I got the scar on my left ankle when I was five years old while I was playing hide and seek. I cut my leg on a broken beer bottle. My tendon showed. The one near the navel I got after an operation. Nothing serious. I survived. This one on the cheek – the one you cannot see with the naked eye – that’s from life. It slaps you sometimes. I’ve got used to it.
They say people become wiser with the passing of years, but being a crank myself, I realise the faster they slip away the less I know. They say you learn from other people’s mistakes, but I have to experience mine a couple of times before I even get to realise they were actually mistakes. It seems to me I do not learn anything with the passing of time, but that I actually unteach myself all the things I see other people do. Someone could say I am a rebel, but I would say I love people. In a world in which a coin is worth more than a hug – it boils down to that. As soon as it is perceived that you are not guided by your wallet but your feelings, they start looking at you as if you were a guest in an era you do not belong to, having been banished into exile through a time portal.
Sometimes life puts us to the test not because we should learn something new, but to revise the stuff we have already learned. To check whether we really know something, or it’s just empty talk. To see how we put into practice what we talk about in theory. There are enough A-graders, know-how experts are required now.
New Year’s Eve is a day just like any other. It is an ordinary night separated from dawn by alcohol. A bizarre night confused by our counting. A night scared by firecrackers, shivering with cold like a puppet behind a toilet seat. It is just another repeat of the same night, the same as its yesterday’s predecessor, and even more similar to its tomorrow’s successor.
They teach us from an early age that real men do not cry. In the same way, even before we are born, they paint our room blue, they buy blue dummies, prams and towels. And rompers, bodysuits and baby walkers. Once we learn how to talk, we must know which sports club we support. As soon as we learn how to walk, they put football boots on us, wrap white, yellow and black belts around us. Here, in the Balkans, if you are not a stereotypical man who is 6’7’’ tall and who weighs 15 stone 10 lbs, if you do not have sports medals, a wife and a mistress, you are not a man. This is why children are raised according to stereotypes. In order for them to adjust more easily, and to boost their parents’ low self-esteem.
You can’t escape growing up. It hits everyone. It can be earlier or later for some people. It often happens overnight. All of a sudden. It strikes you at the most awkward moment. Like a fever and shivering at a late hour, it shakes you hard, leaving you completely exhausted to make a confession to the dawn. You grow up even faster at night. In the dark. With no advice, or acceptance or support. Those who have been duly prepared for life are a rare and privileged species. A more common way is to go from a baby walker straight to a hurdle race, from the multiplication table to trigonometry, from riding with training wheels to riding on a motorway. You have no choice but to learn, know and want. In short, you have no choice but to live.
When I have the money, I’ll be happy. When I have a stable relationship, I’ll feel fulfilled. When I have a good job, I’ll be at peace. This sort of perverted logic is typical of twisted minds because we are rarely told and hardly by anyone the truths such as: when you are happy in poverty, money will come later, when you feel fulfilled in your solitude, you will be in a relationship after that, when you feel at peace in your uncertainty, you will get a job afterwards.
There isn’t a person on this planet who doesn’t have his or her ex. Ex-relationships, ex-friendships, ex-jobs, ex-cities. The main difference between ex-people and those who will always exist in our lives is that we ourselves consciously chose all our exes and life conferred upon us people for all times. For example, we did not choose our mother, father, our name, place of birth, but our partners and friends we did for sure, consciously, with sobriety and responsibility, and that is why they have been and will always be a reflection of ourselves.
If you are currently reading this, it means, first of all, that you have finished some schools, that you can read and that you can use modern technology. Also, that means that you have a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in. If you are reading this, it means that you have a computer or a smartphone. Or both. You also have access to the Internet, a paid bill and most likely a bit of extra money left after you pay all the expenses so that you can afford this little luxury. If you are reading this, it means you have time. Free time. At least a little. And that is a big luxury today. All these things put you in the group of only a few million people out of 7 billion people living on this planet at present, and on the local level that puts you in the group of only a few hundred thousand living souls among 7 million Serbs living in Serbia.
Belgrade is an unusual city. It is neither more spectacular nor more beautiful than some other cities, but the most unusual one just because, although it has the word city in its name, it is least of all some kind of settlement with apartment buildings, streets and parks. Everyone living in it knows there is much more to it. Belgrade is a story. Belgrade is a person. Belgrade is a state of mind, a way of thinking and living.
