It’s 1 am in the morning or at night, As I sit here on my backyard patio Smoking my cigarettes, thinking my thoughts. And the wind picks up and rolls the dead leaves on the ground Letting me know that the summer was over. It is over, man. All over. As the cigarette burns and the trees shake off the dead leaves And I sit here and wonder, Getting more drunker and older and cold. I am on my seventh beer, and the night is still young. But sadly, I am not young anymore, as I age by the minute Rolling through my life like the dry yellow leaves blown by the wind, Out of my mind and out of my youth. I am not getting younger, but I always wanted to be strong, To be a true man, gentleman, to be an independent person. But I am so weak as I still depend on so many things Like those cigarettes, like that beer, like that night, Like those leaves and the trees in my backyard. The air is getting colder, and the wind blows harder, And I know I have to get back inside. I have to get back to the house, To my family, to my bed, to my life. It is Friday night in Pennsylvania, And all I have is another six hours of sleep And another six-pack of beer, and there’s Another three cigarettes left in the pack To keep me going through the night like a renegade, Like a monster, like a lost soul. And just like that, another new poem came to be. A fresh new poem after a while. And I am happy to have you again. It’s been a long time, my friend, It’s been a long life.
I don’t know what I don’t know, but I do know something. It is hard to tell if I am wrong or right most of the time, but I have a logic to my madness. I don’t even know where all the madness comes from, but it is there. It is near. I can feel it. I can see it. I am it in a way. We are all crazy in one way or the other, and this is how this world works, and this is how this life works. It makes us all fucking crazy, you know it or not. The chaos can drive people crazy as much as too much discipline. We all try to bounce left or right or up and down to keep our balance, but it is not always easy. It is never easy. Nothing is easy, and nothing is free. Somebody has to pay for your lunch. We have the wisdom there is. We have philosophers, writers, and so many smart people to guide us, but we rarely listen. We’d rather make our own mistakes and learn from them, hopefully. What is the recipe for a happy life? Who knows? Everybody’s life is different, and everybody should take their own path. Still, somehow we all wind up in the same pile of shit, madness, confusion, misery, depression, desperation, and so on. And then we are trying to get out, realizing what has happened to us. We are stumping on each other, pushing each other out of our way, making our way out, and then falling deep down into an even bigger pile of shit. That is life. It is crazy. It is chaotic, and we have to find our way, our path, our love, our madness, and some cigarettes and wine to make it a smooth ride home.
I’ve been going crazy for a very long time now. It is not just one thing that derailed me. There are plenty. Like losing a job. Losing the only income for the family. Not being able to provide anymore while relying on governments support. Losing people around me, losing friends, losing my mind and soul, to what? There was nothing to make me happy and nothing satisfied. All those books, meditations, warm summer weather, and the birds in the sky, nothing mattered. I always knew one truth. And the truth is that nothing will remain the same. Things will change. Things will turn around, and I will be a different man living a different life, a better life. I never knew when that moment would come, but I knew it would, sooner or later. And it fucking did. I never realized how much I was sucked into the system, the same system that was eating me alive, feeding me bullshit, and sucking me in deeper and deeper each day. Now that I have been out of it for a long time, I know that I didn’t matter, the system didn’t matter, the bullshit didn’t matter, and that you could live without all that shit. I couldn’t see clearly then. But now I do.
The dark clouds obscuring my vision have vanished, and the sun came up over my head, and while it was blinding me during the daylight, I could see like never before. My senses came back, the smile on the blank face reemerged, the meaning of life returned, or at least the feeling of one came back to me to help me get out of that hole. Today is a new day. It is a better day for many reasons. The main reason is that I am still alive and kicking. The other reason is that I have something to live up to and go after, and the realization that the writer inside of me was still there. He was scared, shy, not interested, and not willing to be present when I needed him, but he was back, and so was I. Also, my closest people are still with me, which means they are real, they are true, and they are my people. It means that life is worth living for.
And just like that, there goes another cold drink and another pack of cigarettes. This is all meant to help me get the fuck out of my head, take it easy, forget, ignore, procrastinate. Was it helping? Fuck if I know. Rather distracting. But that is the only way I know how to deal with tough shit in life. Countless bottles of alcohol and cigarettes and so many dark, long nights and dark, sad thoughts about my future and miserable present, and I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as of recently. I think I do. There isn’t much of light, but it beats darkness, as Bukowski said long ago. That is a perfect poem and a perfect line. I wish I read it sooner. I wish I had understood so many things sooner; I wouldn’t have to be in the same dark hole. I guess we all learn a few things about life a little too late after the fact. I think this is how life works for most people. Definitely for me. I have to burn myself, sometimes multiple times, to learn my lessons and clearly see what is what and who is who.
I am not a bad man, but I am a sad man. I am sad most of the time, and there is sadness in anything I see, good or bad. It is all around me. I am sad about the present because there is always too much shit to deal with and battle through. I am sad about the future because I can see none. All I can see is the darkness and nothing. I am sad about my three years old son, who was lucky to be born here in this country, but the future, just in general, is not promising anything good long-term. Somehow, as optimistic as I am, I try to stay true to myself and real and cold-headed, which leads me into darkness and sadness. Fuckness. Things just seemed so smooth and easy and fun when I was younger. Somehow, when you become an adult, and I think this is part of becoming an adult, is that you see things from a more realistic and also consider all the obstacles and dangers; you know that this world is just full of shit and madness. I don’t require much. I am not a selfish and delusional asshole; I know exactly what and how much I want in this life. The bare minimum, like a quiet and free life by the beach, worryless. I want to live my life, do my thing, and never worry about any bills to pay or economic crisis, recessions, crazy politicians, climate change, cancer, traffic, jobs, and misery of it all. I just want to live for a moment and be able to enjoy it fully. Is it that much to ask for?
The romance of the youth is a disaster plan for an adult. It takes time to realize those things. It takes time, casualties, years, broken hearts, hundreds of cigarettes, and gallons of liquor to figure it all out. There is no easy way to learn it otherwise. Nothing is meant to be easy. You and I had to face the real issues face to face and stay strong in our beliefs and push our way out of the bullshit and into a better life if we only could. Things that seemed so glorious and great at one point in time don’t seem so great all the time. Later on, many of those great things seem like a bunch of dumb ideas.
We change. Our thoughts and beliefs change. Our jobs change. Our life changes, and so do the stock market indexes and the weather and all those things. And who knows the real truth of it all? Who knows the right path anymore? I don’t. Maybe it is better not to know. Maybe living in constant expectation of a surprise or a disaster is the way to go. That is a good question to ask and look for an answer years from now. Time will tell. Time never sleeps, never rests, and doesn’t give a shit about you and me and our problems and issues. It always keeps moving. We should always keep moving. Movement is life. Life requires some basic movement. It’s that simple.
It has been some time since I sat down to write something new. Life’s been busy, you know? Life happens as we speak. One thing that changes as you grow older and become a family man is that time becomes more of an essence, is always short and passes by quickly. Back in my youth, I noticed time passing slowly. I always waited for things to happen; they couldn’t happen fast enough. Things have changed since then. I have changed since then. Once a careless lad with nothing to worry about but going to school, getting passing grades, and then making some money on the side from my never-ending restaurant job and now I have adult responsibilities like going to work every day, contributing to my 401K plan, feeding my family, raising a son, and making timely mortgage payments and so on. There is no time to smell the roses. There is no time to get a proper amount of sleep. There is no time to rest on the couch with a beer in my hand and a movie to watch for the evening. There is almost no or minimal time for writing. Where did all the youth go? Where are all the friends now who were so much around? Where is that warm sunshine of the good old young days that blinded us back in the day with its light and made us act on the impulse and live for the moment? Fuck if I know.
It’s warmer now outside. Mid-February feels like mid-April, and that makes me feel better. Winter depression seems to evaporate as the early warm sunshine fills the day with its presence, fooling us into believing that Spring is here. I wish this would be the case. The days are getting longer now, and there is more sunshine than I ever remember during winter. The temperatures are up across the country, and global warming doesn’t seem like a problem to most. This early warm weather makes me feel young again. I reminisce about the days of my youth when things just started to happen to me. All those things I did, and some I still do, made me the person I am today. I love to go back down memory lane, thinking about how it was. I never knew where I would end up in a few years, not even a few days from now. I enjoyed most of it. I knew that this was me exploring the world, getting my hands on and my thoughts about adult life, trying to become part of society, trying to become a grownup, trying to write my first lame poetry.
I got a few calls from different people I knew in the past since the new year began. We were all, in one way or another, close back in the day and had some shared history we lived through together. Each of those three represents a certain point in my past life, and it was interesting to go back in time in my head and recall the events from the past. I remembered how I felt about things and people back then, what was on my mind back then, what issues I had to deal with, and how I felt. And mainly, the most exciting thing was that I felt like I did back when I was young, and I just faced life straight and was trying to figure it all out.
Somebody from the past, whom I hadn’t seen or heard about in fifteen years, resurfaced in my life and reached out to me, and we chatted. It seemed that time was standing still between us all those years. I was happy to reconnect and revisit where we left off. Some people never change, whether good or bad. This person did not fucking changed at all, and I went straight back down the time capsule, and it felt great. We talked about the friends we knew and hung out with back in the day. Most of them are not friends anymore. There are reasons we do not hate each other; we just took different paths in life. If I met some of those friends today, we’d have smiles and laughs, and it would be cool to see one another. I was surprised to get these kinds of calls anymore. I was surprised that after so many years with no contact, somebody decided to reach out to me and was interested in reconnecting and meeting up again. I rarely get any calls from people I still am close friends with. But once somebody reaches out to me from fifteen years ago, it makes me wonder. It makes me feel happy in a way. Since we all grew up and became adults, most of us with families now and busy daily lives. Many things we used to do, and many people we used to hang out with, dropped off from our lives. It usually happens that way if there is no reason to or if there are no circumstances that keep us together; those relationships disappear with time. The more I think about the past, about my past life, the more I am convinced that regardless of how tough and uneventful it seemed to me back then, looking back, it was a great fucking life.
Music was always in my life. Music, just like the scent, has this incredible ability to bring back our memories. I often go back to listening to music I loved listening to in the past. I think of something from the past, and then I pull the album or a playlist or a song and play it. I play the shit out of it while I think and reminisce. I often go back to the older recordings or albums and revisit them repeatedly. A lot of time, I find something new to me that I haven’t noticed before. There is something closely relatable in the lyric, or there is a chord progression or a sound that I missed when listening to this song earlier, but now I cannot help but focus on that and think about it more and how it resonated with me and how it all makes me feel today.
It feels good to look back at my early struggles, whatever they were back then, and how things changed and I overcame all of that shit, and I am still around, with a wine glass in my hand, with a family in my house, and with two self-published books out there in the world. No struggles are permanent, and nothing will last forever. Shitty ones always follow happy moments, and they exchange one another repeatedly. I have noticed that during my shittiest moments, usually because of my workplace, my creative juices flowed like a fucking Niagara Falls. I wasn’t even thinking about any creative ideas as I so them everywhere around me. I thought about writing them down, writing my stories, my poems, and even thinking about my yet-to-be novel, but most of it just stayed in my mind then. I want to capture all of them somewhere in the box and use them as needed later. I knew that my job was shit, my boss was an asshole, my coworkers were not as nice as they pretended to be, and neither did they give any fucks about me, my life, and my career. I knew I didn’t belong there. I still don’t relate to most people or belong to organizations, and jobs, making me a weirdo and a more authentic individual. At this point in my life, I am very familiar with myself as a person, who I am, what I do, what I want, what I like, and where I want to be, and that is all that matters. I no longer depend on or give a shit about others’ opinions as I know I am not living my life for anybody but me. And I am going to make it worthwhile.
Sitting here today makes me wonder what the future is going to bring. Will the future be kind to me? How much more shit do I have to go through before I feel complete and fully satisfied? Am I on the right path? What the fuck is the right path anyway? The only way to find out is to live it and see it. Nothing will happen unless I take action. Tomorrow will be here regardless of whether I will be here. Tomorrow will depend on my decisions from today and from before. I am in charge of my tomorrow, and you are in charge of yours. I wish this early Spring weather stays here until the summer, but I know that the fucking winter is not done yet with us. There is always a proper time for everything. The day is always followed by night. Nature has its balance. Nature has its laws. It’s us who don’t have any of it or don’t follow any of the rules, and a lot of time, common sense, and we are all running around and freaking out about every little stupid shit. But while we are here today, we can all enjoy the incredible beauty of nature and the sunshine above our heads. It is a perfect time to capture and enjoy these pleasant brief moments of our lives and the early Spring and be young at heart as we once were.
Life goes. It goes down and up and sideways. But it always keeps moving all the time. And then, the next minute, you realize that you’ve grown old, and the person in the mirror is somebody else. You still feel young and think you are a young and careless lad, but you are an adult now. This happens in life. Life happens. And honestly, it is good to get older and to look older because you got a chance to be here for a while. It is unfortunate to see someone young go into eternity before their time. The fact that you and I have a chance to wake up every morning to live our lives and do our things no matter how dull is a gift. It is a gift that not everyone appreciates or even stops to think about. But we should. We all should just stop the crazy nonsense of the day and think about ourselves, who we are, what we’ve become, what we are doing, and how we spend our limited time here on Earth.
I always thought that I lived the most boring and uneventful life. The life that doesn’t even have too many stories to talk about. I never had anything out of the ordinary happening to me. I have never been to many exciting places or done too many great things. I have nothing to brag about. Sure, after thirty-five years of living, anybody has something to say. Anybody has seen or done something interesting at some point in their lives. It may not be the experience that wows too many people, but it is our life story. I spend the holiday time off reminiscing about the good old days. The young and formative days when my hair was down to my shoulders, the ear piercing, or even before that time, the days when I looked as I would today call a child, but then I thought I was the shit. These are some great memories. Watching all those pictures of young myself with my friends doing things back in the day was a great experience and much-needed time to analyze and go over the past to see where I came from.
I remember how everything felt like for the first time. The first time not spend the night at home. The first job. The first paycheck. The first love. The first sex. The first car. The first fight. The first major disappointment. The happy days and the sad ones. The best friends and the worst friends. Hanging out until late at night, getting drunk, getting yourself into trouble, getting yourself out of trouble. There’s just so much that we go through in life, and there is also so much to learn from. But whatever you did back then, good or bad, made you who you are today. I don’t think I would ever want to go back in time and fix my shit. I don’t think that would help nobody. That would change history, my life, and who I have become.
I remember my circle of friends back then in my young days. Very few of those friends remained good friends today. At one point, we lived together, did things together, and had ordinary day-to-day life and the same problems. Now, as we all grow up and are adults, things are very different. We have wives, children, mortgages, jobs, and our problems are real and serious now. There is no time to have a beer on a random day just because there is nothing else to do. There is no time to hang out late into the night, smoking cigarettes and telling chokes and stories. The saddest part is seeing the pictures of your friend who is no longer alive. Who would ever think of that back then? We all thought we would live together into old age. I remember when I was young, that time was never a concern or issue. The only problem with time was the wait. I always waited for something to happen. Waiting until I am old enough to drive a car, old enough to get a job, old enough to buy a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of booze. Waiting until I am rich enough to continue to live this worryless life and have fun all the time. Looking at those pictures made me sad. It brought a lot of great memories. I felt the same as I used to back then for a brief moment. The power of the past. It was hard to find any serious pictures of us. We always did something fun. We always smiled, laughed, made faces, and made funny postures in those pictures. This is how I will remember that time, with a bright smile on my face. We were so alive and happy, and nothing would take this away from us but time.
Teens and twenties are a fucking worst times to live through. I don’t think I am the only one thinking that. People say you’re young and have your health, youth, and so much ahead of you. But what do you really have? Or what does an average teenager or twenty-years old really have? They have a whole bunch of shit to deal with. That’s what’s ahead of them. On the one hand, yes, it is a great time to be young and careless and have fun at your parent’s expense, but on the other, you are just drowning in the shit of life deeper with every year trying to figure out who you are, who you want to be, what is your purpose, what should you be doing with your life. I went through so much bullshit, stress, and anxiety that I would not want to return to those days to relieve myself again. Fuck that. I am happy and fortunate to have come out of it alive and kicking, and luckily for me, I’ve made some right choices in this life. I don’t have tattoos on my face, and I am not in jail or living on the street corner. That’s not true for so many others, though. Life takes time to figure out. It takes your whole life to figure this motherfucker out. You learn as long as you live. Try to explain this to a twenty-year-old.
Most of them are in school or college or a university, trying to get educated, getting a shit ton of loans to get the education which might not work out in the end. When you’re young, you have to deal with school shit, deal with or without your girlfriend or your boyfriend, deal with anxiety, stress, depression, bad habits, your classmates, your teachers, your neighbors, your shitty jobs, your shitty cheap cars, and so on. Throughout my time in college, I had no idea who I wanted to be, but I had to pick a major that I thought would work out for me well and I will be able to find a job after. Back then, a hundred dollars was a lot of money. My tunnel vision was too fucking narrow and nearsighted. I couldn’t think too far ahead or see much of anything to have a better plan. I had to eat the shit, be miserable and somehow get up and move forward. I had to switch to part-time schooling because I saw more value in working a blue-collar job at the wood factory, manufacturing fucking tables, closets, and countertops by making sixteen dollars per hour. That was a low-hanging fruit for me, and I knew I had to show up and do some work from 6:30 AM to 4 PM and punch out my card. I could only see that far ahead. I couldn’t see too far looking at my education path.
I was lucky to get my shit together and graduate from a junior college to attend a four-year school. That was a different kind of animal, much more expensive, and so much harder to study and follow the all-new rules and keep up with the schedule and assignments and exams. I remember going to bed one night, shutting down the lights, and crying. Crying as I used to back in my childhood days when my father would beat the shit out of me for something I did wrong. I was crying because I was failing the class because I couldn’t keep up with the learning material. I knew early on that I was a fuck-up, and this school wasn’t in my league and wasn’t even close to my family’s ability to pay for it. And now, with all these thousands of dollars in debt and all those efforts my mother put into me by working three jobs at a time, I was failing her and myself. I gave up on myself that night. My tears were falling like Niagara Falls, but there was no way out for me. I knew I would be miserable today, but I had to get my shit together tomorrow and make it all work.
I also had to work part-time at a restaurant on the weekends and study full-time during the week. At the restaurant, the work seemed like nothing. It was fun. It was my time off from anything else that was going on in my life. Also, we could drink alcohol at work, and pretty much all those years were full of insane hangovers and sleep deprivation mix-up with cigarette smoke. This was my twenties, people. Then all hungover and tired, I would show up to my classes on Monday after a long, tiring, and drinking weekend, trying to educate myself. Fuck, these were some crazy times. I never knew who I really wanted to be in life. I picked the major, but it all was foggy and unclear and too difficult to imagine this adult life I was preparing myself for. I remember looking at the expensive car with nicely dressed and good-looking people and thinking, damn, they’ve made it. I want to be like them one day. I want to achieve something in this life. I couldn’t even realize what life would bring for me in the next ten years and how things would turn around. I guess if you were not born into wealth, you have a very long and exhausting road ahead of you. Few people can come from total misery and break into the rich men’s world. Many people are stuck in poverty with their proletarian mindsets, and they never break through anything.
Life is also a journey, and it ends whenever it does. Nobody knows when our time will come. Nobody should know this either. We all have to make the best out of today. Live to the fullest and enjoy every little moment because we have this great opportunity to do so. And no matter how much older we’ve become, we all should feel like those youngsters in those old pictures of us, smiling, happy, and free. They might not bring back our youth, but they will remind you how it was once. Amen.
There are moments when I feel like I’ve exhausted my creative sources. The well has dried up. I don’t know what else to do. I sit and fucking wonder, and nothing will come to me. No ideas. No creativity sparks. I just sit there with my mind blank, blanking like a motherfucker. This must be resistance. That bitch is undoubtedly in the way, keeping me away from my writing. I have to work. I have to get something down. I have to keep going. Fuck resistance, I think, as I open a new document and start typing my useless thoughts in some weird, chaotic order. According to Mr. Pressfield, the only way to beat resistance is to show up every day and do what you have to do regardless of how you feel, how much you produce, and what kind of fucking day of the week it is. One sentence is good. One sentence is much better than nothing. One sentence written down shows you’ve overcome resistance, and you showed up, and you’ve written something, anything. That matters the most; no matter how strong that fucking resistance is, you have to work against it. Once that becomes the habit, you shouldn’t care about anything else in the fucking world. You know what to do, and you show up daily or regularly to work on your craft or whatever you’re working on. Why am I reciting Pressfield? I don’t know. I guess this is the main lesson I’ve learned from reading his book “The War of Art,” which inspired me in so many ways. And secondly, this is the time when I am really struggling with my creative thoughts and my new creative writing, and he’s the only one who provides writers and creative souls with a legit solution. It seems like nothing else or nothing new to write to me about. And the time goes by, one month after another, and there is no new material, and that fucking sets me back. I get used to producing nothing; hence, I produce nothing over time. And I start looking for reasons why I haven’t written and what has been on my way not writing. I am fucking looking for excuses while not trying to do the work.
I woke up at five am this dark and cold Sunday morning last September 2022. I had a plan. I needed to wake up early to spend some alone time on my writing, with no distractions. I’ve been slacking too much lately. I better cut the bullshit out before it becomes another annoying habit of mine. So, here I am. I am back to the old me. I woke up early, and I was ready to ramble. I am ready to write. I remember days when I wasn’t even thinking about writing. I opened my laptop first thing in the morning and started to type, and the words came to me effortlessly. That happened multiple days and weeks in the raw, and at one point, I thought, holy shit, I got it. I am on the holy writing trail again. I’ve cracked the code. My excitement lasted until that habit was put on hold several times, then life kicked in, and I was out of the loop again. And then, I was fucking lost yet again. Then, I struggled with getting my routine back in order, getting my stupid mind back to work, and getting my creative juices flowing again. It is hard to start over too many times. It hasn’t gotten old yet, but it is like fuck; I’ve been here before, and now I have to go through it just one more fucking time. Life isn’t perfect, and it is tough to build a routine or a steady schedule, and shit always gets in the way. I have to provide and be here for my family. That is priority number one for me. Everything else comes second.
I watched the new Elvis movie last night. There it was, the perfect example of how one great, super successful, and world-famous Elvis sacrifices his fucking personal life and his family life for his fucking show and career. He seemed to have all the right intentions to provide for his family, but in the process, the family was not the priority anymore. Not having a normal life. Not having any family nearby to care for him. He was not even able to leave the fucking country for his International tour. He stayed here. He was committed to his act. He was performing and performing fucking well. The show must go on regardless of the misery that went along with it. He’s sold his soul in Vegas. That fucking schedule and even dedication will destroy anyone. There was a chance to take a break, stop for a while, clean up, return to his family, start all over, and live to a hundred years, but it didn’t happen. He didn’t want it. Once he was on the move, it was until the wheels came off. The wheels did come off but sadly, at forty-two years of age, dying in such fucking misery. Even for Elvis, it was a too sad way to go away like that. His priority was his art. The family was not. My priority is my family. Then all the other bullshit in its random fucking order. But I am dedicated, and I am not self-destructive. I am continuing on. I keep up the good fight. And I will be writing regardless of how slow or good or bad. I will be doing this because this is what I love to do, and it makes me feel fucking great.
I have been into J.D. Salinger’s writing a lot in the last five years. I read all of his, at least, popular books. I am sure there is more writing of his somewhere, maybe not all on Amazon. I developed a deep personal connection with “The catcher in the rye.” A true classic novel that never gets old. There are several good reasons why this novel resonated with me and so many others. I think this novel based on its writing style, theme, and rebellious protagonist, could be a great and, in a way, helpful read for all ages. Salinger combined all his Holden stories in this novel and centered them around this young and troubled fellow. Holden is an example of everyone searching for purpose in life during our formative years while searching for himself, going through some shit while voicing his thoughts and philosophy and asking questions about simple things that have a much deeper meaning. Young folks may enjoy this novel because it is fucking interesting to read and learn about this young fellow going through something during the challenging teenage period. This time in life is tricky because as one learns more about life and slowly gets introduced to adulthood, one may dismiss the adult world as phony and stupid and many things adults do as unnecessary and without a good reason. Being young and angry at the world, rebelling against the social norms and structures and institutions, dealing with depression and stress and social issues, indulging in bad habits to escape reality, and so much more. It is a protagonist that most young folks would like to be or are, in a way, already like Holden.
I read the Catcher in my late twenties and learned a lot, even more, when I re-read it several times in my early to mid-thirties. This novel has some hidden passages that shed light on the philosophy of life from a teacher Holden was visiting. The drunk fucking teacher once talking to Holden, in his drunken state, voiced pretty much the central wisdom in that novel, what it is to be an adult and what it takes to be a man. “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for the cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” Holden might not be entirely ready for this wisdom, as any youth exposed to such serious talks might not get it the first time. It usually comes to most younger folks later in life. As it did come to me later in my life. I wish I’d read this novel back in my teens. But I am happy to have discovered it in my late twenties and early thirties. At different points in my life, I found something very true and relatable in the “Catcher in the rye” novel.
Holden’s philosophy of being the “Catcher in the rye” is very interesting when his younger sister asks him what he wants to be in life. Even though it seems like he has no idea what he’s talking about, his response made a lot of sense to me as a father. Realizing how phony the adult world is, Holden wants to prevent children from falling into it. He realizes how great and innocent young people are, looking at and admiring his little sister. Holden wants her to avoid falling into the phony adult life journey he’s going through, as well as all adults are. He wants to protect and catch these little children from falling off the cliff. Salinger’s idea of protecting innocent youth from the mean and unjust adult world is described this way in this novel. It took me a few years to really understand what he meant. When I became a father, I finally got it. It was clear why protecting children from falling off that cliff and into the adult world was crucial for Salinger and Holden.
Once on the playground, I saw my two and half-year-old son playing with other kids. My son ran around among all these other kids, some older, some bigger than him, some more crazy than others, and my little son was up there with them trying to be part of it. He was up there on top of this pretty tall playground construction with all the tubes, pathways, and other shit. I was watching him from the ground. I saw him out there. He was shy and just looked around, watching other kids. Sometimes, he would smile if he saw something they did that was funny to him. Sometimes he imitated what others did as he walked on top of the bridge up there or crawled through the tubes and climbed ladders. I worried he might fall. I worried other kids could push him out. I felt like snatching him out of there and taking him away from all of these kids and that fucking slider. I wanted to hold him close because he might get hurt out there. I felt like my heart was being torn apart. I did not know what to do. But I knew one thing, I loved this child more than anything in the world, and I wanted to protect him and keep him safe and close for as long as possible. I knew I was not able to help him then and there. He was there on his own. I called out his name, but he didn’t see me. I saw him looking down from the top of that structure, smiling, enjoying his moment. He did not see me or hear me, but he was up there with all these kids living his life. I realized then that he will not always be close to or near me as he has been for his first three years of life. As he grows up, he will be more independent, living his life, making decisions, getting into trouble, and making things happen. I will not always be there. I will not always be able to help him. Eventually, he will fall over that “cliff” from his childhood and become an adult. Eventually, his innocent youth will be over. Eventually, he will become a father and probably feel the same about his children. The fact that I would lose him to his own adult life made me feel sad.
For an older reader, the “Catcher in the rye” book can also be a fun read because it will remind them of how it was and how it felt when they were young. Holden’s voice in this book is the voice of youth. That semi-fictional character from the early fifties still sounds relevant and accurate today in the 2020s. Salinger writes the story from Holden’s perspective, but he has himself in his mind. I believe that Salinger and olden are very similar people with similar ideas and attitudes. Salinger combined all these ranges of emotions, themes, and ideas, which are relatable to just about anybody alive. This is why this book never ran out of print, and this is why this book is still popular so many years later and will continue to be relevant because it mentions the questions and issues that are part of being a human. Everyone is closely familiar with, younger or older, regardless. I am now seeing more and more and feeling more and more about the world outside and my three-year-old son and how I wished he always stayed this little and innocent and not fucked with that utter world with its nonsense and bullshit. Salinger felt that himself and described that in this Holden protagonist and a similar character in his other works. I cannot think of a more likable example in the literature that has been so popular and so prominent and appealed to so many people over the decades.
From the moment I read the first few pages of the Catcher book, I felt like, damn, this writing is something. It is written in Holden’s voice as he deals with his life and has all these different experiences, which help the reader see life and its phoniness from a teenager’s perspective. The writing itself is Salinger’s typical stream of consciousness which comes from the first person, from the protagonist. The language that he uses is the language of the youth. It is meant to sound that way. It sounds and reads pretty cool, even after it was cool to talk like that back in the fifties. This simple, casual, and sometimes even dull language is easily accessible and relatable to most people. Writing this way helps to deliver the critical message better. And it did, as we can see over the years. On a personal level, I do relate to Holden a lot. I felt like that many times growing up. I always wanted to be in that pristine, careless state, doing things that I liked to do, knowing that getting older would require shifting priorities and getting educated and getting a job, and getting married and dealing with like like all adults do. I wasn’t necessarily against it, but I knew the fun would be over soon.
When I was in my mid to late twenties, I had accomplished half of the required program that I had on my mind. I got my education, married, and worked jobs, but I wasn’t happy. The more I lived and experienced life, the more I knew how fucking rough and ridiculous it became. I read this book when I was twenty-nine, and at that point in my life, I was on the edge of being lost. I was on the edge of switching my life from a careless young lad to a young adult who had to support his family. I knew that many people my age were pretty damn fucking set up and organized and were much further in life than I was. I was always behind on everything. The book, even by accident, was read with quiet enthusiasm, and it felt very relatable and entertaining. I was about to be fired from one job, and I was working on landing a new job. My wife and I lived with my in-laws, on our last dollar, with no good prospects for the near future. I wanted to become a writer, but I knew I couldn’t just drop out of the professional world because we would die in poverty. I was trying to do my writing in my personal free time while making a paycheck to support my family. As I wasn’t any good or prolific writer, this lifestyle wasn’t a problem to maintain. The problem was that more and more, I felt like I hated the office job, corporate job, or any fucking job. I knew how things usually turn around, and I knew that no matter the excitement, in the beginning, every fucking job would be turned around to be a disappointment. Sooner or later, either by my or my company’s request, this fucking professional journey would end. Whatever I’ve been working on so hard wouldn’t matter to anyone anymore, nor to me. So, the question that I faced so many times was, why in the fuck do I need to suffer like that all the time? Why wasn’t I dedicated to doing what I love to do? Why wasn’t I writing?
There I was, feeling like Holden, unwilling to work, feeling down and experiencing the phony, dull fucking outside world, trying to escape it somehow by running away. Holden is raising the same question. Why bother with the real phony world if you could just run away and live somewhere further and outside of these typical social circles? He knew at an early age that adult life is not easy, and there is a lot of unfairness and bullshit involved, and he refused to be part of it. However immature, his thoughts always focused on little things, which showed how big his inner world was. He cares where the duck goes when it gets cold and the lake in the park freezes. He cares about the young children being fall off the cliff. He feels sorry for the poor nuns on the bus ride and gives them money. He loves his little sister more than life and cares for her. When he spoke about being a catcher in the rye and protecting children, he meant his little sister on his mind. He’s not interested in education, like probably 90% of young people, but he doesn’t seem like a guy who refuses to know things. He’s trying to acquire information, talk to people, and he knows many things as he’s coming along. His rebellious soul is always looking for something, for some purpose, that would come to him later in life.
We all want to live great lives and have everything we need, but we refuse to deal with the consequences and the struggles which make many people miserable. It’s sometimes good, however. This is how one learns about life, what it means, and how to make it all work. This is how wisdom arrives. This is how people learn about their purpose and the important little things which matter the most. And the main thing is that life is a journey, and everyone has their own. Some people are lucky early in that journey, and some later on. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the journey itself. It’s time to enjoy it. It’s time to live now. It’s time to enjoy every little moment because there will be no second times. Prioritize what you love to do and do it. Enjoy it. Enjoy all the great books and writing we have and learn from them. Books will help make one’s life more enjoyable, and the phony world outside will always be that way.
Hey, man. I know you out there somewhere You’ve been so close, and now you’re gone into the other world, the other side they call it, Where I can’t see you anymore. You’ve been around so much You’ve always been here, Since the young days of our lives I’m still around and pushing through it And you’ve been gone, So prematurely, gone. It felt like in the young days There was so much to live for There was so much to do, to try It felt like we’ve got all the time in the world, man And the opportunities were endless All we needed was time. We’ve been together for so long We’ve done so many things as one We’ve lived through some tough shit And we always knew to have some fun. We laughed, and we’ve cried, and we were Like brothers, the best friends forever. I know we still are, and we’ll always be, As long as I keep you in my heart. So many happy moments, so much Drinking and fun, We never needed the reason, as long as We were together. We were on. It’s sad to no longer have you, No longer see you, no more calls and texts, No more the best friendship, It’s all in the past, in my memories now. I’ll keep you in my prayers and thoughts For as long as I am alive. You’ve taught me a lot with your living Your spirit, your grit, and your mind. I hope you’ve found your place out there And heaven is now your new home I know we will see each other again at some point And then we’ll get drunk for the old good time’s sake. I’ll tell you my stories, and you’ll tell me yours We’ll hug each other, we’ll laugh, and we’ll cry, It’s lonely out here, man, but this is the life I have to move on and fight and survive. I know that you’re close, man. I can feel you around I am happy to ever know you and call you my best friend.
