One Day I'll Grow Up

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Beyond the misery of a miserable childhood. Being trapped. Being trapped in the defencelessness of childhood, where not even running away is an option. There is an Stockholm syndrome that will make us be close to a cruel hand. To an infinite Misery. To the cruellest of teachers or the schoolmates from hell. We try to feed of the brief moments of peace that we are awarded with and we endure with stoicism the rest of them. Until either we are killed or we are thrown violently into the world when, finally, we don't need anyone to stand on our feet. And all of a sudden this cruel world sees us born again under the baptism of fire that our childhood was.

This long period of defencelessness in our species will grant us the food and protection that the development of the magic box on our shoulders that distinguish us from the rest of living creatures demands from us.
To make us unique. To make us human. This defencelessness assumes the protection that our parents and environment will provide us with and which will revert to all of us as a stronger and compassionate society.

If this equilibrium is broken, we are not worth it. If this equilibrium is broken we do not deserve our place in this world.

There is a song by Antony and the Johnsons that describes perfectly this period in which we depend on a compassionate environment which grants us the privilege of protection and defence, of growing towards our realization as human beings. And the trap. And our fight. And our strength knowing that there will be light at the other end of the tunnel. The underlying subject in the song is obviously different but it has the same roots in that time of defencelessness which should be instead a time of continuous spring and, why not, happiness.

One day I'll grow up, I'll be a beautiful woman

One day I'll grow up, I'll be a beautiful girl.

But for today I am a child, for today I am a boy

Sadness, anger, frustration... but also hope, strength, perseverance. The picture in the video is truly chilling...

My Hunger Games, another step beyond.

Under the Iron Bridge We Kissed...

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"Still Ill" - Possibly the best Smiths songs ever. You'll find all sorts of explanations on what people think about the intended meaning of a song, but the reality seems to be that it will have as many meanings as people listen to it. Songs travel with us through life and define our coordinates in space, time and emotions, they tell our stories of struggle and joy.

I am just a recent fun of The Smiths. They were really at their peak when I was not even a teenager, and well before I could make sense of English lyrics. However they seemed to be big back in the days in Spain. It has always amazed me that concerts of English bands in Spain seem to drive people mad at the stadiums while here in the UK people seem to be more apathetic about them. Maybe if most Spaniards could understand the lyrics they wouldn't be so enthusiastic in some cases (ha, ha :))

There are lots of flashes on this song that suggest to me our lives in my dear cities. "Under the Iron Bridge we kissed..." and although it was bloody freezing I'd go back under that Iron Bridge :) Who needs the mountains if I could go back under that Iron Bridge on a cold and wet winter in the grey darkness of the city night!

My running is by definition in a city, going past the grey buildings, loads of random people, the landmarks. It is embedded within its concrete foundations. It couldn't be any other way.

"Does the body rule the mind 

Or does the mind rule the body? 

I dunno..."

Isn't that one of the unanswered dilemmas of humankind? So thrilling to hear the question in that sad, nostalgic voice. And then that kiss under the Iron Bridge... Our eternal love/hatred relationship with society's rules and ethics. And, from another angle, how the mind can guide the body conquer the next frontier.

In My Hunger Games  it is definitively the mind ruling over the body. Or is it the body ruling the mind to rule about what it needs to? I dunno...