We have always heard tales about happy places and we have
heard of the places where it does indeed cost something to be happy. I think it
was on Facebook that I came across an interesting argument about why money buys
happiness and if I recall correctly, it had something to do with the security
of knowing that you had something to fall back on at the far end of a lousy
day, instead of the usual coming home to a bottle of spirits to deal with the
spirits dwelling in the corners of a tired mind.
Do not miss the loneliness in these lines. Wasn’t it in the
70’s when a band sang out that people spend time making money- and money making
time?
This makes me remember the quote about how we must do what we can
in the time given to us and that other quote about how we all just get one
lifetime.
This long-winded start brings me to a song by Deep Purple
called Soldier of Fortune. I first heard it as a teen and didn’t
understand how deep the cuts it made ran. I was too hung up on Highway Star.
But things change when you approach thirty and you see certain lines in books
differently and certain song lyrics seem to be talking about your journey or
the journey of someone similar to you. While Soldier of Fortune is an
excellent love song which tries a little bit to romanticize loneliness it also
speaks of the importance of finding a happy place, a place where you are at
ease and the best friend you need to be for yourself. Sometimes nobody comes to
save us.
As I have grown older and if I were to use a mathematical
concept here, since a limit can be put on my age and it can be made to
tend to thirty (lt Aà30
being the mathematical representation of this sentence), I have found that I
have changed in a lot of ways.
I am no longer invested in violent video games. I no longer
have a dog or a mother. I have locked horns with demons which I now consider
middle-class and lame but while they were a significant factor in my life, they
had me running for my life. When you reach the point where you can plod down an
equation that states that lt Aà30,
you have to embrace these changes.
Another important change that has happened is that I have
changed my friend circles to a large extent and met a ton of people over the
course of this pandemic and renewed and rejuvenated old friendships.
Therefore, while the equation lt Aà30 is now
increasingly there in my life, I think I have lost my fear of it. Let lt Aà30, this misfit
wants to live to see it.
I am still (as Soldier of Fortune is quick to remind
me), living the life of a drifter, but an intelligent drifter, whose happy
place for the moment resides in the company of individuals spanning the globe
and certain fictional ones in varied media.
However, this happy place came at a cost. It was a price I
paid and now destiny is calling me.
So, I’ve no choice. I am opening up eager eyes, pursuing a
road that leads into unknown mores with eager feet and believing strongly that
under the rising sun a new day will dawn and under orange street lights, the
night will change and there isn’t anything to be afraid of.
And is there a Juliet? I thought you’d one day ask me this.
My answer is, what if it is a Romeo eh?
