A better world, a bitter world

 

How many times have I smashed my wings against the wall –
still I am not tired of flying.
Imagine a different world, where I don´t feel lost in the middle of this craziness.
And I can sing new songs, and new flames embrace my heart.
What green rose grows inside of me! Breathe and smell the beautiful world!
Hold me, come with me, to where the sun sets…
The beautiful world, who has ever lived in it?
This bitter world, how many times did it bite me?
The world I dreamed of as a child, where we would not die, and I would grow up, big, beautiful and safe.

This beautiful poem is really a song. It´s called “The beautiful world”, or in its original version “lu munnu bellu”, and was composed by the marvelous Sicilian brothers Fratelli Mancuso. How have I always loved it, how has it given me hope, and confidence and – belief.

A belief not in anyone to come and rescue me, no prince, no saint, no goddess – no: faith and trust that even in dire straits my will, I, will always be strong enough to make it to a new, a better tomorrow. To spread my wings, rise and shine.

Ambition. But how many setbacks, how much headwind can I, can one take? When is the moment to admit failure and that it was a foolish idea in the first place?

“I wish I could ask the future whether I should give up or keep trying. Then again, what if trying, even in the face of certain failure, feels as good as accomplishing? What if it´s even better?”

the American writer Sarah Mancuso writes. It´s a fascinating dilemma – for we sense that there is a riddling truth to it, we know it for the emptiness we felt every time we reached our destinations, scored the points, for au lieu of our ambitions, there was – nothing. A void. A vast nothingness.

Desire. What if trying really feels better than accomplishing?

“Desiring lasts a long time, demands and requests go on to infinity; fulfillment is short and is meted out sparingly. But even the final satisfaction itself is only apparent; the wish fulfilled at once makes place for a new one.”

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said. What is life without a goal? And isn´t it true for so many who shy away from finishing a novel they write, a painting they paint or a house they build, because once the last stroke is done – life will be over, or love?

It ends, is forgotten, expired
Easy as those other times. As bitter as those left for the other side.
It´s the temptation
It´s the thirst
If you drink it, it´s done, finished, gone!
Next time it will not feel the same, the taste will not be quenching the thirst.
Don´t satisfy the thirst, live with the dryness, the pain, to the end of the end.
Live with the temptation, Hold on to the dream
Don´t let it end, don´t let it fade away
Let this one person, This one only
To live and let live in eternity
Don´t kiss this one.

The Persian poet Leva Zand wrote. How sad – the only eternal love is the unfulfilled?

But what if the desire is the desire to just live, not to starve, not to be prosecuted, hung, shot, bombed or raped? Not to lose yourself in the middle of all this craziness?

Will. But how many have drowned on their way to a better tomorrow, a better world off the shores of Lampedusa or Lesbos? What did they believe in as they embarked on their overloaded dinghies, stripped all of their possessions, their homelands, families and roots, of everything but their faith? Ill-fated faith…

How I wish that their desires had been fulfilled! How I wish that they would not have died, drowned, but had made it safely to the Northern shores… How I wish they had had wings to fly over the Mediterranean Sea in full faith of their own strength and powers, or at least buy a ticket Damascus-Berlin or Ankara-Vienna at € 120.- (instead of paying their human traffickers 10,000.-). But then of course this is not possible, it is against European law.

The first world– the place where only those desires get fulfilled that won´t make anyone happy: the desire to a new flat screen TV, a new car, a new dress (made in Bangladesh). The desire to a better world – will not be fulfilled.

Welcome to a bitter world.