One Place
In the end, if you take care
You can be happy or unhappy anywhere.
"One Place," Everything but the Girl
His third hotel room in so many weeks, 2,500 kilometers cross-crossing the Philippines and Asia: he sat now on his bed typing, with only the television to keep him company, and the whir of the air conditioning to lull him to sleep. He found consolation in this anonymity.
Being alone in a city that did not know him, around people he would never see again, there was a feeling that the past did not matter anymore, and that he could be anyone he wanted to be, at least for the meantime. He walked the streets not knowing where he was, but always with a feeling that a surprise was just waiting around the corner.
Why is it that places and pasts are always so inextricably linked? he wondered. Why is it that history and existence always happen in a particular milieu, a particular setting, with a particular set of people and a particular set of truths, which cannot really be chosen or undone? He was dasein, thrust into reality, condemned to choose (as the philosopher tells us), condemned to be free.
But all that was unimportant now. It was enough that he was in a new place, traveling, moving around. He knew he could not outrun the past, of course, and not that he wanted to—futile exercise that it was. But here, he could, for the meantime, in this one place, in this one city, choose the promise of a now and of a future. Perhaps that was what it was all about, anyway: change, living with what is given, but choosing the now and the future nonetheless, where ever he may be. He knew that with this hope in his heart, no matter where his travels or his tribulations took him, he would always still somehow find his way home.
You can be happy or unhappy anywhere.
"One Place," Everything but the Girl
His third hotel room in so many weeks, 2,500 kilometers cross-crossing the Philippines and Asia: he sat now on his bed typing, with only the television to keep him company, and the whir of the air conditioning to lull him to sleep. He found consolation in this anonymity.
Being alone in a city that did not know him, around people he would never see again, there was a feeling that the past did not matter anymore, and that he could be anyone he wanted to be, at least for the meantime. He walked the streets not knowing where he was, but always with a feeling that a surprise was just waiting around the corner.
Why is it that places and pasts are always so inextricably linked? he wondered. Why is it that history and existence always happen in a particular milieu, a particular setting, with a particular set of people and a particular set of truths, which cannot really be chosen or undone? He was dasein, thrust into reality, condemned to choose (as the philosopher tells us), condemned to be free.
But all that was unimportant now. It was enough that he was in a new place, traveling, moving around. He knew he could not outrun the past, of course, and not that he wanted to—futile exercise that it was. But here, he could, for the meantime, in this one place, in this one city, choose the promise of a now and of a future. Perhaps that was what it was all about, anyway: change, living with what is given, but choosing the now and the future nonetheless, where ever he may be. He knew that with this hope in his heart, no matter where his travels or his tribulations took him, he would always still somehow find his way home.
