Considerations on Lifestyle and Failure Part 1

By D. Salazar

Imagine you are approaching thirty.

It feels like a thin line between two territories. Whether one is good and the other is bad, or one interesting and the other one boring, is only a wild guess. You haven’t really crossed the line before, although you have met some who’ve crossed it.

What do you think of these people? Are they your parents? Teachers? Bosses? Are they boring? Are they severe? Are they lonely? Are they anything you’d like to be?
That’s just too many questions at the time.

Consider the line. It’s thin, you will cross it barely noticing its existence. The first question that arises may be “wtf man, why can’t I stay on this side?”
And then someone on the other side, right on top of the line, who is wearing a cowboy hat against the sunset, throws a rock at your head and yells at you “Get over it punk! If you stop walking the game’s over”.

And you’re like “shit, he’s right…” You realize that if you don’t cross the line you’ll have to turn the power off, because you can’t really stop walking.
The second question that arises is “what will happen to me when I cross?” Panic sweat starts dropping from your temples.

The man in the hat notices it, takes a puff of his Cuban and says “You’ll continue walking” Smoke rises dramatically against the reddening sky.

There’s still some distance between you and the line. You may feel a mixture of impatience with regret, and a big amount of anxiety. Questions start to knot again inside your head.

So you sit down and have a nice nap. Questions can go to hell for now.

When you wake up the questions are still there and you have a headache, at least there’s two of them you’ve already answered. You check and find the weird man with the hat is still standing against the sinking sun.

So you put your mind in order and choose one out of the scrambled bunch. “What if I can’t make it there?”

“You made it this far” says the man, now sitting on a rock right next to you. You startle.

“I thought once you’ve crossed you couldn’t come back?” you ask, carefully sliding away from him, just in case.

“’Course you can” he replies, smiling slyly at your ignorance. “You can always come back, you know the road. Problem is, you don’t really fit in anymore. You grew out of that pair of pants”.

And that makes so much sense you have to remain quiet for a while to hide your shame.
“Let’s keep walking, shall we?” says he, and you both rise and continue towards the line.

“What’re you so afraid of?” he asks, in a casual sort of way, as he lights another Cuban.

You don’t really know where to start. Is it fear? Probably is, otherwise you wouldn’t be writing this article in the first place. “I guess… I don’t know what I’ll become, you know?” The man seems to consider your question and remains silent, so you go on. “What if I’m a failure?”.

The man’s silence punctuates how stupid you feel at the doubt you were mongering about. That doesn’t mean, however, that the doubt is less real. And while you spend a lot of precious concentration on keeping yourself from blushing like a bride, the man stops walking. You turn around and face him, now standing against the rising sun.

“You’re gonna die” he says. “At some point between the place where you started and the place you are going to, you’re gonna die”. He seems to consider something for a moment, spits hard on the ground and approaches you. “That’s the trick, you see?” he strongly grabs you by the arm and steers you forward towards the line. “If you’re a failure, it means you’re losing. But all you gotta do is walk from point A to point B. Point A is where you start, point B is where you stop. How can you lose?”

He keeps walking, but you, in shock at the simplicity of it all, cannot move.
It makes sense, right? It seems strangely correct.

Another gush of questions arises, what about dreams and hopes and goals and plans and all that stuff? What about wealth and success and first class air trips and cruises? What about your life partner and kids and grandkids and glory?

But as you stare blankly into the air, the man was steadily approaching you. He’s now standing by your side, offering you a Cuban the size of your forearm.

“You like traveling?” he asks, depositing the Cuban on your outstretched hand. Since you keep staring at him numbly without answering, he goes on. “Have you travelled?”

“A little” you say in a hoarse voice.

“What do you do when you travel?”

“You mean on the trip or while you’re already in the place?”

“You worry too much… It’s all part of the same” he takes a quick puff. You look at the shadow his body casts on the ground.

“Well… many things. I can’t think of anything in particular”

“Yes, whatever. But do you have a clear picture of it on your mind? Things you do when you travel?”

“Yes”

“It’s the same thing” he says as he casts a sly smile on your direction. “Going from point A to point B… There’s no difference”.

For a while, you simply can’t speak. The both of you walk side by side towards the sunset. You have lit your cigar and you ponder. The line was still some distance away.
“So, you can’t lose?” you ask.

“Not from where I’m seeing it” he replies.

“But, what if…” you start. But you must cut the phrase when you realize the ‘what if’s’ are not occurring to you immediately. “What if I become a beggar? Or a homeless person? Or a drug dependant? Or…”

“Do you really believe that is possible?” he says, cutting you in middle sentence. “You think that as a possibility in your future? Becoming a beggar?”

“Everything is possible, I guess…”

The man seems to reflect for a moment, biting the tip of his cigar as you both kept walking towards the sunset. “Yes and no…” he says. “What do you see around you?”.
You briefly describe what surrounds you. He continues, “do you think this is likely to change abruptly?”

“Not likely. But it does look a little boring.”

The man laughs at this and says “Could you perhaps be looking only at the big picture? You keep staring at the sun in the horizon? Of course you’ll get bored if you only look at that.”

At this point you don’t really feel like talking anymore. You just want a little silence and a good night sleep to clear your head. Life feels a little more depressing now. You wished you hadn’t asked so many questions. You try to cheer yourself up by thinking of those people you love, those who you admire, everyone you feel connected to. And then you get a terrible headache, and think “fuck it, I’m going to sleep”.
You wake up a little sore. The man hands you a glass of orange juice. You continue walking. The line is drawing closer.

“Listen” he says after a while, “I’m gonna go back to where I was. I have some stuff to do. I’ll leave you with this: You are travelling from point A to point B. Enjoy it”.

This is enough for a first consideration on lifestyle and failure for one day. As you forget about the line and continue walking, you realize thirty is still a little far. You’ll know when you get there.