Category: Rant

We were three women in a similar situation. We did not need to bring up the subject, as we were strangers or mere coworkers, but eventually it just surfaced like a stray leaf on the water. They knew what was burdening my heart long before I dared to mention it. We talked about travelling as a therapy and drawing the pain away. I could see how the desert and the sea had done for them the same thing they had done for me. We were close together then, and we knew we would survive.

“Don’t ever think that you are not beautiful,” they told me.

Dear Olavia of the past:

Allow me to tell you that your heart isn’t cloudy anymore. You’ve done a good job of course-correcting your life. Thank you for noticing the need for change.

***

I don’t ever want to reach a point in my life where I look back and see nothing but wasted time. I mean, how do you even get there? What is it that you have to prove the world that you let go of the things you really want in the name of… what? A challenge to fulfill? A sense of duty to everyone except yourself? Can’t you just listen to your heart and go for the one thing that makes you happy?

The cow on the milk bag is smiling. Its presence on the label reassures us consumers that cows are happy to give us their milk because the whole Creation is at our service. In a way, we are all Cinderellas and Snow Whites: our fellow humans may make us suffer, but hens still lay eggs for us, cows produce milk for us, and all sorts of animals gladly sacrifice their thoughtless lives for us to have a nice barbecue.

However, deep down we know that there are few things as sad as the life of a cow, and few things are as disturbing as looking at the thousands of milk bags sitting on a supermarket shelf and wondering how many cows are helplessly attached to a milking machine right now. And then, how many cows are being slaughtered for us to relish the weekend, how many pigs, how many chickens. How many hens are trapped in a cage laying eggs for us to have a “wholesome breakfast.” The panorama is pretty bleak when you think about it and you realize you’re a city animal with no survival skills who has to rely on the mass production chain and its torture methods.

I know it’s not as bad in some parts of the third world, though: people own cows, cows are free to graze day in and day out, and their product is taken manually and sold to the big companies through a truck that stops farm by farm stacking milk churns. Maybe this is becoming less common now, but it’s the way I came to know it at my grandfather’s farm. Still, it’s a small comfort compared to the amount of lives we destroy for something far less important than nutrition: the joy of eating.

And then we take a look at ourselves and it so happens that we are rational beings that are willing to eat plastic and who knows what other strange and harmful chemical components for the sole reason that they taste good. Pleasure is our downfall, and we’re taking the whole planet with us as we go down.

Sometimes I feel like I’m a big disappointment. To whom? Not to people who have never believed in me, I guess, because my failure would simply be a product of some wrong path taken according to their expectations.

I certainly haven’t failed as a human being—I have a job I don’t hate (although it is somewhat excruciating), friends I meet often, there’s even someone who thinks about me on a regular basis and with whom physical proximity is more than desirable. So I’m doing ok. The problem is… exactly that: I’m just doing ok. Days go by and I can account for nothing but the work I’ve completed. I guess I should do more than that but I don’t know what more stands for.

Life was much more interesting before. Simpler. More passion-driven. Maybe I’m just mourning my lack of attention, nothing that a simple change of habits won’t fix, but there certainly was something in my 14-year old heart that is no longer there. I feel like it’s cloudy inside here. I need some clarity. I need the ability to focus on the things I really like. I need to feel less morose and remember what pulls me close to my sketchbook. Oh, excuses, excuses, I do remember what drives me toward my ink and paper—not overthinking.

At least I’m reading a book and I’m hating it, but that’s ok. Diving into another world for a while (even if it’s boring) feels like something’s getting done. Now it’s just a matter of not second-guessing myself anymore. But haven’t I been saying this forever?

Who cares, as long as I keep trying.