“Infected as younger writers are today by the current passion for caution in everything.”

“A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.”

I had come from a meeting of science in Mainz.  I sped through green terrain similar to my homeland of Wisconsin by train. I had no energy to wield the pen. Tired but optimistic,  I started my first evening in Berlin with a dinner of white spargel topped with hollandaise, bread, two Biers, and finished with a coffee, passionfruit, and chocolate dessert. I made a comment to the French waitress of my unusual dinner, and she said in English:

“This is Berlin, everybody is free here, why not?”

As I was eating I watched a woman in her fifties walking in moderate speed and resolve towards a garbage can.  She started to angrily spearhead beer bottles into a garbage can, one bottle at a time standing about a foot away from the garbage can. She missed two times and bottles crashed onto the ground spreading glass everywhere. She kept her stance and endurance even as the bottles crashed, she was consistent. People watched on, doing nothing to stop her. A man walked up to my table and said,

“This is why I love Berlin, you never know what you are going to see from one moment to the next.”

A young child strutted by my table with a shirt and no pants performing his own personal kick line in front of the people at the cafe I was at.

I went to bed early that evening and awoke on a quest to find some breakfast. I tuned into WWOZ trying to remain within New Orleans grasp. I looked what was near my place and found a cafe nearby. As I walked up to the cafe church bells rang as families crowded outside anticipating the mid-morning service. I sat outside and sipped on my coffee watching the local crowd. Strollers being pushed to parks, churches, meetings not being held at nightclubs.

It was nice to observe stable ground in a cracked cobblestone history leading to absolute expression of freedom. Who ever said freedom need not have all of the components of a conformed society? What if one had the choice to live in a place where everyone coasts in a dream of self-expression and choice?

Greenfinches cried out, and two cars slowly rolled by the cafe as I drank my coffee.

Our world has had enough of this peaceful scene. Peace brought us television dinners, peace brought highways leading to nowhere, peace brought us room to think of other matters such as the role of everyone who is different. Peace brought us bellowing drums yelling out forbidden beats that defy all logic. Peace brought us one blue chair, one pink chair, and one blue chair all fit for the size of a child.

Peace brought us light blue tribal button down shirts and tribal tattoos. Peace brought floral jungle designs to hide the boxes that give us promises that something better is always out there.

Dark skies loom above, a storm brews.

Parfait, we can sit by the television. It is alright, we need not talk or think any longer. A pen is a weapon as to a beer in this city but which will win? The clouds break off in the distance, Berlin’s blurriness becomes clear.

Cell phones are on the table everywhere, strewn about, looking for the next fix. A maple tree stands by laughing soft laughter its children leaves dancing around. Wind pushing each leaf to a graceful dance until it falls off onto the ground. This is the generation of freedom with little to no responsibility other than themselves and the bent down neck of towards the treasured marketed capsule.

Suppressed anxiety shapes in an abundance of forms. If Berlin is free, then do not look to the west any further for freedom. Look above for the answers. The answer you are seeking is not in any newer civilization, for civilizations are old as the next, we only take away from nature everywhere we go.

You will not find freedom on this planet, as a tangible item. The party never has to end. When it does I know I want to live under the stars with Jean Paul Reddit while others flip through un-vogue ways of being authentic. But now I understand this is a sport.  The players think they can win externally but the prize is in their own minds.

For the cream that drips from your cone to the ground, to the rising mountains of cigarette butts and stone. The pioneers of thought lift their heavy feet, walking towards some truth.The pioneers of thought, heavy with the thought of a world where hashtags exist.

It is much more interesting to wait on the corner of Yorkstrasße and Mehringdamn than to crouch over the marketed capsule.  Can a landscape so tread by creatures over centuries of years ever yield freedom? People keep trying and trying as the branches of the tree laugh shift with soft winds of grace.

Don’t hang around any band too long, you too, need the airs.