Remembering my youth makes me aware that I never really had enough of it, it was over before I was done with it.

Marylinne Robinson, “Gilead”

In part 2, I…

• Ruminate over social constructs of maturity
• Condemn the capitalist reality I inhabit
• Lament my friendship breakups, inability to fit in, and mortality
• Decide I prefer to be weak and happy than strong and miserable

20 March 2023

Today was the most physically challenging day of my existence. I finished walking Kumano Kodo.

These past few days of pilgrimage, and all the experiences they brought, have been tumultuous to say the least. I’ve been so busy with the present – hopping from one destination to another, rushing to attractions, hiking to grand shrines – that re-visiting my past in yesterday’s post, on top of everything, might have been rash. But maybe it wasn’t a coincidence, for it to happen now.

Living out the best days of your life can shed light on the less-than-favourable ones. Beholding natural wonders and feats of humanity reveals the terrors of the universe and humankind.

My fourteenth birthday marked the first mention of sexuality in my diaries. Before that, I had not referred to it once. It wasn’t in my thoughts, nor had I deplored it, until kids in middle school had begun calling me gay.

There are many more entries from the next years that chronicle my sexual ups and downs. Maybe in the future I’ll share some. Still, I posted the first for a different reason altogether. I fear I may have acted like an adult when I should’ve acted like a teenager – and now act like a teenager when I should be acting like an adult.

People expect me to go back to having a “real” job, one you don’t enjoy but dedicate most of your waking time to. They expect me to enter a relationship, get married, and start a family. They want me to live the way everyone else does.

If they read my diaries, they’d see I’ve already decided to defy that as a child. All my life, everyone insisted I’d outgrow this mentality. It only strengthens with time.

Besides, what does it mean to be an adult? Am I acting like a five-year-old by trying to change my path? I could die tomorrow. No, scratch that. I might return to Israel after this trip, find a job I’d despise, and perish the following month. What would I say on my deathbed then, “At least I earned money”?

Many people are appreciative of their employment, as crappy and low-paying as it might be. Do they suffer from internalised capitalism, or are they simply acting like adults?

I know I sound juvenile. Maybe I deserve pain, trauma, a wake-up call. But the thing is, I feel wide awake. Despite my prescription glasses, I believe the image I have of the world is sharp. The image I have of myself is sharper. The only problem is the eyesore these two produce when superimposed.

Money is the darkest thread on the human tapestry. It will destroy this planet. Millions will continue to die simply because they can’t afford food, heating, and medication.

People actually break ties with their loved ones over it. As if they yearn to die on a taller hill. Why does the size of one’s tomb matter? Why can’t dragons share their gold? If you are one of the lucky few who don’t have to work, why cash your paycheck – isn’t it job satisfaction that counts?

It would be enlightening to explore how, when, where, and why humans began to trade. Who was it that said, “I’ll give you what you need to survive if you give me something in return”? I’d like to have a word with them. Did this concept originate in one specific place, or simultaneously in multiple locations on Earth?

I know we are born with certain prejudices. Not in the negative sense, but in the original “before + judgment” sense. Babies know how to latch on a nipple. But do they know how to give and take?  

I can’t wait for capitalism to collapse and for humanity to live for each other, rather than against. If you opened Pandora’s box, inside you would find a coin.

“To be alive” means to be on the verge of death. Which we are. But it’s easy to forget. To take life for granted. And, as a result, to let others dictate it.

It kills me, kills me that we must pay to exist. It kills me that most of the problems humanity is facing are solvable. It’s not just money that causes every single global crisis – it’s apathy. Why would someone go to war over a plot of land? How can people pop champagne while dehydration remains a cause of death?

The pandemic could’ve ended in a month if we’d all followed protocol. Life can be a joy ride or a sinking ship, but the partygoers are too drunk to notice the staff. I don’t know how they can sleep at night.

It kills me that friendships come and go. There are people I want back in my life who don’t want me in return. People I would apologise to and prove I’ve changed, if they gave me the chance. I’ve never been in a relationship, yet suffered too many friendship breakups to count, and friendship has always mattered to me more than romance.

It kills me that people don’t think about me as much as I think about them. I used to worry I was anti-social, because I’ve never actively missed someone; even six months in the pandemic alone in my apartment without company and touch didn’t bother me much. I assumed I didn’t need anyone, but they were just not right. I meet people on this trip I am devastated to part ways with, and wish to travel to their country so we could reunite. I go over my diaries and wonder what happened to former friends, why we grew apart. I tried to stay in touch but they got tired of me, they all do in the end. Every year I stop myself from texting them happy birthday, I remember the dates of the people I love, I’ll never forget it the way all my friends did when I had no one to celebrate my nineteenth birthday with.

It kills me that there is a norm and that I deviate from it. I hate being different, it makes everything in life so much harder. I can’t just go with the flow, because the flow never lets me go with it.

It kills me that I’m writing all this because I don’t want to badger anyone. No one likes a cry-baby, and I hate how this blog is turning me into one. For years I’ve let my characters do the crying for me, the screaming, the complaining, while in real life I’ve become the receiving end of this nuisance. “I hate it,” I wrote for a character when I was 22, “I hate everything, I hate the reality that causes it and causes my hatred. I hate my hatred.”

It kills me that some people have it easier than others, that I am surrounded by peers living out their dreams or making progress with their goals, while I am still where I was years ago. That this trip will end prematurely due to budget, and never recur. That the flow of my life will soon ebb, and I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I’ve always known what to do next, always had a plan.

It kills me that I have to be so strong. I’ve been stoic since I was 13. I want to live, not spend every moment of every day worrying about this and that. I don’t mind being weak, if it makes me jubilant.

It kills me that some people hoard money instead of sharing the world’s splendour and making the most out of our once-in-a-lifetime chance to breathe and love. At some point you’re no longer improving your quality of life, you’re just gatekeeping joy. I don’t how why we haven’t outlawed billionaires, why it’s legal for one person to own multiple properties while others sleep on a streetcorner. Celebrities and their dogs are worth more than entire populations born in dark huts, it makes me sick, I want to become filthy rich just to end poverty and climate change. I’d protest every week if it helped, but the last hurdle I need on top of everything is a criminal record. I hate that daring to defy the system makes the system bite you in the ass.

It kills me that we repeat the same old cycles, generation after generation, without breaking free of our self-made shackles. That people can be so unique and diverse, yet still act the same. I see history repeating itself, it boggles my mind to read ancient texts that resemble today, to deal with toxic behaviour from those who are supposed to be my clan. I hate how judgmental people can be, close-minded, and selfish, sometimes I truly hate everything there is, and it’s all the more upsetting because I also love everything – I adore the world, it is mesmerising, it never ceases to amaze me, I never stop learning – but no, I can’t do that, because it is what it is, because that’s the way things are, because that’s life.

It kills me that I am alive, that I can feel this way, that life can be so grand. It kills me that someday, I will be dead.

*

There is still more to this post, but I’m tired, and my head is swimming with thoughts. For now, I will let this song do tonight’s talking. Tomorrow, I’ll finish the final part.