prime

maybe heaven is a do-over. a world where everything happens as it should. where everything goes according to plan. Where the pen drops and the right two people reach for it at the same time; where there is a mix up with the coat check and he returns it to her while his cell phone is still in the coat; where the heel of her shoe breaks just as the two pass each other on the street allowing her to fall into the arms of an attractive bachelor, who just so happens to share her same warped sense of humour, her same obscure taste in music; where the improbable conspires to bring the right people together instead of tear them apart; where every misstep leads to a prayer answered; where every accident is actually an opportunity.

---

eventually, all the pioneers become predecessors

---

disappointment comes in many flavours, and so does joy

---

whosoever shall seek to purchase their sound shall lose it, and whosoever forsakes their sound shall find it

---

"Do you remember a lot about being 25?"

Gerald thought about it for a while.

"It was okay. You feel wiser and smarter than you've ever been before and you also know this is as young as you'll ever be again. It's a good time to be alive."

The cars shone in the afternoon sun, their bodies waxed to perfection.

"So how should I make the most of it?"

Gerald turned around and squinted at his nephew.

"You're asking me?"

"Should I not?"

"Here's my advice: don't listen to my advice."

"Why not?"

Gerald stopped walking and put his hands on his waist.

"Look, I know a couple things about cars and interest rates and politics, but that doesn't mean I know everything. I made a couple of mistakes when I was younger. I had... a very different experience of life compared to you."

"How so?"

"You're really not giving up, are you?"

"Nope."

"I... wasted a lot of opportunities. I pushed away the people who loved me the most and spent my time chasing people who decidedly did not love me at all. I was selfish, arrogant, destructive, cynical."

"So what changed?"

---

25 is the age of hedonism. Of laughter and thrill and distraction. The age of borrowing before lending, of spending before earning, of leaping before looking, of knowing before learning, of doing before dying, of winning before trying, of being before becoming.

---

"We've front loaded life. We've filled it with so many trinkets and goodies and surprises that it's completely possible to go through your twenties and thirties without having to feel lonely. We've designed it to be full of accomplishments, goals, achievements, education, romance, adventure, distractions. There's no space for loneliness anymore; it's wake up, achieve, do this, do that, feel this, try that. Improve yourself. Go to the gym, read books, date girls. We think we've escaped it, but all we've done is delay it. Young people nowadays have no idea how to be lonely without romanticising it, without turning it into a monument, another feather in their cap - or thinking there's something wrong with them. Why do I feel this way? And why does nobody else seem to? And when they're older, and they can't achieve any more, when they've run out of dreams to pine for - they keep dreaming. The chase for them is no longer a pursuit, it's an evasion. They live the remainder of their lives as fugitives from themselves."