Rochdale Canal

Overlooking the old industrial waterways of Manchester from the thirteenth floor of the Hilton Deansgate, I switched off the lights to align my thoughts after the first day of intense academic activity.

As I down a glass of chlorinated water, I realize how difficult it can be sometimes: that whatever dreams I once had are now being tested by time and by my own inadequacies. It is not that I no longer believe, or that I have ceased to be idealistic. Rather, it is the repeated recognition of how difficult communication really is, how easily we give in to ontological insecurity, and how uncertain all our futures are.

“simply being was easy, just having you there”

There is a certain defeatism in claiming that all relationships that are truly worthwhile must end. That “being” in itself will ultimately not suffice. That human beings are, after all, consumables. That with sufficient intellectual and emotional integrity comes the inability to love over time.

I do not say that it is like this, nor that we should not try our best to extend these aesthetic moments of “simply being”. Only that I fear what we might perhaps call the Anna Ternheimification of my soul.

Something in me vehemently objects to this. Instead of reducing human existence to aesthetics, we should think of it as pointing towards the eternal; that it is only a lack of sensitivity that prevents us from experiencing the transcendental in the eyes of those we love. Yet, true as this may be sub specie aeternitatis, we still have our everyday lives. We still go to IKEA, collect air miles, walk dogs, or laugh at that somewhat inappropriate joke. We are human. We are not only spirit but also flesh, and we cannot demand that others acknowledge our own concepts of transcendental purity.

But if that is so, then we also have to accept the flip side of the coin: that at the end of the day we might ourselves be considered expendable – and, what would be even worse, simply “boring”.