Black and White
We come to spend few days on this earth and they tell us: “this is life”
In our childhood, they tell us stories about the days to come, and how they were and what they became. We listen with a lot of interest and a deep ambition to reach one day this mysterious future.
Day after day, and story after story, our interest grows, our patience runs out and we live the first years of our life in the eager hope to find that future in which we will become...
The days go by, the first years of childhood vanish and we start to perceive a vague image of this future, an image full of beautiful and intertwined colors. At this early age, we only see in this painting the reflection of the beautiful stories that rocked the first years of our childhood. Every now and then, we distinguish few well-defined and solid lines, but it happens very seldom and life keeps flowing calmly.
The nights press on and propel us towards the most awaited years, where everything starts to take shape, our proclaimed and yet very delicate adolescence. It is during this period of life when the fuzzy, colorful and shiny image start to inherit few precise lines and become a little easier to discern. The doubt takes hold of our young minds and many questions pour in our green brains. Were they lying? Were they imagining? Were they describing their fantasies? Were they talking about all the things they wanted to do and couldn’t? Or is it we, who didn’t understand the hidden meaning of their stories?
Five to six years of questioning; five to six years of wandering between the real and the imaginary; five to six years of swinging between the colors of this wonderful painting and its strict and severe lines.
One day, the veil drops and the image appears clearly to our eyes. We stare at it stupefied and disillusioned, as we find only black, white, grey and separating hard lines. Where are the dancing colors? Where is the resplendent future? What happened to the “legends” that used to start with “tomorrow you will see …”, “one day you will become …”, “life is ahead of you …”. In this moment of “lucidity”, we realize that this future we have been waiting for all these years, well, we just discovered it, and it is here in front of our eyes! We convince ourselves that it cannot be that bad; we just need to work a bit harder, and things should turn out the way we were told. Isn’t this what happened to all before us? What eludes us, at this stage, is that this first worrying vision is most probably the best we will see most of the time. Ignoring this fact, we continue our procession, hoping for better days.
Finally, on a special day, and you will recognize it when it comes, the essence of life reveals itself to us. On that day, shocked by this unexpected vision and overwhelmed from disappointment, one sentence comes to our mind and keeps returning over and over again. We then start repeating it like a popular song, or like a mantra. This sentence becomes our motto, especially when things are going wrong. On that day, and in every day that follows, we tell ourselves: “we wish we have never been and we will never become”