For Madmen Only

There is not much to say about my life. There were no momentous happenings, no metamorphic revelations, and no maudlin affairs. Some may say I have lived my life rather cowardly, failing to embrace the inspirational cliché live life to the fullest – too often seen on chocolate bars and Lucozade drinks. They ask in their audacious tone "Why am I not living my life? I am utterly wasting my teenage years". Or to be more precise, I am wasting the chaotic partying, eluding reality through colossal amounts of Vodka and Coke. 

I have never been part of the crowd, never striving to fit in with the rest or conforming to the teenage "rules" which foist on you what you must think, do, wear, eat. Instead, I have found my own world: one of fairytales and wars, faith, promise, hope, liberation.

But before that, almost everything went astray. I sometimes feel that my life is made up of two parts. Not so much a before and an after, but more like divergent beginnings. I am not aware when things changed, it all happened subtly, at the threshold of my teenage years when it goes either right or wrong. 

After perpetual hours of listening to my dad read to me Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, I came to the worrisome conclusion that there is nothing worse than books. Hours and hours of inevitable misery filled my thoughts with animosity towards poor Mr. Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout. Despite my dad's efforts, I was on my way to becoming the emblematic teenager, embodying my parents' most formidable nightmare: a selfish, ignorant daughter with a genuine hatred for books and education. 

And even if I was very near being a typical teenager with a too-fake smile and too-red lipstick, I was not happy. I was trapped in a dreadful routine, ticking like a deteriorated clock, the world twirling in its banal dance. At only thirteen, I felt disheartened and alone. It is a bizarre thing how a solitary chance comes exactly when you need it. And how one day I found a book my dad was reading left on the couch and I grabbed the chance with both hands. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse (not Born to Be Wild).  I could smell the freshness of the paper, feel the precision of each page, the beautiful frailty of words sprinkled carefully. 

I started reading, weighing each word gingerly, immersing myself in the beauty of each sentence. 

"For madmen only

The day had gone by just as days go by. I had killed it in accordance with my primitive and retiring way of life. ...Instead of narrowing your world and simplifying your soul, you will have to absorb more and more of the world and at last take all of it up in your painfully expanded soul, if you are ever to find peace."

The answers to my absurd questions were all there. I could see my naive thoughts and suspicions echoed with every page I read. That was what I needed: no fantastic adventures around the world –although sometimes we do need them – but heartfelt words. A narrow, simplified world is all I had; a world of barren ambitions and poignant silence. Absorb the world – devour every second with tenacious eagerness. Peace – such a misconceived word; simply an utopian conception. Are we ever going to enfold utter peace?

"I understood it all. I understood Pablo. I understood Mozart, and somewhere behind me, I heard his ghastly laughter. I knew that all the hundred thousand pieces of life’s game were in my pocket . . . I would traverse not once more, but often, the hell of my inner being. One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh. Pablo was waiting for me and Mozart too."

A game. It's all life is. And we know the rules, we have the pieces. It revolves around us how we play it: some may tolerate life purely slipping away until everything is gone (almost everything – there is still some Apple Sourz left in the cupboard). For others, life is an incessant struggle to succeed. One day. It takes time, diligence and devotion but we will be there, eventually jubilant. Eventually understanding. 

The final lines scattered on the page. I suddenly felt exhausted, numb, bewildered. The story never left me since that day, pervading my mind. Every word infiltrated in my thoughts, unveiling who I was. I understood as well, and for the first time in months, I felt I was not alone. 

This is when everything changed. After I turned the last page of Steppenwolf, I became someone else. I left the spurious teenager behind regardless of my friends' sudden malice. And I became the alienated teenager that does not live life to the fullest. And if living life to the fullest meant clinging to a Vodka bottle and drinking themselves to unconsciousness in Glasgow town centre, than I would much rather live a "dreary" life reading.

I often look back and wonder why it happened. And I am somehow grateful to my parents, maybe the long depressing hours of Jules Verne with my dad arose some hidden sense that one day would exhibit the pleasure of reading. 

There is a constant conflict between what the world demands us to be and what we truly are, between ideas and rules, between a bourgeois life and nonconformity. It is hard to have an identity anymore, to have something to say, to be inspired and truly happy. But books are doors opening obscure places in our minds and the essence of who we are. As Umberto Eco said, we live for books. How are we ever going to know the world, the history, and future without books? How are we ever going to understand others without books? And how are we ever going to know ourselves? Who can be a better friend than a book, who guides, comforts and never quite leaves you. Even the stories with beasts, fairies, and unicorns are true. Books give us the answer to everything, unceasing solutions to our fears and confusions.

I have been betrayed. Mended. Cherished and worshiped. I have witnessed atrocious murders and impressionable affairs. I have wandered down the Champs-Elysees on serene summer nights. I have seen the centre of the world and unfamiliar asteroids. I have ruled an Empire. And I have never left my couch. Books grant us the most absolute and wondrous experience. 

This is not a story about teenagers and neither about astonishing moments. It is solely my story about discovering books. Thinking about it, it might seem trivial but books revealed who I truly was. The truth is, there is still a speck of that foolish teenager I was. It is hard – sometimes I do find books a millstone, on days when I merely crave a stroll in the back garden or a night forgetting about everything and laughing endlessly with my friends. But there is only one thing more extraordinary than books – life. As without books, life is inconsequential but there is not a more remarkable tale than life itself. Qin Shi Huang knew; Hitler knew: books made the strongest weaponry, so easily in the hands of a whole nation. So if they were aware of the marvelous power of books, why not us?





*I wrote this when I was 16 years old, in 2012 and found it hidden, forgotten about, amongst some documents in my laptop. I published it so I will not forget again.