A Wanderer's Musings

The wanderer was told: “There are a lot of angry people around made angry by society.”

The wanderer asks: why are they angry? In what way did society contribute to their anger?

The wanderer thinks: I cannot but walk along the road.

Some roads are well kept; others are not. Some roads are wide and empty; others are narrow and busy. Some roads run through the town; others are lost in the wilderness.

But I have to walk the road.

Sometimes I am angry because I get hurt. Sometimes I am tired. At times the road is too narrow. Or too wide. Sometimes I doubt whether it is me who’s doing the walking or my feet are walking for someone else. Sometimes I wonder whether somebody might be counting the wanderer’s footsteps. Sometimes I ask, why not stop? Why keep wandering? Sometimes I ask, why should there be a why? Why ask at all? … And I don’t find an answer and then I seriously get angry at myself for asking in the first place.

The road forces itself on me. It keeps me walking. But it does not determine my pace. Nor the way I walk. I shoulder the burden of my tactics to face the road.

Sometimes I fall and I’m angry – at the road, at my tactics, at myself.

I shout my anger and its echo gets back to me. Loud. Deafening. I fail to understand. I want to tear myself from the road, yet it keeps forcing me down. I walk on my bleeding knees.

But I will get up. I will not look ahead in anger. I’ll look at tomorrow in earnest.