Moroccan has pawned his laptop for 300 Ringits (50 EUR). He was given the money by a Muslim who was a beach boy in his youth, who gradually lost everything and lived on the streets for years. “Be careful brother, it’s not much money.”
On the way beyond all conventions, outside society, renouncing all prosperity, can that work? Refusal of any subordination, hierarchy, without greed! Where will it lead the two? I will not experience it. In two days I will leave the island. It is very unlikely that I will ever see them again. But what they do to me has the function of a bright spotlight that illuminates the society I come from.
I thank you both for that. “Always travel safely and in good ways!
