MahdiM - Travelers guide to nowhere

The meat counter in the supermarket smelled like a thousand cows having their body parts evaluated, valued and made into expensive food, cheap food, dog food, cat food and thrash. In that order. The fish counter smelled like the giant floating plastic island in the pacific. With dead fish caught in six pack holders. Like the millions of tiny people caught in the network of cubicles of a large corporation whose input is excel sheets, and its out put is summarized excel sheets. I like it. Makes me feel like home in this modern western world. Makes me feel like i can always expect what somebody will react like when i say something, makes me know how to not push somebody’s buttons. And i never do, god forbid i have to actually talk to somebody. (should i capitalize the g in god? or shouldn’t i? I’m an atheist, but should i anyway? Out of swedish “respect” (cowardliness)?) Note: never mention religion expect if you want to watch somebody try to find the least offensive words ever. They think thrice if any word could be interpreted in any offensive way, and then they utter a sentence one word at a time, usually with no coherence and no meaning. Except the religious right. I want to meet the religious left, see what they are all about. Ask them how they achieve the level of invisibility that nobody ever even wonder why nobody sees them.

If I met Drew Barrymore, the one thing i would say to her would be a quote by her paternal grandfather, John Barrymore, that he said as his last words; “Die? I would say not, my dear friend. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happend to him!”

A while ago I wanted to write. I wanted to get published, I wanted to get recognized.
Not for fame or fortune, simply for survival of my ego and the continued existence of my life. So I went to Hungary, inspired by a friend, and a TED-talk. I toured Budapest, and lived with a Hungarian family. I walked the streets, I went to the festivals, and I saw the bands. I even drank the absinth. But nothing inspired me to write about anything more than my failures. So I went to Barcelona, inspired by the price of the flight. And once again I would move around, I drank the wine, I wandered the alleys, and I observed the beaches. And I decided to go to tangier, Africa. Another country, another continent, and another life would probably make me produce again. But alas, no. I Listened to their music, I followed their traditions, I watched them live, but no. I did not produce, and even if that trip led to getting in contact with somebody in power, somebody whom could get me into the world which I dreamed of. So after a short trip back to Sweden, a meting with a “big-wig” in media, I returned to Africa, to Dakar, Senegal, and tried to write. I got an apartment, got integrated into the city, and lived its life. But still I could not produce. Now I feel like a load has been lifted off my chest, like I have actually made progress. Because I know. I know that I am not in the place where I can write what I need to fulfill the want stated in the beginning of this eulogy to a dream. I simply do not have the capacity or experience. At least not now. And that is my reason for giving up.

Quick update:

Haven’t been uploading much because I find that my writings don’t keep up a standard that I’m happy with. Hopefully this will change though, so keep your eyes out.

Oh yeah, and hooray for Obama!

The more time I spend here I realize that ignorance actually is bliss, that being able sit in the shade of the light of knowledge of the injustice of this world is a trait that though should not be praised, certainly has its perks. More so than I have thought of it earlier. I would not like to live in that shade, under that roof which shields one from the knowledge, but it certainly stings to live in a place where your feeling of guilt never sleeps, where I can never shun away from the suffering, not even for a second.

What I will bring away from this place when I leave I do not know. But it has changed me, and fundamentally how I think about my future. I have given up on some dreams, and where they cease to exist, it feels like no new doors are being unlocked. I have to find a way to utilize what I can do. But for that I need to learn, and most of all, I need to find out what it is I can do.

When I first arrived here, in Dakar, I was full of myself. I hope that has changed a bit.

I could not imagine a more capitalistic place than Dakar. This is economic Darwinism at its extreme, with everybody selling something, all the time. If I want anything from a banjo to a bottle of wine, I need not to go longer than out my door and give somebody the money. Of course I don’t do it, since that would demean the experience.

But when you walk down the street its like your wearing a plaque saying: “Free money.” They will sell you anything, and every street is a market. And they don’t give up. They never give up. It starts out by trying to convince you that they are your friend, and when they realized that you saw through it, they start bargaining with themselves, bringing prices down to half. after that, they get annoyed, and ask what price you are willing to pay, and when you explain that you aren’t interested at any price, thats when they get mad at you and start the screaming. Every streetcorner is a fashionstore. The streets are not just a store, but bedroom and kitchen. Outside of probably one of the more fancy banks, every night I see somebody cooking dinner or sleeping (I’m guessing the flat, relatively clean surface is more comfortable.)

When i depart, i will have spent all my money simply watching. watching people. Uptown gurus, downtown teachers, broke ass artists and dealers and Filipino preachers, leaf-blowers, boob-job doctors, hooligans, garbagemen and your local congressman. Everybody gets this one pointless gift. Everybody gets these two eyes watching them socialize, capitalize, philanthropize and live.

When i depart i will not know more truth than at arrival, that presumably normal night in a hospital in sweden. I will not know less. I will not have contracted nor extracted from or to this world.

If i try to write about it, vindicate it, glorify it or vilify it, i would still just be a player, i will still just be another person living… Trying to live of other people living.

If we were created to spread our genes, then my arrival and transfer is a study in failure. A study in what gives the human pleasure after purpose is ruled out.

Hedonism is after all just the search for release of endorphins. Religion is in the end just the hope for something more than we can see. Science just tries to understand what we already see.

And heritage is still just the small differences in nature and nurture between you and the guy next to you on the bus. Money is only a number with a imaginary value attached to it.

Suicide is still just death, and death is still just the evaporation of interaction with the world. 

Or so we believe.

One cannot be a painter without being poor,
A sculptor without a feel for the homoerotic,
An author without being depressed,
A lover without passion,
Nor married with it.

A flirtatious encounter with the lady behind the espresso-machine. I laughed while she was trying to spell my name, she laughed when I said that she could call me whatever she wanted. She Looked at me shyly while she made the coffee, gave me another 15 minutes later, with her name and number on the papercup, and I though, “Is it the jacket that does it?”.
That kind of shit never happens to my, neither at home, nor on foreign soil.

But, hey, she deserves a call, don’tyouthink?

Through feverish dreams of women and wine, I sing a song of change.

Lady Luck mocked me with rear-end water,

And promises of a continent afar seemed to fade into painful loneliness

So i sing a song of change, and my feet move east

A continent connected with mine, What convenience!

A trip planned for books turns sour when people around you do not share

The experiences of Hari Kunzru or revel at the words of Zadie Smith

What to do? Change of pace and direction!

Moroccans with spite,

Africans as fierce beggars,

Maghreb feels hostile,

I need to catch my breath, even though travels of mine have not been long…