Out of the term adolescence

When you realize that you are out of the term of youth you are starting to ask yourself if you ever were like the general youth was to your time.

The first time I really noticed and consciously understood, meaning yesterday, that I’m out of this time forever let me feel that I was never a part of it. When I was between 21 and 26 I never wanted to be a part of it. I always felt incompatible. I had made experiences that not so many could share with me and honestly I didn’t want to share. It never occurred to me to go out to dance or whatever. I never felt like to be  gregarious. But now I start to be more social. I mean I think I was social all the time otherwise I wouldn’t have meet new people but now it is different. I really feel the urge to meet people who are between 27 and 35. It is for the reason to find maybe the meaning of life. NO, definitely not. I found my life and now the question, which has to be solved, is how to proceed to get the things I would like to have in my future.

Reading the newspaper article about the youth who doesn’t know anymore how to analyze the economics makes me feel old. The article said young persons up to the age of 23 don’t know the meaning of terms like law of supply and demand or inflation. And I thought: “Hey I know it!” But then I realized I’m not 23, 24, 25 or 26 anymore and I don’t have to feel spoken to. And in the same way  I noticed I’m beyond this age. I’m ranked among the adults. But do I feel like it? Sometimes, especially when I have to sit between these youngsters. But if I’m among the adults I still don’t feel like on of them either because I have no constant work, dress still like I dressed some years ago and definitely don’t share the interest of adults. Or do I? What is the difference? Is there one?

I always knew there are stages in life but now I feel the changing from one stage to another on my own body and I never admitted to myself that even I have to go through the stages of age. I always thought about myself I would be forever young. I mean as long as I feel young I would be young, wouldn’t I? But now I have to accept that I will be aging like every other person. As a child I couldn’t think beyond the year 2000 but now it is 2007 and I have to accept that I will live on longer then my childish brain could bring me. This feeling will always stay in my mind but I can see, feel and detect the senescent time.

THE JOURNEY TO NOWHERE

Nothing is there to be told. Nobody is there to talk to. “The Road” written by Cormac McCharthy is a book about nothing.  Somewhere in the world – it does not have to be the States – there are two persons walking along a road. Their destination is the Sea but they do not know what to expect from this goal.

The world broke down. Nothing is left. The only things that mark the road are burned houses, barns and schools. They travel for a while. In the beginning we do not know either the reasons for the journey, nor from where this disturbed world is coming from that is presented. Unfortunately the author is giving no reason at all throughout the 287 pages. He also is not giving any hint since the man and the boy have been traveling or what kind of destiny they will have to focus. So we, as readers, do not know anything except for the thing that the man and the boy are marching since a long time and will go one. We get to know that they already had suffered from hunger and cold and that these parts will be their ongoing companion. It seems like that in this world is no sun at all. There is no heat source and if they are able to create one they have always to be afraid to get detected by other travelers. I have the notion, that there must be a kind of light because the man tries to divide the days in mornings and evenings. Apparently there is no sunlight. Every-time and everywhere they go to they meet snow, rain or a very strong wind. Nothing seems to be nice there. McCharthy creates death in the fictional world

While reading you ask yourself if there will be a happy end. Instinctively you want to have a good end but in the same way you can feel that there cannot be a lucky ending. However, mostly you ask yourself what would we do if we would be in such a situation.

Going farther in the reading you will find out that the mother of the boy as well as the wife of the man went away into darkness, I assumed to die. She could not stand it anymore and disappeared one night.

McCharty tells his story with small descriptions. He uses mostly main sentences with no exaggerations, neither in words nor in sentence structure. But there is one word that occurs repetitively. It is the word “concrete”. This word appears almost on every page. I asked myself why this word comes back all the time? The only answer I could find is that the author wants to let us know that this fictional dead world could exists out of the real world in which we are living right now and that the latter could be some day a part of human life if we are not paying attention to the immaterial things. In other words, we have to focus on our inner life as human beings if we want to succeed in this world. If we do not try to listen to our inner voice we will march around and around with an unknown destination. McCharty is implying with the concrete things, which are left in the plot of the novel, that these things will be always there but the human being who usually used these things will not be able to work with them anymore. Nothing real will be left except for some survivors. Only the concrete things will be still there and will remind use of a world that we know now. Already in this fictional text not everybody is able to remember it. The boy for example doesn’t know how the world was before he has started to travel with the man. McCharty creates broad pictures of how this world looks like and in general there is nothing left that has to be mentioned. The author has to tell us that in his created world are still these concrete things but there are not useful anymore that we can feel with the man and the boy. In other words he wants that we believe his story. Nobody need or could even use a car or a train in this created world but we have to know that these things existed before. With these small references he remains us of a former world that we know and knew.

The man and the boy are in their final throes when they discover an old bunker which is fortunately filled with food. They always have this luck. They will stay there for some days and will eat and sleep without fear. After five days they pack as much as they could carry and go one with their walk.

Time is another value that loses his characteristics. We are and the man is lost in space without any sense of time. We know that the book is done after this special amount of pages but our reference the man is loosing his time until he accepts that he doesn’t need it anymore. But still he is asking himself from time to time what day, month or season they are in. He cannot figure it out and after a while he let it drop to think about it. He tries to read the time by the things surrounded. Even the map he is carrying is going to be useless because there is no time to measure the distance or the pace in which they have traveled. He even cannot remember or find out how old his son is.

They survive diseases and the cold but finally the man is only spitting blood and you know that he is going to die. From this moment on you ask yourself what is going to be with the boy. How will he survive by himself? The man conceals his death as good as possible but in the end he is like a dying animal which is looking for his place to die. He lies down in the thicket close to the road and reveals his death to the boy. From now one he has to go one by himself.

Three days later the boy has to move one and in the distance he can see a man. The boy is going to him and asking him two questions if he is carrying the fire as he and his father did and if he does not eat people. After the man had asked him where the other man was and the boy repeated that he is dead, he invites him to stay with his family. The boy accepted his offer and the journey to nowhere is going to be continued.

The desperation you feel after reading this book reflects the solitude inside of everyone. Everybody is finally traveling alone through the years of life. You stay with your family or with other persons but in the end you die by yourself. McCharty created a book of starting, ongoing and ending with the result of permanent proceeding in these different stages of life. The dark and cold in his novel mantle the fear of everybody’s life. It doesn’t matter how much agony you had to suffer you will always go one in the hope of something good. The good can be inside of you, it can surround you and it can lie in the future that you don’t know yet.

In this book you can find the music of solitude?

“Mysterious skin”

A movie from 2004 by Gregg Araki (screenplay) and Scott Heim (novel) that tells us the story of life after abuse. There are two boys, the protagonists,  who were abused by their coach at the age of 8. At this time, one boy, Brian, felt into a shock and never remembers this night. Instead he thinks he was abducted by aliens. The other kid, Neil, remembers “much better” and during his whole teenager life he is used by pedophiles.

The analogy with the abduction is a clever move. I like how the director puts two exeptional topics into one. It is clear that nobody is allowed to talk about an abduction because it is not real and everybody thinks that this person, who is talking about an alien abduction, must be insane. For me this point works exactly in the same way with an abuse. Nobody wants to talk about it because nobody wants this possiblity present at all. We all know that abductions by aliens don’t really exist but Gregg Araki tries to explain one reason for a believe in strange things. These things don’t have to be automaticly really strange like a believe in Aliens but it also shows how implausible it is for so many people that abuse is existing and moreover unexpressed. Furthermore, the comparision of Aliens and abusers in the movie is a very good idea because the director used similary pictures or settings to express the squalidness and scabbiness of rapists.

As the explained topic implies it is hard to watch this movie but simultaneously it flows by like the wind through the leaves of a tree in a hot summer night. In Germany, nobody would be able to produce such a movie. Everybody would take it too seriously so that the whole story would come out like a cord around your neck. It is still this cord but without this pressure that won’t let you sleep afterwards. The movie shows it in this easiness like it is treated in reality. Nobody really can handle it right. And thats why is is such a good movie. With this movie you have to go one even if it is hard. You have to stand it. You simply have to. And you will because the two boys in the story have to too.

In sum this movie stands out but can also be seen as the antipode of “The Woodsman” with Kevin Bacon. Both movies deal with the difficult matter of pedophiles. In the “Woodsman” Walter (K.Bacon) will be released from prison and has to face the world. He is still accused by his environment but tries to be better. The latter movie shows us the side of the abuser and in “Mysterious skin” we see the side of the kids and their suffering through their furture life. Both movies are as much as important as controversial but one thing has to be said: These movies have to be produced due to their secrecy and significance.

The beginning of the challenge

What is the life about? What does a person expect from its life? Usually too much. Everybody wants the exciting, hopefully never ending life. Everybody is searching for happiness and peace. But what most of us get is the opposite.  The strange thing about it is that as much as we want it the more we will lose it.

I’m back in Germany, Berlin, since five days and I’ve never felt so calm and strong since the last couple of years and after a big storm. What the storm was about will be another story. Finally, I landed on my feet facing the reality. I newly know what I want and for what I was inwardly looking for. The sun is shining and I dream about the life that I wish for myself. I know that everything could be possible if I believe in me. And in any case I shouldn’t be successful I won’t have a doubt that I tried it at least.

Now, I’m in front of three years that will bring me to the half of a life time and I’m as much as excited as nervous. I never thought that I could be so nervous about my life ever. I always knew what will come or what I wished for. And until now I got the things I wanted in my life and maybe it is possible that I will achieve this last intent too.

I wish you stinky a good and happy life and I hope that everything will work out for you. I was with you and I will always be with you. Whenever you need me I will have a ear for you and I will be always patient with you because you deserve it. You can always ask me, tell me and criticize me. I will be more open. I rebuild the pictures and finally lost them. You have the chance now to be the person you wanted to be and you will be a newborn person for me. I know you will change as much as I will. In this way we will be able to be friends. And thats the hope I have for us. ILedY and I will be always there for you.

I’m the snake changing her skin to be able to move on. I started my challenge …