Last night I felt terribly restless, my small room was suffocating me and my mind was full of fleeting images and ideas, but I just couldn’t put the pieces together. I tried reading my book, but my eyes were too tired to continue reading, my body was struggling to sleep while my mind was struggling to stay awake. I did fall asleep eventually and was awoken by the rain and wind beating on my window, I remember myself peeking outside of the window and depressed by the sight of dark clouds and wet streets I turned around and continued sleeping finally waking at noon. I took a shower, got dressed, took my camera, a small notebook and pen, no jacket (the sky had cleared up) and descended the stairs. On my way down I noticed that my latest order ‘Natural right and history’ by Leo Strauss was delivered and I took that with me as well.
I decided to take an alternate route today and following the nieuwe rijn canal and after crossing the hooigracht I turned to the left across the karnemelk bridge and decided to pass the van der Werff park and the faculty of law. The streets were still wet and the sky was still cloudy, but streaks of blue hinted at coming sunshine. Walking past the park and looking at the trees I thought to myself that it was about time that I recognized species of trees, if I ever wanted to describe them in writing. I liked the trees in the park, especially the large willow trees hanging picaresque over the canal alongside the park. Willow trees to me convey melancholy (don’t they?) and melancholy fitted my mood at that moment, with the cobble stones still wet from the rain. I watched the bronze statue of van der Werff, and took a few pictures, the park was empty of people except for a couple on a bench in front of the statue.
I continued following the Rapenburg canal, passing the tightly packed rows of stately homes of those well off in Leiden, and those inhabited by students from the most prominent student corporations. I decided to sit down for coffee and an early breakfast at Barrera opposite the old academy building. The Barrera is probably the cafe with the worst serving in Leiden, eventually I got noticed and I ordered a cappuccino and a pane niçoise and took a moment to observe the old academy building.
The location of all the graduation ceremonies it made me reflect on my six years as a student in Leiden, culminating in the defense of my thesis and the signing of my autograph inside the small room referred to as ‘the sweating room’, alongside the names of great statesmen like Churchill and lesser statesmen like our future king. Already as a high-school student I used to fantasize about this holiest of holiest, surely only the top of the crop get the opportunity to pass the threshold of this small room guarded by the beautiful line from Dante; ‘Lasciate ogni speranza voi che entrate’? I got irritated by the thought of my early naivety and felt the anger rising inside me. I pictured my parents and my father on the brink of tears on that blessed day, and I felt sorry for the old man, I know that it’s all a big farce.
My autograph was written with a thin pencil, permanent markers have been forbidden because of a lack of free space on the walls. I remembered my time as a young pupil in primary school, still satisfied with simply taking up all the information thrown at me, sucking it in as a sponge, digesting the facts without chewing. I was one of the best once, but was it of any use? Those struggling behind in class have surpassed me, they sat next to me during university lectures, they became sponges after their first year at university, when I was done sponging and started getting disillusioned with my teachers and fellow students and went the opposite way. Some of them are becoming teachers themselves, doing PhD’s. God forbid. These were the thoughts I had, they weren’t pretty I agree, luckily I got distracted by a group of students sitting at the table next to me, five of them, discussing in a way that caught my attention. It turned out that I was sitting next to the future University student council. A coincidence or what?
While eating my pan nicoise I tried to eavesdrop on what they had to say. I was still in an irritated mood and things didn’t improve while listening to them discussing the experiences of one of them, a blonde girl with a rather pale face lacking character, who (I gathered) was a former council member. I can’t reconstruct the damn conversation because frankly most terms were totally uninteresting to me, she enjoyed talking about writing advises to committees such and such, voting on such and such etc. etc. It was a bore, and it made me think about those late flowering sponges again. The longer I sat listening the angrier I got, the last couple of years since the appointment of the new chairman, many changes have been made to the University, most with little or no protest, so much for the student councils. It felt as if they saw it as one big game, talking and debating with those big shots in charge of the University, while everything is falling apart as a result.
I had to control myself, but I just couldn’t, I got sad and angry and they were getting on my nerves talking about their little committees and I couldn’t shut up when they didn’t forget to mention that Leiden University still was one of the oldest universities in the world and because of it gets due respect from foreign students. ‘Well what use is that, huh?’, ‘What does it matter that we were one of the oldest if just in a matter of another decade we wont exist any longer?’. I stood beside my table, I already finished my breakfast and was ready to move. They looked up quite shocked, especially the girl with the pale face was dumbfounded. The guys present started laughing and replied with ‘Not if we have anything to say about it!’. Sure, keep dreaming I thought, and embarrassed by my outburst I went in to pay the bill.
It was four o’clock already and with the sun finally shining and with my outburst still fresh in my mind I walked towards Mr. Jansen. On my way I thought things over and slowly my anger dissolved. It was senseless getting angry about these changes I thought. It’s useless, times change, that’s a sure thing that never changes. Of course I might have been better off not studying archaeology, but does it really matter? I am fundamentally different from those guys, I wouldn’t be happy sitting in the same room with a bossy manager who single single handedly ruins everything in his path in name of efficiency, progress and change.
Suddenly my favorite line from Hemingway came to mind; ‘Let those who want to save the world if you can get to see it clear and as a whole. Then any part you make will represent the whole if it’s made truly. The thing to do is work and learn to make it’
I should listen more to Hemingway, and stop wanting to save the world. There is no saving it. I should leave it all with that. Times are forever changing and like tectonic plates they are always shifting in search for a balance which is never attained, these are the facts of the matter. These ambitious university students can’t be hold responsible, and neither can they be expected to stop the inevitable. Plates shift and tensions build up, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions ensue and we are lucky if we survive in one piece, but in the worst case we end up under meters of ash and pumice, plaster filling the voids of our past existence, totally surprised in our sleep by events that are in the present out of our grasp.
Besides who am I fooling other than myself? Wasn’t Dostoyevsky just as aware of the forces of change so clearly put forward in his novels? Wasn’t Raskolnikov just as lost and confused? Wasn’t nihilism and change and weren’t random senseless murders and chaos just as much a part of reality in 19th century Russia?
The only way of keeping sane is not to over-analyse, we can sense the truth, we can even hold on to it if we choose, but the paradox is that nothing will truly change, meaning that everything will always change. I am at a point in my life that I am slowly beginning to understand this principle, and instead of wanting to explain, fully grasp or fight for the truth, I am finally undertaking the task of working and learning how to observe and record that what is as clear as can be in my mind, and as long as it is written truly it will hopefully represent the whole, and give me the long sought after peace of mind.
