I came home, did the dishes, and then debated whether to pour a drink or brew a cup of tea. On the one hand, the day had been long and confusing; on the other, November had just begun, and we drank tea in November. So, I turned the kettle on, but that did not change the fact that the day had befuddled me. As the kettle whistled and got louder, I thought of talking to the man who came to clean my apartment this morning. Sometimes, in life, you feel remorse for the general state of the world and how we live, how things are, and how no matter where you stand, life is difficult. But it occurs to you that you cannot do much about it but be kind, so you are kind.
Come night, you stand on the balcony, surrounded by the silence of a city that knows all too well that November has arrived. The days are cold and short, and even if they are like that, a lot still happens during the day. You stand thinking about everything—if there is more you can do about everything, sipping tea—and then, you go to sleep. When you wake up, the world spins madly on. The cleaner cleans another house, and you still remember your candid conversation with him as you go through your own day, cleaning your own little messes.
I watched something on the TV the other day. Some robots explored the remnants of a lost civilisation. Through their imagination, they explained what could have happened to the humans, who, in that narrative, were long gone. And at some point, they made the cliched argument of greed and the hubris of humankind, but only a robot can think of life in such absolutes. It is never that easy, and even if it could be that easy, it is never that simple, and those two are seldom the same.
The human experience is terribly unfair, and it is abysmally random. We do not have much, but we have integrity and kindness, but it cannot save anyone. It can only help us rationalise what we feel when we are out and about in the world. It does not change much else. And as I come to an end of my wits about this once again, I realise you cannot end this thought correctly because you never stop feeling it: to live is to continually feel the irony of your existence until you die.