Dear nightcrawlers,
You can never know how things will work out in the end. So many variables fall into play, a butterfly flaps its wings and I suddenly decide to order pizza instead of burgers, or something of that sort. It's fascinating thinking about how much a single event can change the course of your life, or the universe, or everything, really. A single book can change your whole worldview and shape your future, every single encounter builds up towards your life path.
At points you will face your worst enemy: hindsight. With 20/20 vision we can all make perfect life choices and live happily ever after with rainbows and butterflies and all that crap, but the harsh reality is that we don't have that luxury. It's like when you're taking off your glasses, and after a while you're unable to find them because you're not wearing your glasses. Kinda like waking up and trying to make coffee but needing coffee to wake up and make the damn thing. And you're searching, and everything's a blurry mess, and you're thinking how great life was when you had your glasses on, hoping you had another pair just for these occasions.
Humans are greedy creatures, we will always downplay a situation because we could have gotten more out of it. Someone gives us a choice between two suitcases full of money, and even though we end up richer, we will be frustrated that we picked the smallest amount instead of being happy we actually got a positive net gain. I don't judge us, it's just who we are, but living your life in "what ifs" is not optimal since it hinders your ability to choose wisely in the future, sort of like a hot hand fallacy. When you keep scoring 3-pointers you keep shooting instead of thinking about the alternatives. That's why it's important to fail every once in a while, when you start missing those shots you start thinking more clearly and weighing your choices instead of just shooting on instict.
I've had my fair share of luck and misfortune, and most of the times these two seemed to overlap. I hurt my knee pretty badly a few years back playing football, and I although my chances in making it professionally were negative, it was something I considered myself good at and something I enjoyed doing. At the time of my injury I was going out with a girl I met at a party, and it just so happened that a few hours before our second date I had to inform her that I can't meet her and thus cancel the date. Unfortunately, a week later I was leaving for Cyprus for the summer, thus the second date never took place and we eventually lost touch during the course of my vacations. Now, when I came back I didn't have any hobbies left, and a friend of mine introduced me to a student magazine he was writing of, encouraging me to start writing for them as well, which I gladly accepted since I couldn't kill time playing football anymore. In the writing team there was this girl who I liked but didn't really talk with much, up till my nameday which was the same day as my flight to Cyprus for my knee surgery, when she messaged me to wish me a happy nameday and I think you know where I'm going with this. You gotta think, if I hadn't torn my ligament I wouldn't have cancelled that second date, I wouldn't have started writing and I definitely wouldn't be as into movies as I am today. It's all very How I Met Your Mother-ish, which is why that show resonates with me a lot.
There will come a point though when you've had enough bad luck for a while, and you're starting to think "good god gimme a break". But the universe doesn't work that way, silly. You can't just ask for no alarms and no surprises and expect it to work. In reality, life's full of them. Instead of trying to avoid them you can just learn to adjust better. Resourcefullness is one of the best traits you can have as a person. Knowing when to counter punch and when to take hit when you're on the ropes. Dribbling past any problem that's in your way. There are a ton of sports analogies I can make, but you get the point.
Hell, even this summer I had the (mis)fortune of seeing this in full effect. After a week-long vacation in Spain, it was time for me to return to Greece. Now for some context, this was a week of camping at a festival somewhere near Valencia. Tiring? Sure, but having no responsibilities out of, well, not dying, was pretty damn great. Everyone was dancing and drinking non-stop, there were huge lines of people everywhere and people who seemed to have taken huge lines of various drugs, and at any point I was expecting Wall-E to show up and start stacking up trash because I'll be damned if the place didn't look like something out of a Mad Max movie. People were hiding their booze outside at the beach, since it wasn't allowed in the concert areas, digging holes in the sand or just throwing stuff around as if they were playing the nastiest game of Jenga. Hope that future pirates enjoy cheap vodka and bad sangria. Despite all that, the festival was fucking amazing. The pool parties were the best of the bunch, even if I wasn't one of the brave ones that actually jumped in. I did want to bring back some souvenirs from Spain but an STD wasn't very high on my list.
Now the aftermath? We lost a bunch of phones, some clothes, a smidge of our pride and a lot of our dignity, but we still made it through the week safe and mostly sound; kinda hard to not inherit some sort of illness from all the sand and dirt that was around. Something that stuck with me aside from the aforementioned dirt and sand, was the fact that you could do anything you wanted and nobody would bat an eye, because hell, they probably have seen weirder things already. Dancing like you have been shot with a tranquilizer gun on the ass? Sure, go ahead. Making dirt angels in the sand on the beat of some reggaeton remix? People will probably join you. Shouting football chants while under the influence? Be my fucking guest. It was an exhausting couple of weeks for me, and even though I had a fantastic time, after a certain point I just wanted to chill for a bit. Of course though, things didn't quite turn out that way.
A friend of mine and I were supposed to return to Athens via the Frankfurt airport with a few hours of wait time inbetween flights, but turns out that German pilots were on strike on the day of our departure, something that wouldn't be very surprising in Greece, but damn I had the idea that Germany of all places is immune to these kinds of protests. My friend ended up booking another flight, but my, albeit tired, cheap ass didn't want to miss on the free hotel that I supposed I was gonna get so I decided to stay put until I find a flight back home. After three satisfying meals and a fantastic nap I figured I might as well explore Frankfurt for a bit, wouldn't want to just waste all my time at the hotel.
Around 8 p.m. I start walking towards the city centre to get some money from the ATM and a beer by myself, or so I thought. After getting lost a couple of times and having to climb some sort of hill on a bridge, only to find myself on what looked like train tracks and nothing else, I managed to get the the centre. Reaching the ATM, I get the money but I realize that I can't see the machine returning my card, and in true IT fashion I start pushing random buttons as if it will realize that "gee dude that's exactly the combination of buttons I've been looking for to spit your card right back out". I then call the customer service number that was on the ATM, and a few minutes in I realize I don't actually understand german, hence I have no idea what the guy I called was telling me. A group of friends come out of the vestibule so I ask them if they can help with my situation. I give my phone to one of them who has a very interesting and agreeable 5-minute conversation with customer service, only to tell me that they can't help me cause it's Sunday and the bank's closed, of course.
Being bummed that I wasn't sure the money I had left would suffice for the rest of my trip, since I had no idea when I would be able to fly, I took up to the guys' offer to join them for some beers, I knew I could use the alcohol at that moment. The streets near the main station were filled with drug addicts and trash, something not wholly unfamiliar to someone living in Athens, but a big surprise once again for someone who was visited Germany before. Nevertheless, we ended up going to a weird Colombian/German bar full of drunk middle-aged people and a very enthusiastic and voluptuous bartender. One of the guys who was just returning from the bathroom was very kind to inform us that the coked up dude in the table across from ours offered him some for a very appealing price, but none of us was trully excited to try their luck, or lackthereof. Eventually a few more people joined us, a freakishly tall guy and someone who had just broken up with his girlfriend and was, therefore, pretty damn wasted. I ended up having a ton of fun with those guys and was sad that I had to abandon their company, since I had to check in the airport early in the morning in order to see if I can get a flight out. One of them was travelling to Stuttgart the next day and offered me a place in his car in case I couldn't fly out and I wanted to visit my godparents instead, so we exchanged numbers and I'd update him as soon as I found out about my flight.
My way back to the hotel was not without hiccups either. Google Maps insisted in me going through what looked like an active factory, full with smoke coming out of pipes and all that jazz, so I did just that. I ended up reaching a dead end where the river Rhine was, since the 5-metres-above-ground pedestrian bridge was closed, so I did what anyone would have done: I climbed some rusty, dirty, spiderwebby machinery as if I was freaking Ezio because honestly, I just wanted to get some sleep. I managed to get on the bridge, walk across the river and parkour myself out of it as well. Afterwards it was just a formality of walking through some forest with no lighting using my phone as a torch for half an hour, and a breezy walk towards the hotel. I was eventually able to fly the next morning, and had to refuse the offer to go to Stuttgart, but I was just happy to finally go home.
A few days later I'm shopping at a market near my appartment, I take out my wallet and I see a shiny little thing that resembled the credit card that the evil german ATM selfishly devoured. Turns out I might have blacked out for a few seconds when I was getting money, just enough for me to put the card back in my wallet and not realize it, thus triggering all the events that transpired the previous day. I actually never told my parents about it because we had to cancel the card and go through the trouble to order another one, so in case they end up reading this: I'M SORRY.
Generally, I have so much faith in failing upwards that whenever a misfortune comes my way I scoff, laugh it out and I try to make the best out of a bad situation. I just think that shitty things will eventually happen to you, and a whole lot of them at that. You can always play the percentages and take zero risks, assuming that your goal in life is to just live long and uneventfully. Or you can take some risks, get out of your comfort zone and make your chances count, your moments memorable. Captain Jack Sparrow, amongst many philosophical genious he showcased in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, quotes: "The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Do you understand?" Aye aye captain. I understand.
G'night mateys.
You can never know how things will work out in the end. So many variables fall into play, a butterfly flaps its wings and I suddenly decide to order pizza instead of burgers, or something of that sort. It's fascinating thinking about how much a single event can change the course of your life, or the universe, or everything, really. A single book can change your whole worldview and shape your future, every single encounter builds up towards your life path.
At points you will face your worst enemy: hindsight. With 20/20 vision we can all make perfect life choices and live happily ever after with rainbows and butterflies and all that crap, but the harsh reality is that we don't have that luxury. It's like when you're taking off your glasses, and after a while you're unable to find them because you're not wearing your glasses. Kinda like waking up and trying to make coffee but needing coffee to wake up and make the damn thing. And you're searching, and everything's a blurry mess, and you're thinking how great life was when you had your glasses on, hoping you had another pair just for these occasions.
Humans are greedy creatures, we will always downplay a situation because we could have gotten more out of it. Someone gives us a choice between two suitcases full of money, and even though we end up richer, we will be frustrated that we picked the smallest amount instead of being happy we actually got a positive net gain. I don't judge us, it's just who we are, but living your life in "what ifs" is not optimal since it hinders your ability to choose wisely in the future, sort of like a hot hand fallacy. When you keep scoring 3-pointers you keep shooting instead of thinking about the alternatives. That's why it's important to fail every once in a while, when you start missing those shots you start thinking more clearly and weighing your choices instead of just shooting on instict.
I've had my fair share of luck and misfortune, and most of the times these two seemed to overlap. I hurt my knee pretty badly a few years back playing football, and I although my chances in making it professionally were negative, it was something I considered myself good at and something I enjoyed doing. At the time of my injury I was going out with a girl I met at a party, and it just so happened that a few hours before our second date I had to inform her that I can't meet her and thus cancel the date. Unfortunately, a week later I was leaving for Cyprus for the summer, thus the second date never took place and we eventually lost touch during the course of my vacations. Now, when I came back I didn't have any hobbies left, and a friend of mine introduced me to a student magazine he was writing of, encouraging me to start writing for them as well, which I gladly accepted since I couldn't kill time playing football anymore. In the writing team there was this girl who I liked but didn't really talk with much, up till my nameday which was the same day as my flight to Cyprus for my knee surgery, when she messaged me to wish me a happy nameday and I think you know where I'm going with this. You gotta think, if I hadn't torn my ligament I wouldn't have cancelled that second date, I wouldn't have started writing and I definitely wouldn't be as into movies as I am today. It's all very How I Met Your Mother-ish, which is why that show resonates with me a lot.
There will come a point though when you've had enough bad luck for a while, and you're starting to think "good god gimme a break". But the universe doesn't work that way, silly. You can't just ask for no alarms and no surprises and expect it to work. In reality, life's full of them. Instead of trying to avoid them you can just learn to adjust better. Resourcefullness is one of the best traits you can have as a person. Knowing when to counter punch and when to take hit when you're on the ropes. Dribbling past any problem that's in your way. There are a ton of sports analogies I can make, but you get the point.
Hell, even this summer I had the (mis)fortune of seeing this in full effect. After a week-long vacation in Spain, it was time for me to return to Greece. Now for some context, this was a week of camping at a festival somewhere near Valencia. Tiring? Sure, but having no responsibilities out of, well, not dying, was pretty damn great. Everyone was dancing and drinking non-stop, there were huge lines of people everywhere and people who seemed to have taken huge lines of various drugs, and at any point I was expecting Wall-E to show up and start stacking up trash because I'll be damned if the place didn't look like something out of a Mad Max movie. People were hiding their booze outside at the beach, since it wasn't allowed in the concert areas, digging holes in the sand or just throwing stuff around as if they were playing the nastiest game of Jenga. Hope that future pirates enjoy cheap vodka and bad sangria. Despite all that, the festival was fucking amazing. The pool parties were the best of the bunch, even if I wasn't one of the brave ones that actually jumped in. I did want to bring back some souvenirs from Spain but an STD wasn't very high on my list.
Now the aftermath? We lost a bunch of phones, some clothes, a smidge of our pride and a lot of our dignity, but we still made it through the week safe and mostly sound; kinda hard to not inherit some sort of illness from all the sand and dirt that was around. Something that stuck with me aside from the aforementioned dirt and sand, was the fact that you could do anything you wanted and nobody would bat an eye, because hell, they probably have seen weirder things already. Dancing like you have been shot with a tranquilizer gun on the ass? Sure, go ahead. Making dirt angels in the sand on the beat of some reggaeton remix? People will probably join you. Shouting football chants while under the influence? Be my fucking guest. It was an exhausting couple of weeks for me, and even though I had a fantastic time, after a certain point I just wanted to chill for a bit. Of course though, things didn't quite turn out that way.
A friend of mine and I were supposed to return to Athens via the Frankfurt airport with a few hours of wait time inbetween flights, but turns out that German pilots were on strike on the day of our departure, something that wouldn't be very surprising in Greece, but damn I had the idea that Germany of all places is immune to these kinds of protests. My friend ended up booking another flight, but my, albeit tired, cheap ass didn't want to miss on the free hotel that I supposed I was gonna get so I decided to stay put until I find a flight back home. After three satisfying meals and a fantastic nap I figured I might as well explore Frankfurt for a bit, wouldn't want to just waste all my time at the hotel.
Around 8 p.m. I start walking towards the city centre to get some money from the ATM and a beer by myself, or so I thought. After getting lost a couple of times and having to climb some sort of hill on a bridge, only to find myself on what looked like train tracks and nothing else, I managed to get the the centre. Reaching the ATM, I get the money but I realize that I can't see the machine returning my card, and in true IT fashion I start pushing random buttons as if it will realize that "gee dude that's exactly the combination of buttons I've been looking for to spit your card right back out". I then call the customer service number that was on the ATM, and a few minutes in I realize I don't actually understand german, hence I have no idea what the guy I called was telling me. A group of friends come out of the vestibule so I ask them if they can help with my situation. I give my phone to one of them who has a very interesting and agreeable 5-minute conversation with customer service, only to tell me that they can't help me cause it's Sunday and the bank's closed, of course.
Being bummed that I wasn't sure the money I had left would suffice for the rest of my trip, since I had no idea when I would be able to fly, I took up to the guys' offer to join them for some beers, I knew I could use the alcohol at that moment. The streets near the main station were filled with drug addicts and trash, something not wholly unfamiliar to someone living in Athens, but a big surprise once again for someone who was visited Germany before. Nevertheless, we ended up going to a weird Colombian/German bar full of drunk middle-aged people and a very enthusiastic and voluptuous bartender. One of the guys who was just returning from the bathroom was very kind to inform us that the coked up dude in the table across from ours offered him some for a very appealing price, but none of us was trully excited to try their luck, or lackthereof. Eventually a few more people joined us, a freakishly tall guy and someone who had just broken up with his girlfriend and was, therefore, pretty damn wasted. I ended up having a ton of fun with those guys and was sad that I had to abandon their company, since I had to check in the airport early in the morning in order to see if I can get a flight out. One of them was travelling to Stuttgart the next day and offered me a place in his car in case I couldn't fly out and I wanted to visit my godparents instead, so we exchanged numbers and I'd update him as soon as I found out about my flight.
My way back to the hotel was not without hiccups either. Google Maps insisted in me going through what looked like an active factory, full with smoke coming out of pipes and all that jazz, so I did just that. I ended up reaching a dead end where the river Rhine was, since the 5-metres-above-ground pedestrian bridge was closed, so I did what anyone would have done: I climbed some rusty, dirty, spiderwebby machinery as if I was freaking Ezio because honestly, I just wanted to get some sleep. I managed to get on the bridge, walk across the river and parkour myself out of it as well. Afterwards it was just a formality of walking through some forest with no lighting using my phone as a torch for half an hour, and a breezy walk towards the hotel. I was eventually able to fly the next morning, and had to refuse the offer to go to Stuttgart, but I was just happy to finally go home.
A few days later I'm shopping at a market near my appartment, I take out my wallet and I see a shiny little thing that resembled the credit card that the evil german ATM selfishly devoured. Turns out I might have blacked out for a few seconds when I was getting money, just enough for me to put the card back in my wallet and not realize it, thus triggering all the events that transpired the previous day. I actually never told my parents about it because we had to cancel the card and go through the trouble to order another one, so in case they end up reading this: I'M SORRY.
Generally, I have so much faith in failing upwards that whenever a misfortune comes my way I scoff, laugh it out and I try to make the best out of a bad situation. I just think that shitty things will eventually happen to you, and a whole lot of them at that. You can always play the percentages and take zero risks, assuming that your goal in life is to just live long and uneventfully. Or you can take some risks, get out of your comfort zone and make your chances count, your moments memorable. Captain Jack Sparrow, amongst many philosophical genious he showcased in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, quotes: "The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Do you understand?" Aye aye captain. I understand.
G'night mateys.
