Jumping The Boarder as a Refugee of Time

What is constant through our lives? We are here for so short. Yet, technically, life is the longest thing we are going to experience.  People ask, “What’s the point? Why am I here?” or in derivatives to those angsty broad questions, “I am bored, what do I do?” The passage given ends by saying that, “there was a moment when anything was possible. And there will be a moment when nothing is possible. But in between we can create.” (Hamid 219-220). To decompress the quotation, it must be noted that the speaker is in between the past and future. He notes that at one time everything was possible, but in the future, nothing will be possible. To my understanding, he is talking about time’s affect on us. When young, there are many opportunities. Then you die… In between, and this is where he gives you his answer to the meaning of life, you create.

            The creation of stories he seems to relate to a refugee. To read a story or even write one is to do as the refugees do– survive.  An alternative to drugs is to create in the sense that both are meant to take one out of reality. Think Star Wars or Star Trek. Have you seen the costumes people come up with when they go to these Comicon conventions? These people imitate a different world that was created in a story by people who society actually jibes at for being nerds or socially inept. However, perhaps their creation of different worlds is a perfect reaction to being told that you are a loser– in a different world, you are god.

            There are more productive creations too, however. My father had a rough childhood when he was growing up in Chicago. He was the oldest of 4 and the son of a math teacher and a horrible mother. Essentially, he grew up having to be in charge of his siblings since his father had to work and his mother was a child herself, a mean one too. However, today, my father is perhaps the smartest most interesting, weird, and creative people I know. Because he had such a hard life, he spent most of his time reading. When my uncle, his brother, comes over from Chicago, I remembered him saying as a joke but also a compliment that when growing up, my dad would read Playboy and underline words he didn’t know and go look them all up later. So when people joke, “No, I get Playboy for the articles,” in my fathers case, it might have partially been true.

            On the contrary, my life is incredibly sheltered and easy. So, when I read, it isn’t to take me out of reality, it is usually to learn. To my understanding, I believe this is why many of us sheltered kids groan at the thought of any reading whatsoever. It takes up time we should be spending living. However, what can be learned in a lifetime can also be written in a hundred pages, so perhaps reading is more productive than living.

            I don’t yet know the moment one becomes a refugee of their childhood, but I have a feeling that I am just about to reach my border and jump it on June 9^th.