Vagrant Bard

An old man, resembling your great grandfather, approaches you with a small black notebook in hand. He breathes deeply and blinks his eyes, like your grandfather would. Then, he opens his mouth, as your father did, and begins to speak:

And so, here we are. How many years has it been? Quite a few right?

You can’t hear as well as you used to. You can’t run as fast. Jump as high. Talk as eloquently.

But you sure can write.

Worry not, society has that habit of always confusing you, pushing you one way, then the other. You’re not really sure in what to believe. What to follow. Who to trust. What to long for.

It just feels…empty. A void that evidently lacks that special element. One that will never be found, not unless you truly understand what you are searching for.

Life is split into three moments. During the first one, you’re actually looking for a goal. Something to pursue. That special something that’ll show you life actually has a purpose and through it everything will fit into place.

That is, until you actually find what you’re looking for. Then comes into place the second moment. A time of sweat and despair in which you’re just doing your best to achieve that special objective you’ve already determined for yourself. The smile you attained by laying eyes of your life’s passion is only hampered by the thought of not achieving it, for whatever reason.

After many years, you finally reach the pinnacle of happiness. That sweet sublime stage in which all obstacles have been conquered and your career has surrendered to your skilful attributes and abilities. Or so you thought.

It was all a hoax and you weren’t ready for the shock. It was all and scam and you fell for it. Get real. What were you thinking? Life was your own personal hammock?

And so you realize that even after attaining whatever it is you thought would make you whole, you’re not complete. You’re missing something. You lack purpose. You lack essence. Thus, after wiping the sweat from your weary heart, you come to the conclusion that you’ve been searching for the wrong thing. The third moment, which could actually be identified as a repetition of the first one, then begins.

A totally newly repetitive phase you’ve seen before. Only this time you don’t have the same motivation and naivety as before. A shorter quest that holds even more responsibility that the first one.

Years pass. Decades go by. Before you know it, you don’t even know what were your initial motives and your final conclusions. In a blink of an eye you decide stop, either because you’ve given up or because you’re dead.

If there’s one thing certain about life, it’s that you won’t make it out alive. Because we yearn for more time to sort out our baggage, we crave immortality.

This is my way of achieving eternal life. Hold my journal in your hands. Read it, study it, and learn from it. Perhaps someday my legacy will unveil greater mysteries. Perhaps someday we will be satisfied with ourselves.