Reaching "the end of India"
Symbolic but unpretty southernmost tip of India - Cape Comorin and few words about freedom
Today I reached “the end of India” – the southernmost tip of Indian subcontinent – Cape Comorin.
One thing is for sure: from now on I’m going north.
There is a story, that when Alexander the Great reached India, he sat down and cried, because there was nothing left to conquer: he conquered the whole world. He was 32 years old*
Here I am at Cape Comorin, staring at the end of the Ancient World, turning 32 in 3 weeks, and I could hardly say, that there is nothing left to conquer: I’m jobless, wifeless and girlfriendless, childless and (at least temporarily) homeless. 2013 would better be an extraordinary year if I want to match Alexander the Great before I’m 33 :-)
But, despite being job/wife/child/home–less I do have one “thing”, that most of people do not have, or at least they think that they do not have: Freedom.
I’m free to do whatever I want to and go wherever I want to, well, at least until money and health run out (whichever comes first). But freedom is not something that automatically ought to be envied. I found out that freedom has no practical value. It doesn’t bring any money, roof to sleep under, lovers or friends, actually it’s rather the opposite – the more freedom you want to have the more you will be separated from those things and all other guarantees we all strive for. As mentioned in “Me and Bobby McGee” (written by Kris Kristofferson, made famous by Janis Joplin and cited on the wall of my apartment in Bratislava): Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
But, despite the fact that freedom does not have any practical value, the value of that feeling inside of you, which it brings, is priceless, innumerable. I could write on Facebook things like my boss is a fucking idiot or I suck cocks for money or I love Modern Talking - if any of that would be true, which it is not – without having to fear loss of job or social reputation or whatever. Well, I’m not writing things like this, but I could – and this feeling of freedom, or at least latent freedom is something, that makes overwhelming difference in my (and anybody’s) life.
PS: Yes, of course I’m a hypocrite, just like everyone else :-) and in few months or years, I will be probably sitting on office chair, shivering about what my boss says, but at least right now I can hope that I will not.
* This story is surely not true, because Alexander did reach India but did not conquer it. He conquered only westernmost part of India, which he believed was 1000km from end of the world, when his army mutinied and he was forced to turn back. But I remember this story like this (from school?)
