Far l’Amore — Vientiane, Laos | May 2016
“Smyge mig som støv i alle revner og hjørner!”
Today (6 May 2016) is my 44th birthday which is an interesting number. For the Chinese, the number four ( 四, sì ) is the unluckiest of all numbers because of its homophonous resemblance to the word for ‘death’ ( 死, sǐ ). For this reason, many skyscrapers in Chinese cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai omit floor numbers with the number four (i.e. 4, 14, 24 etc.), resulting in a situation where a building with up to 50 floors on its elevator display might actually be ‘only’ 35 floors high.
I kind of like this numbers stuff. Way back in 1989 I had a summer fling who was seriously into Chinese astrology and numerology. On her recommendation, I read some books on the topic and learnt that I was born in the year of the rat and my life path number is three. Now this path of three has reached 44.
With four being such an unlucky number, you’d assume that 44 would be spelling absolute disaster. For the Chinese this is true, they translate 44 as 垂死和死亡, dying and dead. But I’m not Chinese — although the Lao government seems to be of a different opinion and recently adorned my work permit with “race: Chinese” — and from the numerology books I read when I was 17, I recall that a multi-digit number should always be simplified to a single one. For the number 44 this means that 4 + 4 = 8 and eight happens to be the luckiest number for the Chinese! That’s not too bad, a double negative becomes a positive (i.e. -2 x -2 = 4), finally mathematics makes some sense!
I have decided that, for this reason, this is a phoenix year for me. The past 24 years have been quite a rollercoaster ride and during the last couple of years things have been on a downward slide. I’ve kind of lost track of who I am and where I come from. It’s time to rise from the ashes and start climbing again!
Me as a 22-year-old infantry sergeant and as a 44-year-old Philosopher-in-Residence
In an effort to do just that, I spent the past year reliving some my life’s most defining moments through music and writing. The stories that follow this one are the details, the bigger picture is as follows:
When I was 20, in the summer of 1992, I was very unhappy. I hated the business college I was attending and had absolutely no idea as to what to do with my life once I finished there. All I knew was what I didn’t want.
Then a young Danish psychology student appeared seemingly out of thin air and started messing with my mind. She introduced me to existentialist philosophers like Kierkegaard and Sartre and kept asking me why I did things I didn’t want to do? Who was in control of my life? We talked continuously and in the span of just a couple of days I really got to know myself. One night we went to a bar where I simply told the bartender how much money I had on me and to keep serving us drinks until that ran out. He happily complied.
Then, as suddenly as she had appeared, she vanished. It’s amazing how people manage to jump in and out of your life at the exact right time. She had gone back to Denmark from where she sent me a poem which started with the line: “Smyge mig som støv i alle revner og hjørner,” Nestle me like dust in all cracks and corners. This resonated with me. I shouldn’t be doing whatever was expected of me, I should be stirring up the dust caused by new experiences, avoid any ‘I wish I had…’ moments later in life and relish the dust which over time would nestle itself into the cracks and corners of my existence. I had to take control of my own life and so I left the business college, even though this meant being drafted into the army.
The eight years that followed — one as a conscript and seven as a professional non-commissioned officer — were the sheer definition of an adventurous rollercoaster ride. Among many other things, I learnt how to drive a tracked Armoured Personnel Carrier, blew stuff up, spent time in war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina, climbed mountains all over Europe, skydived in Thailand, scuba-dived in Mexico and generally travelled to foreign countries as often as possible. It was quite a ride! Because I chose short-term contracts, I was able to move from the infantry to the artillery and finally to a drones unit of the military intelligence. But in early 2001 I had to make a choice; either sign a contract till pension or quit. With today’s hindsight of what a mess the world has become since September 2001, I can safely say I made the right choice in leaving the army.
I now had two options: do the sensible thing and find a steady new career or take my savings and go on a round-the-world trip. In line with my Smyge mig som støv mentality, I chose the latter. I’d met too many senior NCOs in the army talking about their plans for after retirement and too many retired ones who also once had those same plans, but hadn’t fulfilled any, nor were they planning to. No, the time for me was now and so for nine months I travelled from Africa to Asia to the Americas, experiencing adventure after adventure until I ran out of money and had to return home. That marvellous period from February to October 2001 has by far been the highlight of the past 44 years!
At the end of 2002, unemployed after a short stint with an airline in Spain, I found myself lying on a sofa, mindlessly switching TV channels, wondering once more what the point of living was. I’d been so busy ticking off the ‘Have you ever…’ experience boxes of life that, at the age of 30, I had actually done everything I’d ever wanted to do. Now what?
I decided to move to a place I hardly knew anything about, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. I got rid of my stuff, bought a one-way ticket and settled as an English teacher in Vientiane. Life seemed exciting again, uncommitted pleasure-seeking while avoiding any kind of unnecessary responsibility or serious commitment.
Then in the summer of 2007, on holiday in Kenya, I realised I had had enough. I didn’t enjoy travelling on my own anymore and had grown tired of forgettable meaningless relationships. To cut a long story short, I got married, found a better job and in December 2009, my son was born.
For some time things went well, but then I got bored again. I’d managed to mess up a few things in the past, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed and I have learnt a valuable lesson: life isn’t about running around like a headless chicken, just trying to tick off another ‘Have you ever…’ box. It’s about exploring and connecting the experiences.
I’m sure everything will turn out fine again… till I’ll get bored again! I’ll probably continue to mess things up every now and then, but only to smyge støvet i alle revner og hjørner! In the words of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: “Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards.”
Bob Sinclar and Raffaella Carrà – Far l’amore on Disco Crash [CD]. Paris, France: Yellow Productions. (2011)
This autobiographical sketch comes from my bundle In the Moment: A Disjointed Audiobiography which is available at Amazon.com. (USD 9.50 for a paperback or USD 4.50 for the Kindle version)
