A Song Called City

Some years ago, I crafted a small three-page comic for a school assignment. The only requirement we were obliged to meet was the subject: our favorite song. Such an ominous assignment comes with the inevitable cavalcade of Street Spirits, Creeps, and other classics. Someone even went U2.

I took this song.

As you may notice, it became a recurring theme. Maybe you could play this song whilst reading this post?

The comic was mostly an atmospherical thing, with a dash of personal philosophy. People in their mid-twenties getting cold feet about growing up, youth refusing adulthood and the alleged seriousness that’s supposed to come with it. Savouring the threshold between late youth and adulthood, fearing the great beyond, fearing ghostly shapes that elder men frowningly referred to as ‘responsibilities’. Two friends taking refuge from adulthood in the vague pedestrian journey from café to bed, embraced by the city.

So I set myself to the task of rationalizing this fear. As it happened, the idea of a shroud of Adult Serious that dawns upon men of youthful fervour, to me, is great silliness. I think it’s only a state of mind. I don’t mean to say that you should escape your adult responsibilities — please, no. What I mean to say is there’s no real difference between youthful and adult responsibilities. If you faced the music when you kicked your mother’s window in on your 7th birthday, well, you’re doing pretty good. After all, motherly rage is far more disastrous for a child than mortgage payment is to an adult.

We still experienced occasional fits of adultophobia, but today the fears have shrunk — they’ve become manageable. I still like to think that some of that began on that night. In the end, my thoughts came down to this: Adulthood, understood as a crippling set of responsibilities, is something only you can do to yourself.

I never saw any reason to.