Column | Principles – NRC

I was fourteen and was in the Octopus at the fair, with a girlfriend next to me. It was January, our noses were red, our hands -sticky hands we had folded around the cold rod. We swallowed up and down, tilted, slid towards each other towards the side of the container, and back to the middle. The Octopus went harder and louder, a horn, piewwaaaaaaaa, the microphone sounded « mostly last round. » The G-forces pressed us even closer to each other. I could count the freckles on her nose. She laughed, I laughed, I put my head on her shoulder.

And then I was suddenly flooded by an absolute certainty by the canal, the friendship, the hormones. I shouted in her ear: ‘We will never forget this moment. And we agree that we will stay exactly who we are now!  » « Okay, » she shouted back, because adolescents just say okay on all the idiotic things.

I remember the circumstances of that moment in detail, because I still think that I experienced something true there, high above the Grote Markt. I probably understood there for the first time that you have to force the meaning of your life story yourself, and therefore decided that it would be my specific lot of destination to cling to my ideas for a just world.

I kept that in principle quite a while. Nepotism, sexism, improper self -enrichment, pragmatism, other weak hassle: I didn’t accept it. I was completely erected from justice (and occasionally a nice chicken leg).

Then constantly arguing and excitement. Nice and chasing all corrupt, greedy, hypocritical souls. I would not yield to crawls and strategic thinking, and so provide myself with money, grip and convenience.

But I got tired. I found out that I was not going to win the world. And I experienced a revulsion. I no longer wanted to kick in from the outside, but to be together with others. Think longer. Make more beautiful things. Because anyone who is still screaming after a certain age of indignation and superficial urge to proof risks a serious form of madness, or a craving for recognition that is so unfulfilled that you drag everything around you into your wild waves.

And yet it surprises me how little resistance there is in this time against the emptiness and greed of our society. Why I see so few people with influence that take the risk of being excluded because they really poke where it hurts. There is probably too much fear of the future. There is the continuous and destructive comparison with others, via social media. There is the emphasis on obtaining and retaining youth and endless prosperity. Personal preferences and enthusiasts are getting less and less weirdbecause they must mainly be used as social capital. Activism is also often moderately disguised social capital. And: people never have enough money. There is always something and it is easy to obtain if you have a stage. Just advertise and share yourself in compartments. The righteous, the artist and the graaier now live in one body.

For example, ‘having principles’ has completely disappeared from our framework of good properties. Instead, we are collectively at it hust beaten, from early in the morning until late in the evening.

In the meantime, my adolescent-I turn circles in the Octopus, screaming down, where my big self stands in line for the grab machine: greedy, eager, in trance.

Sometimes I look up, guilty, and then I swing. She doesn’t wave back often, no more.

Sarah Slumber Writes a column every week. She is the author of books, essays and plays.