Fili’s world

It’s been a year. Only a year. I used to think nothing can really happen in a year. When you have a steady job, pursuing a long academic degree and having a long term relationship, then a year turns into just a meaningless timeframe on your calendar. You lose track of the years you live. Every once in a while, in those rare moments of inner peace you sit back to recall the past year trying to think back on what the past year means to you and then you would usually confront the somewhat sad truth that the past year has been quite similar to the one before it. Sure, there were new experiences, you’ve met some new people here and there, had some happier moments, got a few new low points, but all in all - there was nothing to make that year unique, not even close to rank “special”.

But every once in a while, there’s this one year, this one timeframe, that changes your whole perspective. It will shake you to your very soul and will confront every sense of life and timeframe comparison that you’ve ever had. It doesn’t even have to be a very different year, or a drastic change in the way you’ve been carrying your life. It’s not even about something external or something very noticeable, it could be anything.

The very basic conflict that follows me everywhere is the classical struggle between one’s desire for self expression and self fulfillment and one’s search for acceptance, for finding love and for building close relationships. It’s psychological, it’s religious, it’s political, it’s got to do with everything. For me, the point in time where one decides to make a move to either extremes has always been a mystery, something I couldn’t quite understand or grasp. I would instinctively question the authenticity of such a move and wonder how long it might last. In a way, marriage would qualify as such a move.
Quite a few of my friends have decided to take that special step forward from an “I” to a “We” in this past year. Some have been living together with their partners for a long while before taking this step, which would bring up the “it was a natural next step” saying. For others, they were looking for a soul mate for quite sometime and once they’ve found that special someone it was obvious for them that they want to be as close to their soulmates as is humanly-socially possible. Whether it was a sensational change in attitude or just a natural process, it doesn’t change the fact that the year you decide to get married in, or the year of having your first baby, changes you deep within in ways you’ve never dreamt possible. On several occasions, the process of settling down with a woman you love and watching your children being delivered was described to me as “the essence of being human”.

I’m famous of being envious of other people’s traits. I’ve been envious of different things at different stages of my life, but there was one thing I’ve always been envious at other people for. I’ve always envied people with dreams, with well-defined hopes and fantasies. People who romanticize the world in hope that it will enable their dream to come true. It fills my heart with great joy to meet such a person, and it makes me extremely happy and emotional to see someone realize their long sought dream.
One of my childhood friends, from my repressed high-school years, has made his mark in our world this year as he satisfied his dream for publishing his own self-conducted self-played self-constructed self-assembled unique classical music CD with the world’s finest musicians, having his CD rated as a best seller to be put side-by-side with the world’s greatest and resting together on the same shelf with his own childhood idols. Listening to him talk about his past year, I felt something that I might only describe as an immense euphoria.

We all have different rhythms, different styles, different hopes, fantasies and dreams. If you already had your altering special year, then I embrace you as you’re now able to experience your life in a whole new different way. If you haven’t yet, then I envy you as you will have - sooner or later - one of the most important most significant processes you’ll have your whole life.