Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen

Beyond the palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard
The girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors
And the boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I wanna die with you Wendy on the streets tonight
In an everlasting kiss

The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybody's out on the run tonight but there's no place left to hide
Together Wendy we'll live with the sadness
I'll love you with all the madness in my soul
Someday girl I don't know when
we're gonna get to that place

Where we really want to go
and we'll walk in the sun

But till then tramps like us
baby we were born to run


The following post will not follow one coherent line of thought -- I'm rather emptying another bucket of thoughts and worries and reflections before it bursts.

It's intense days, these days. My tiny part of the blogosphere has gone eerily quiet for long periods of time as people, one by one, have left the sinking ship of reality and what we thought were our casual days for the gladiatorial battle that is the preparation for our exams. One of the reasons I'm writing here, now, is that I have no idea why I haven't yet. Another is that I was reading a post in Alex' blog about the exams and all things related to it, which inavoidably had my own mind snowball on me -- finally.

It's two weeks today. Two weeks isn't really anything. And a few of my more belligerent brain cells are screaming in uncontrolled panic at the prospect of exactly how much I need to have done before these two weeks are over, because this far I've done nigh on nothing. Some of the more quasi-bohemian brain cells are still longing for her, and have started drowning their sorrows by now. A few others want to play, or at least pluck, on the guitar. Most of them are in their normal want-mode: want to get out, want to drink beer, want to go to concert, want to meet friends, want life to be just a little more like it is on TV. The screaming ones are in a crushing minority.

I can't help but wondered what the hell happened to me. A few years ago I was an ambitious kid that was anxious -- no, scratch that, that wanted good grades. I was never anxious to get them, as they tended to show up anyway. By now I have my high school-grades looming at a burning horizon and I've got a hard time to raise any engagement. The good part is that my mind has not engaged in any heavier mindhumping yet; the bad is, of course, that I'm not really studying either. There always appears to be something else going on: window-washing, forcing sounds out of the guitar, writing, watching a movie, anything. Admittedly I'm not very encumbered by social activities though. The fact that almost all of my friends are facing the same vaguely defined Judgement Day as I am has lead to the social field resembling a scorched-earth Russia. Some activity is still popping up now and then though, and I'm cherishing every last bit of it. Admittedly, I chose a rather miserable time to start pursuing my social... pursuits, damned be my vocabulary. But such is life.

I can't help but think some about the future too. I bought myself some time with the decision to take a year of booze and brawling in Lund, but by the fall I will have to start making up my mind. Essentially there are two routes to go, namely Law or Politics. Salary or variable. Assured work or variable. Societal importance or variable.

Politics holds a little too many variables for me to feel entirely comfortable. In this very moment I'm leaning towards Law, courtesy of an hour-long rant I held at the dinner table yesterday evening regarding IPRED, the internet and file-sharing. It comes after a month-long lean towards Politics though, so I'm not holding my breath. Trying to choose between these two alternatives is like playing some perverted kind of ping pong, where the ball invariably goes back and forth beyond your control.

Indirectly, this brings me back to the issue of my ambitions. I wanted to change the world once but hey, who hasn't at some point. I'm immensely looking forward to university but I don't look forward to what's to come afterwards, as I just don't know what to do with myself. I don't care as much as before how the world remembers me -- if the world remembers me. I won't have had contact with a large part of it anyway. What matters in my legacy is how my friends remember me, and that I have a family that can remember me. A well-paid occupation comes with a lot of working hours, and that might be difficult to combine with giving your family the time it deserves.

Come to think of it, and I do now and then, that is all that I actually wish for myself: a family. A girl that I love who loves me in return with whom I live 'til the end of my days, a few children, a peaceful, although not necessary uneventful life. I could say "But I want to go travelling to!" but in reality, that will cost money I might not have. But if I've built a heaven for myself at home, it might not matter that I don't get to see the surrounding world.

So many decisions. So many stressful factors. So many dreams that want to be fulfilled, so many things to be done. I better be an endurable bastard, or I'll sink down gasping for breath halfway. Regardless of what path my life will one day take the exams seem to be the starting point of it: it is on those results that I'll get into a desired programme, it is with that programme I'll find an occupation, it is with that occupation that I'll define myself -- hopefully -- and earn money to shape my life with. The exams are indeed the starting point.

But come to think of it, they're not really any more than that. They won't say anything about me as a person, they will not in any way tell of what importance I will or will not be to the world. They are a tool to get into university and that's it. Junior high and high school are five years of grade craze and I'll rejoice having it out of my life. My final grade will of course matter, and if I get one I'm not content with I'll of course not be pleased. But it won't change me and it won't wreck my future, so it will affect me at most for a few months when I apply to Law or Politics. After that they fade into the obscurity of my memories. That is why I cannot be as anxious as I should be in order to get those fancy grades -- it just won't matter in a few years. The things I've learnt that matter to me have not been taught in school, I've found them elsewhere. I've found various interests, I've developed some talents, I've learnt a foreign language, I've learnt how to laugh, mourn and love. I've learnt what's important in life, and friendship is not dependant on grades.

As you might understand, my brain's not the best of studying buddies.

Two weeks... fourteen days. One of which I've now used half of. Two weeks, then the exams are upon us. And until then we'll be running. We were born to run, and we have all been running ever since we first entered the assembly hall as enpimpled, immature fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds to do the entrance tests.

We were born to run. Let's run the storm out and then let's run which ever direction we'll feel like. We are the broken heroes jamming the highway on our last chance powerdrive and we are the ones with no place left to hide, so let's just fucking run. Some day we'll have finished running and we'll get to the place where we really want to go and then, friends, we'll be walking in the sun. And the running just became a lot easier for me when I now realised that I'm running with the two and a half best years of my life in my back, together with people I'd gladly walk over both fire and water for. There just couldn't be better people to hit the street with.

Before I felt limp, now I'm actually starting to feel a bit belligerent. Born to run, baby, I was born to run and I was born to run for a long time after the end of the exams. Bring it on.

I was born for it.

Fuck it Springsteen, I love you.

/wellington.

1 kommentar(er).:

Alex said...

Hum, I could write quite a lot on this topic, but I think I've covered most of that in my last blog post ;) I agree with you, school isn't the most important. And these grades are for getting into the university, but that's it. That's always a relief. And I think whether you read law or politics, you're gonna do fine because you're interested in it =) that's the most important thing in the end - there's only so long you could manage within something you don't like.

 

© Copyright Lucidor Larssons läroverk. . All Rights Reserved.

Designed by TemplateWorld and sponsored by SmashingMagazine

Blogger Template created by Deluxe Templates