My Journal in Europe

Part 1. On a train from Prague to Berlin
The American rock gives the train ride through what used to be East Germany a certain surreal quality; it is so out of place that it almost makes senese in this medieval land. A train from a modern Babylon, Prague, to one of the symbols of my lifetime, the reunified Berlin. A strange harmony here, in all these things; the great importance of understanding. It eludes me with people all too often, but I think I am starting to get it with cultures. The magnificent shock of arriving in a city and no even knowing the alphabet, saying nothing of the language. It is legendary, the modern rite of European passage, the required pilgrimage for a century. And, ah, the people. Not as different as they ought to be, it seems; most still friendly despite, well, whatever they may have to spite. We left a rambunctious city almost 1000 years old; a millenium. The sense of antiquity is pervasive, almost impossible to understand for me given my life. The link ot the past all-too-often discredited by me is explicit and ubiquitous. And then it's off to the other modern Babylon, Amsterdam, the American idol for debauchery. Whz don�t we do this in our own country? Oh, zeah, we do, but it doesn't have the inherent grandeur and overwhelming specialness that comes from the magic of being away from home. Sometimes I think it's all about being away from home, but it's not. Home, too, is good. It's all about experience, be it physical or meta-. And this land of thousand-year-old cities-cities with water for streets, and cities with places you've only dreamed about-is the ultimate, or is it developer of that oh-so-important next experience?
Part 2. Shrink-wrapped cliches for my wallet

List:
. The awesome responsibility of making thins better
. Ensuring that the future is better than the past by indulging in the
present or by mortgaging the present in a sacrificial rite
. Making sure everyone else can do the same

Therefore:
If I could only live up to these seemingly simple tasks! She thinks I
can, and if I can't, what then?

Do you ever get so overwhelmed bz existence or experience or just being
that you don't know what you could possibly do? Do you want to do
anything about it? Do you?
Do you think you're so, like, alone in the world that you find someone
that agrees with you, negating your cliched fears? Who?
Do you ever just want to indulge your senses as much as possible in as
many ways as you can find?
Do you ever think that people are amazing? Each one does their own
thing, and yet there is love?
Do you ever think of hate? Then of love? Then of the sheer
worthlessness of hate? What did it ever get you? Or anyone?
Can you let yourselfgo, imagning everything, everywhere, everyone?
Can you think about your own life on its own terms and make those terms
yours?
Can you see through the transparent and do you struggle to decipher the
opaque? Would you try? Harder?
Do you just want to know? About the human experience, about life, love,
happiness, and people? Can you imagine?! Will you try? More?
Can you life your life to the fullest, LIVING as much as possible? Do
you? Why not?
Can you grab your life and hold it in your hand and tell IT what to do?
Can you understand everything all together?
Can you imagine the implications of you?
Do you dream? Of good things and bad? Of the past and future? Of you
as yourself or as a part of something incredible? Of all that you can do?
Of all that you have done and that you will do? Of the 'unbearable'
desire for more? More life?
Do you laugh so much it doesn't hurt?
Do you want to be happy, and do you want it for everyone else?
Are you HERE to work or to play? To exist or to live? To get by or to
try? To ignore or to stare? To sleep or to dream? To hate or to love?
To be...?
What are you afrait of? What are you so afraid of? What made you fear
taking chances? Why can't you? What are you so afraid of? Are you
scared of failing? Of succeeding? Of the realization of your own
mortality? Of your own morality? Or instead do you fear the unknown?
Don't you know? What are you so afraid of?
Live.


Part 3. An Ode to, or perhaps against, the Lost Years

There are those lost years.
Those lost years you spent
doing things that now you
wish you hadn't done, but
there are also
those lost years you spent
not doing things that now you
wish you had done.

And then it comes about that
all these things that you could've
done
are set in front of you,
there they are!
You want to reach out and grab them.
But you can't,
you don't even know how!
And if you did, what would you do
with them!
Sights you never thought you'd see,
Thoughts you never thought you'd have,
And yet there they are: look!

But you don't have the courage
to ask to try. To try, ah,
to TRY.
You've mastered the easy parts of
life --
now what?!
To try, to know, to experience.
You want to try.
But you don't have the courage
to ask to try.

You start to get that courage,
but you know these opportunities
aren't available forever.
You have to leap blindly at them.
But you're too cautious for that,
ah, Prometheus, if only you were your
brother!
Everyone else is like him,
dealing with repercussions AFTER the
event
instead of before.

Ah, everyone else.
Thanks, Mssr. Sartre,
hell is other people, isn't it?
But you've learned already that
it isn't.
So how do you reconcile it?
Two choices, do or don't.

You think that you could,
and even maybe that you would,
but your problem is whether you should!

You look out upon all that is
available, easy to get, that
forbidden fruit you've never tasted.
And now that you can smell it,
your senses are overwhelmed.
Reaction?
None.
And therein lies the difficulty.