Category Archives: Opinions/Views

Music, Opinions/Views

The Metal Gimmick Reviewed

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A while ago I wrote this article about the increased presence of gimmicks in the heavy metal world. Not trying to diss any band or be negative about it, I discussed the prominence of bands like Ghost, Babymetal and Steel Panther.

The original article can be found here and I found out it even got to reddit for some discussion. Reading those responses, knowing that they might not be all friendly, I did realise I might have not fully made my point there and unfortunately may have come across as a genre purist. I am in a way for the sake of argument used to genre terms, but in the end its all about the music. Gimmick and purism are two extremes on a very wide scale and in some ways don’t even have to conflict.

Gimmicks

If we look at a band like Ghost, specially after their epic record ‘Meliora’ have shown that while maintaining the gimmick or show element, they are able to produce fabulous music. Interestingly, this coincides with a tuned down version of their stage presentation. There’s a bit more performance, but a little less ‘stuff’.

But what was that concern about ‘Gimmicks’ then? The concern I tried to voice is that some bands are gaining popularity only by the fact that they do something weird. Now, this is nothing new in the metal world. The whole black metal genre seems to revolve around that gimmick. Bands like the Misfits or Slipknot and even Black Sabbath added a mystique to their music by adding that element of showmanship to the band. There are band who push a bit further on that and the gimmick becomes their selling point.

When is something a gimmick? Probably when it is the first thing you have to say about your band, you probably are overdoing exactly that part. If your description starts with something that is not the music, the focus is on the wrong end of the stick. From a music purist point of view. Does that mean gimmicks are evil? Ofcourse not, it’s just whatever purpose you have with your music. For example, Hevisaurus is aiming their music at children.

A gimmick doesn’t mean it dininishes the band, a band like Ghost or Slipknot can hold its own with or without the gimmick. It’s sadly not just good music that comes out of the woodwork.

Antithesis

Luckily, things have a tendency to work themselves out. Glamrock and grunge prompted their own back to basic movement in the shape of the hard rock’n’roll movement that started out in the mid nineties and had a good run till halfway the noughties with bands like Audioslave and Velvet Revolver. A bit later followed Scandinavian bands like Gluecifer and The Hellacopters and now Danko Jones keeps the flame alive. It’s a movement back to something pure, where the stage outfit and decoration is not that wild.

Maybe grunge and stoner offered that to metal, but somehow the whole flamboyance seems to fly high and in a clickbait-culture of juicy headlines there seems to be little room for bands that offer something simple and pure. Although… that is the music press. There’s an amazing amount of bands that have been getting back to something pure. Ironically, the band I started my original article with was Deafheaven. In a way, apart from that slick album cover of ‘Sunbather’, that is a purist band. Even stripping the characteristics of the genre from the music. You see similar things happen. So the  whole focus on aesthetic will even out.

The future of heavy metal

So the real concern isn’t really the gimmick itself, but the way its lifted up to be the focus point for any journalism. If we talk about a band, the look and gimmick can’t be the point of focus. If that is the thing we talk about, two things may be wrong.

  1. The band is musically uninteresting.
  2. The journalist doesn’t have a clue.

Now, point one is really not so bad, because we recognise a boring band anyways as listeners and it just becomes ‘that commercial crap’. The point with metal journalism might be worrying, specially if the main sources for our music-info are just spitting out uninformed, politically correct garbage news, that puts people of the bands that should get some attention. I’m not telling you to love Deafheaven or whatever the new kid on the block is, but the press is surely not helping with some weird conservative hatred to anything new or blankly ignoring it. If Metal Hammer, Kerrang and the like writes page full about the weird mystique of a band, but forgets their music, then that’s the problem. Not to blame any specific media though, a site like Noisey really offers great stuff… and sometimes garbage. Same goes for most, but I think that’s more the writers.

But the problem is also the first, the lack of exploration of the fans. The overflow of information and the unfortunate side-effects of social media make it hard to find anything new or appreciate music solely on our own experience. We probably see some judgement pop up in our timeline and then just drop it.

So let’s keep exploring and listen to good music. Everything should be ok. I mean, Kiss was also kick-ass regardless of the make-up, right?

Short note on some of the accusations. Yes, I love my genre classifications. No, I don’t resort records in the shops from some priviligy point of view, just that I can’t handle disorder.

Cover image: Powerwolf, source press photo/Facebook band Though Cheesy as hell, probably not the worst out there. 

Music, Personal, Uncategorized

Shut up and go back to your hipster metal cave

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There was a little riot in extreme metal land the other day, which probably seems futile and minor to anyone who isn’t into it, but is also, like every confrontation saying a bit more than you’d think.

Even the whole #kimexposedtaylorparty concerning Taylor Swift and Kanye West (and Kim Kardashian, but whatever), is a debate that tries to create something bigger or maybe is. People choose sides on things, its the way it works. I have passionate Taylor Swift fans among my friends, hence me knowing about this… and I have a twitter account so yeah…

So what gives?

Since pretty much everyone I’ve seen debating this issue has retracted their statements and removed facebook posts, I’ll just get to some vague picture of what happened.

A band behaved badly and that was picked up by a metal zine. It then levelled some accusations at the band this pissed of the band, lets call them… SatanGoat. Something with goats, you see… Now, the journalist in question, might have made up some shit about the band or had drawn some conclusions that the band disagreed with. In response, they posted their rant.

But that wasn’t enough for the evil men in SatanGoat, who ofcourse all have pseudonyms and are very secretive. The band needed to doxx the writer (for what doxxing is, check wiki). Meaning, they posted a picture and all personal data of this person.

uncool bra, uncool…. But if you mention that, you’re told to go back to your hipster metal cave.

So…

I’ve never written under a pseudonym, I’ve had bands say they were sad to read I didn’t dig their stuff and had bands say thanks for the nice words. Now, on this blog I cover stuff I like mostly. I don’t see the point in writing about a album I didn’t dig, sorry. Life is short and I have many things to do. But what if I would be doxxed? What if I’d written that SatanGoat was unoriginal (I think I did) and not really doing anything innovative, but was in the end a fun listen… What if I suggested that some lyrics are a bit edgy. I’m talking about a mostly anonymous band… should I be doxxed?

I hope not. I read two responses, one from another blogger who took offense and one from a black metal musician who considered it taking a stand. I have to say, I agreed with both. Branding someone as anything and writing cheap headlines to get clicks is just the sort of stuff that put #brexit in motion and might put Trump in the White House. Two things we will, I don’t doubt it, regret. Journalism needs to be honest, checking their stuff and getting that info others cant get.

Does that make it ok to ostracize these people and put them at the mercy of the audience? Not really, no. Specially from the comfort of anonymity. But this stuff goes both ways. Respect your topic, they are people too and respect people taking the time to write about stuff. I don’t know how it works for the big sites, but I, like many others, do this in my spare time for the love of the music.

I could and should write toaster manuals instead, it would make me some money.

Respect is the absolute key, but it’s only something you can give, not something you can demand.

Nerdism and Geeky stuff, Opinions/Views

World of Warcraft is a Feeling #3

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Where was I? Oh yeah, I wrote about Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness. For some reason Roman numbers don’t work very well online, so I’ll stick with regular numbers. So, what happened after Warcraft 2?

Well, as pretty much every RTS fan must remember: Warcraft 3 happened. Oh my god, what an epic improvement on the game that was. It was one huge leap forward for gaming and I completely missed its initial release. I had moved away from games for a bit, only playing some NHL 2001 or something like that on the odd chance and some Final Fantasy VI. This was in 2002, the game had been out for a short while and after messing about with some copy I got myself the Battle Chest.

A Warcraft Battle Chest was nothing more than the game and its expansion with two guide books. Warcraft 3 was fully called Warcraft III: Reign Of Chaos and the expansion was ‘Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. The time between Warcraft 2 and 3 was a bit vague, things had transpired but it was pretty tricky to figure it out. Also, the storyline was hard to follow in Warcraft 2 because I never played for very long at one time, so the names didn’t stick. With the fabulous promo video and the epic cut scenes and clearly outlined story, Warcraft 3 was something new, something else and something wonderful.

Summertime Blues

It was a summer holiday and I had to work a lot at the supermarket that year, but during the holiday of my parents I would play all the time when I wasn’t working. I actually threw my matrass down next to the PC so I could save time. Ridiculous, I know, but I was that insanely into it. To follow the whole campaign and learn of the characters like Arthas Menethil, Thrall and Grom Hellscream (already a favorite from the past along with Korgath Bladefist) and ofcourse Illadan Stormrage. It was miraculous and completely immesive. The game was good for hours and hours of unlimited, unchallenged gameplay.

This was the game you were discussing with your friends, this was a story that you wanted to have retold and tried to trace. It was by far the best thing Blizzard had done this far and the whole sales numbers proved as much. Warcraft III is at the base of the succesful DOTA and League of Legends games and set the bar for RTS games for years to come. So while playing it, I was living in the Warcraft Universe and every moment I wasn’t, I was still there in my head. It was great stuff.

Innovation

Where the previous games had named characters, these had personalities. That was one of the things that Blizzard may have taken from the likes of Red Alert and Command & Conquer. Having characters with personalities helps the player in feeling part of the grand narrative. Something the man from Blizz understood like no other I suppose.

What also helped, was an environment that felt more natural and alive, not the barren wasteland that you were left with in the pervious games. There was a better ambient sound to accompany the setting and critters that you could kill, but also random mobs. Marauding gnolls, rampaging ogres and the ever present Murlocs. Also, the campaigns where you had to rely on skills and fast commanding were so much better and fun to engage in. Landing in Kalimdor with the Orcs really felt like finding a strange and mysterious land, not just the next puzzle. Corrupting the land with the undead felt a bit grimy and wrong, but also awakens the sadist in you.

To me these were major innovations in the game, though probably not as unique as it felt to me, but very significant.

source: Battle.net

Not just single player fun

For me personally, I’ve never been a great online player. Frankly, I sucked on the battle net servers. Battle Net had been launched already for Starcraft players a few years previously, to faciliate online playing. Interesting enough, the online playing was the future and Blizzard was one of the few companies really getting that.

Not only that, the game was so big, that you could discuss it easily with your friends who had started playing it. Funny enough, one of my best friends held the game wrapped up for 12 years before engaging in it, recently finishing the game finally. It was a weird throw back to discuss some elements in the game, since many of them where later sort of rectified in the ongoing narrative of the game in World of Warcraft.

Out of an ocean of mediocre games, this one rose above and beyond and was for me definitely the one that got me hooked forever on the game. It was not long after that WoW was released, which I didn’t start playing at first. I took some time… but I did start with the novels.

It’s just before I got into the biggest and I think best MMO of all time.

Music, Personal

The Roadburn Experience

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This year I went to Roadburn for the second time. Only the second? Yes, goddammit, only the second time. I also reviewed the festival for the second time, but this time as press. There’s a lot you can say about a festival in your review, but I need some space for something more personal.

Home
For me it feels like home, feels like sitting down in a warm bath. There is a calm coming over me when I walk into the weirdo canyon, the small street on which 013’s entrance is. I let go of all my other concerns, because the next four days I will be immersing myself in music. Only music. I look around to see who else is here, but I don’t know that many people to be honest.  Still, I’m home and everyone here is a potential friend.

I take a moment before jumping into the fray by watching my first band. Taking a moment to take it all in, to embrace my environment and bask in it for a moment. I know that when I enter a venue to see a band, I’ll be on a roll for the rest of the day. I check out some art in the hall ways, make mental notes on coin machines and food trucks, so I’m ready for my stampede.

Then I find myself checking band after band after band. I take short breaks to talk to friends and fellow music writers. There’s a gleam in their eyes as well, in which I see reflected my own. If music is a drug, we’re all high as kites these days.  We’ve all come home to a place were music reigns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxAtHrrt93E

Open minds, open hearts

It’s a strange thing, that Roadburn experience. In a normal situation I’m a critical listener. I can see a band and judge the book by its cover, like most people who’ve seen and heard a lot of music. We’re judgemental and we need to be convinced that your band is going to be an experiental addition to our lives. It sound sour, but for people who review around 200 albums a year it makes sense. Some music is just not very good…

You wouldn’t eat shitty junkfood by choice for days in a row either, would you? It’s slightly different on Roadburn. I feel my mind completely open up to any band on the bill. Why? Because you sort of know that whatever is playing, was picked with great care. It was picked for its uniqueness, for its quality or simply because you need to see it. As a visitor of Roadburn, you completely surrender your pre-judgement to the organisers, you submit to them and just accept what they throw at you. It’s strangely liberating and with an open mind, you let the music into your heart.

Magic on stage
This effect works both ways, it seems like bands realize the kind of crowd they are getting and the way the crowd is experiencing them. No band plays a bad show at Roadburn, because they all try that little bit harder. It might also be the pink glasses that everyone is wearing during the festival. That open mind and hunger for more music, does make everything sound a bit sweeter, doesn’t it.

To me it feels that way though, that every band is just giving it their all. You see bands doing things, they’ve not done live before ever. See the Úlfsmessa this year, by some Icelandic black metal bands or the great Skúggsja performance by Wardruna and Enslaved. Or that haunting Blood Moon session by Converge? Bands reunite for the festival, old arguments are buried for Roadburn and creative fires rekindles. It has to be something else than something weird in the water, no?

Tribe

More than anything, Roadburn feels like a tribe. Going there makes you a member, pretty much automatically it seems. We gather once a year, to feel happy for a few days. To immerse ourselves in that which we love and cherish. It’s like a bond, that runs deeper than you’d think. Through out the year, we nod to the people wearing the shirts or caps they could only have gotten at the festival. A knowing smile is all it takes.

For a few days I feel less lonely than I normally do. It’s one of the best feelings in the world. That’s my Roadburn experience.

 

 

 

 

Music, Opinions/Views

That crisp sound of Vinyl

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I like records. That may be an understatement. I don have as many as I would like to though, but I only have vinyl these days. Many has been told about vinyl and its magical quality, I just want to tell you abou the moment my love affair with it started.

My parents got rid of a ton of their records after the CD-player was launched. The vinyl record was of the past, a relic of a bygone age apparently. At some point I started discovering those and listening to classics like Pink Floyd, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple and a load of David Bowie.

There’s something about putting a bit of vinyl on the record player. It demands care, attention and you’ll be keeping an eye on things, because before you know the record is over. I loved listening to those old recors with their crispy start-up sounds. It was great.

I started buying cd’s when I was 14 I suppose, after I was confronted with the might that was Metallica. Man, I was instantly hooked. I went to the record show and bought myself the Ozzy Osbourne‘s ‘Ozzmosis’, De Heideroosjes‘ ‘Schizo’ and Iron Maiden‘s ‘Virtual XI’. So yeah, my first Maiden was not with Bruce Dickinson strangely, but Blaze Bailey. Weird… I was captivated by these bands and I would often return to this shop in Veghel to check out more.

A few weeks later I found ‘Out Of The Silent Planet’. It was some sort of limited edition digipack single, but there was also the Vinyl. Wow, Vinyl… and a picture disc at that. The imagery of Iron Maiden had immediately captured my attention, it looked futuristic, horrible and awesome. I took the CD home, thinking that was smart. I didn’t have a record player.

I couldn’t sleep that night, I needed to have the vinyl. It was torture, what if someone else bought this special edition? What would I do then? I went back as soon as I could and purchased that record. That was my first one.

Later followed more and ofcourse a record player. Now, It’s vinyl all the way baby. I can’t tell you why. Was it the bigger pictures, the captivating sound or the ritual of playing them? It’s a vinyl thing, you’ll probably never understand… It’s all about holding some actual music in your hands, physically with its analogue workings. It also explains my loyalty to Maiden I suppose…

Music, Personal

Ground control to Major Tom… About David Bowie

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David Bowie passed away, it brought back a lot of memories when I watched that headline appear on google this morning. I’m not an expert, but I would like to offer some words.

Outsider
If you’d ask me to name the 10 best artists of the last 50 years or so, I’d probably name a bunch that worked with Bowie, but I wouldn’t mention Bowie.  For some reason he’s out there, all on his own, on a different level in the music universe. A place now vacant and I believe it’ll remain vacant for a long, long time. There is no artist like Bowie, no person who does music, art, films and making yourself such an immersed, integral part of your work.

My First Bowie
I’ve found that I hadn’t listened to Bowie for ages. I don’t know why, perhaps it just wasn’t time for that. I have been listening to and I suppose have been influenced by David Bowie for most of my life. It goes a little something like this…

When the CD was on the rise, my parents ditched their vinyl. Like many people they believed that time was over. What they kept was Bowie and Pink Floyd (and some miscalleanious stuff, like chart singles with Black Sabbath, but that was something I found much later). I enjoyed hearing the vinyls as a kid, so my mom probably told me Bowie was good and I believed her. I still bellieve most of the stuff my mom tells me. My dad never told me Pink Floyd was good, but years later I told him. He agreed.

Home
So my mom would spin them old Bowie records, like ‘Low’, ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’, ‘Hunky Dory’, ‘Diamond Dogs’ and ‘Station To Station’. I still get the chills from that opening riff of ‘Ziggy Stardust’. This music stuck with me throughout my life. I think the music also stuck with my brothers and my mom still buys the Bowie albums now and then.

While we listened to those records we invented worlds with Lego’s, and rewrote history in board games. We passed our time together playing, thinking or reading.

I’m sad that Bowie is gone, but it also did make me think of those autumn holidays with my mom and my brothers, with Bowie singing in the background. I miss those terribly sometimes.

Personal

Self Improvement, self evaluation

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I’ve been writing a lot about working on myself, about books I read and theories I tried to embrace. It’s a thing that seemed to be very effective and eye-opening at first, but it’s become a bane a year and a half onwards. A bit of self evaluation.

First off, why am I writing this? I’m not writing this to tell everyone how great it is and how easy it is with the right book. I thought that was it, but it wasn’t. I’m also not aiming to thank people, I did that before and I’m not sure I should’ve. It’s really an attempt to be open, atleast on paper.

I’ve found out two things that are holding me back in growing and developing myself in life. The first is a cripplingly low self esteem, which really makes me feel unappreciated, worthless and unwanted very often. The result of that is behaving as such and acting as such, which is not doing anyone a favor.

The second is an inability to embrace change on certain levels. This is particularly on a communicative level, which in turn is strongly related to that self esteem. I keep my relationships in stasis, because I’m afraid that speaking frankly and openly will influence then negatively. The trade-off? They’re not getting better either. It leads to a feeling of loneliness that I can hardly explain, it makes it excruciatingly difficult to strike up a conversation and make friends. If I start chatting with you, however forced it sounds, know that in my head I’m climbing a mountain. It’s not you, it’s me really, really wanting to and trying to connect.

I can’t stress that enough, I love the connection I’ve felt, however briefly, with a few people over the last 1,5 year. The process has been very difficult and there’s many nights I lie awake faced with my own failure on many fronts, trying to clutch at something to make me feel better about my life. It’s not a matter of changing perspective, it’s  trying to change an almost 20 year old self-defense mechanism that I’ve only recently started to understand.

When I figured out after a year of trying to change this with books and good advice, I broke down one night. I felt so utterly miserable and lost. I was not making progress, I was not connecting to my brothers, my family and friends. My colleagues probably didn’t like me or atleast must have thought I was odd and I just couldn’t bear it anymore. To boot, my PhD application fell through in like the last round and that vat of energy was completely depleted.

So in 2015 I turned 30 years old and found out I was completely lost, floating aimlesly, not knowing what I wanted to do with life. I had to crawl up and get my hands on stuff to change. I went to see a specialist, got some coaching going again and started doing some new things. What helped is my girlfriend (now fiancée, ergo new things), listening an talking to me, telling me to face the values I claimed to love. The hardcore thing, keep a positive mental attitude and do things with full conviction. I’m trying to do that really, really hard.

It’s been a tough year and today I got the wind knocked out of me again, but I refuse to give in and give up. And if I learned one thing in all that time, its that if I do feel like that, there’s always someone willing to help. You just need to ask. That’s the self evaluation, tomorrow it’s time to take steps again.

Personal

Solo Cinema Mission

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Today I did something I’ve been wanting to do for years: use my day off to go to a cinema. I went to see Er ist wieder da in the arthouse cinema next to my building. Why did it take me forever to undertake this?

I’ve been realizing all the neurotic, social anxieties that I’ve dealt with during my life recently. From the weird fear of bringing books back too late to the library van to simply not talking to people at the bar or worrying about what others may think of your shoes. Seriously, the depths to which these insecurities run are astounding even to me.

The same was with going to concerts. I’m usually alone at those and I’m worried people may think I’m some sort of sad person without friends or whatever else they may think. I think I might actually behave that way. The cinema seemed like an even sadder place to go visit all by yourself. Guys going to the cinema alone, that’s only in crusty sex cinema’s right? Apparently not.

Today I decided to do it. Not only because I really wanted to see the film, but also because my girlfriend would not get much of this film. I felt like I was taking myself on a date and first went to get some snacks and put on my nice, but comfy clothes and walked to the cinema. The womand did not ask, what I expected her to do, if someone else was coming, but just sold me the ticket. I was not the only solo visitor. Apparently it’s not that odd to go alone on a thursday afternoon.

It’s a strange pleasure, to treat yourself and not feel conscious of anything else in the dark. It’s a good thing to finally do this. Another threshold crossed. Nothing good ever comes from the comfort zone.

Opinions/Views, Words

Paris: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

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I can’t believe the news today
Oh, I can’t close my eyes
And make it go away

– U2, Sunday Bloody Sunday

The title is taken from a book by Jonathan Safran Foer about 9/11. A stunning account of what it could be told like. The title always felt so alien to me, though I remember rushing home to watch those events home and looking at the tv in unbelief. Yesterday in Paris felt exactly like the title suggests, it was so loud that I felt like all music died for a moment. It was so close that it hurt.

I suddenly realized how precious and fragile freedom can be, how easy it is to cause ruin and destruction. By estimates 87 people were killed in a rock club, for no other reason than them not being the other, not being whatever the group responsible believes they should be. I turned around on my chair to my girlfriend, who was looking as lost as I was and I asked her: “What has rock’n’roll ever done to these people?” It felt like a silly question, but it was all that I had in my head. That stupid question, that song that we still sing. Disbelief is a strange thing, it shuts down your brain and comprehension.

She said she was afraid. I said I wanted to fight.

paris

And then I started to put words down. I wanted to write hate, but all I could think of was love. I believe music, like the music the people in that club in Paris were coming to enjoy, is love and not hate. No matter if its black metal, R&B, hardcore punk, techno or classical music, music is a good thing and I love those shared moments at live shows, where we come together regardles of who and what we are to just enjoy the music. All because of love and I love every person there at the concerts I visit. Why? Because I feel part of something, I feel we share the same thing and for a moment we are united.

And therefor I prefer not to say hate, war and fight. I’d prefer to say I love you. Everyone of you, because we all make up this beautiful society filled with all sorts and kinds. All in freedom,  everyone free to be whoever you want to be, but united by music. I refuse to let that be shattered by fear. Next week I’ll be going to see bands again and I won’t be standing there in fear. I’ll stand there , we’ll stand there united for the music, because that is love.

The music died down, but this morning I want to play my favorites. I want to play it loud, because it should never be made silent. So should you.

Much peace, love and death metal to you.

Guido

Opinions/Views

I Am Disappeared: on travel and such

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And on the worst days
When it feels like life weighs ten thousand tons
I sleep with my passport
One eye on the back door
So I can always run
I can get up, shower, and in half an hour I’ll be gone

– I Am Disappeared, Frank Turner

It’s hard to explain how significant my backpack is. It’s not made for months of travelling, but it is made for escape. Escaping is one of the things most often on my mind these days. Don’t take that the wrong way, I don’t believe in the ‘final escape’, but just getting away. I’ve been more quiet and thoughtful and old fears have started to ebb away. I’m 30 years old now and fortunate with many things in my life. Still blood is thicker than water. All my anxiousness seems to point to the door lately.

Another road in another country
Another road in another country

“I feel like one of these days you’ll pack your suitcase and you’ll be gone…”, said my girlfriend to me the other day. What remained unsaid is that she’d be happy to see that, I’m sure that was what she thought. She continued saying that the happiest she’d seen me was when I was travelling, with my bag full of clothes and books. Just that and a road to travel, that is indeed something beautiful to experience. There’s that thing about a bag.

When Orhan Pamuk received a Nobel prize for literature, he did a Nobel Lecture titled ‘My Father’s Suitcase‘. The story is about self-discovery, writing and growth, but there is also this thing about the suitcase of his father, that somehow contained much more meaning than the whole library and all the other things. In that suitcase was the soul, the essence of his father.

There is an essence to life, a basis that is our true source of happiness I believe. It all fits in one suitcase, it’s all you need for your piece of mind. So my backpack would normally contain clothes, toilet gear and books and that is all I need. Take what you can carry and that’s enough. You can’t carry more than what your back can stand and your hands can hold. I think in a way that’s a good metaphor for life itself. Everyone tries to balance so many things in a limited amount of time, which makes them unhappy because there is so little fulfillment to it. It’s a rush from task to task, from hour to hour, which make you forget about the other important element in this story.

The road is a metaphor for life and intertwined with carrying what you can on it. It is a road to a destination and you should be able to enjoy the ride as much as reaching the end goal. In life we’re most often busy chasing many goals ,so we rarely take a moment to look around and enjoy the place we are at, because it never satisfies us. We need more, which is what society drives us to do. Statistics determine the way companties work, not the progress itself. The progress in turn serves the statistics, because tweeking that performance level will bring more invisible wealth to a faceless entity without a soul. People have lost sight of the road, the horizon is all that matters. Finding more possessions, tools and skills tot he point where you’re laden that heavily, that you can no longer move. It’s an utterly horrifying idea to me.

Ont he other side of the continent
Ont he other side of the continent

Humans used to be nomads, traversing from place to place, in order to live, eat, grow and prosper. There was a direct relation between life and travel, which I think touches our essence still. Then we became settlers and soon we became as humans divided in classes of wealth, birth and reverence. It takes away something and replaces it with hollow means. Maybe I’m looking into this too deeply, but I feel that the road and carrying only with you what you can carry brings back a bit of that elementary feeling, the pure essence of being instead of surrounding oneself with hollow, meaningless things.

So I keep my  backpack ready, because life can be rather meaningless when you get confronted with your insignificance on a daily basis. So I make sure I can always run, get to the busstop and go to the airport and get out. In the end, the only thing that matters is the road.