It was a nice North Eurpean fall Saturday night. That day wasn’t particularly a remarkable. I woke up, drank coffee, ate breakfast, and spent the next few hours playing video games with mates from India. After the video game session was over, I ended up finishing all the items that was on my todo list by late afternoon; And then it struck me. “What now?”, I almost thought out loud. The very short lived euphoria of finishing all chores and domestic upkeep turned into a bitter taste of void.
I sat down to meditate and inadvertently ended up thinking about the restlessness of it all and found myself at edge of a vast chasm of purposelessness. I didn’t like the look of it, niether did I want to dwell on something that existential. So I took my jacket, and went for a walk. I walked until the edge of the lake. It was lit dull with a city scape. The man made hustle bustle of the city was a bit faded, like a white noise machine, a mere reminder of it’s existence, but nothing more. I sat on a dark bench and lit a cigarette. L said I shouldn’t smoke, but a few on this evening of void won’t hurt. I noticed the crackling noise as tobacco burned. I remember that sound; it was a sound of comfort.
I used to go camping when I was a kid. One night, during a camp out, concocting all sorts of imaginary creatures in the dark, I couldn’t make my mind shut down and fall asleep. While trying to think of an escape stragety, in case a wild fox would charge through my rickety shelter, I heard the crackling noise of a cigarette just ligthing up. A camping instructor was nearby. Since he didn’t want to set bad example, he would only smoke after lights out. He was nearby, probably taking a stroll around all the makeshift little tents that we made for ourselves. I felt safe. My tired mind didn’t remember anything more from that night.
My cigarette was all burnt up, I was still sitting on the bench, trying to make sense of the blight that had infected my mind. I tried meditating on it. But like any other grossly inexperienced meditation enthusiast would shamefully agree, it didn’t help sediment the situation at all. I heard the wind carrying bad jokes and whispers from couples. I saw little ducks walking to the water and back; I never got why they do that. I saw the homeless guy living under a bridge; The shambles of his belongings were surprisingly neat.
It was at that moment, I sensed this incredible craving for human connection. The idea, seemed very cliched, however at that very moment in time, very inaaccessible and real, painful and without solace in the horizon; It cut deep. It was getting cold, and my jacket wasn’t proving to be adequate. For a moment I wasn’t sure if I was shivering from the cold or just the scary possibility of becoming a bitter old man, living the unimaginable other half of life spent grinding jobs, being part of the “economy”, and witnessing the slow erosion of the familiar. It was, all of a sudden a very real possibility that I might not end up in a warm fuzzy home, lit in warm candlelight and full of soft slip on sandals. Just before standing up to walk back home, I thought I better get ready to camp out a lifetime, without an instructor.