Karolina McCreight

 

As monotonously as this caravan flows my life. Dragging and sluggish, as if I had already given up. Not willing to go up, to run faster, to climb a hill, but staying on the even ground. Not drifting away from the others, but following them. And not trying to do anything different, but imitating them. The route is this flat, that it must have been opened by another person, one that was leading us, leading me, and maybe still is. And we, we just follow, not questioning why we actually do so, not overthinking it, but taking things as they come, and staying in the same row as the camels stay in.

Most of us let others do things for us. We tell them, we pay them, and they make the way even for us, or pull us, so that we do not have to put any effort in. Some of us think they are stronger, and some of us just cannot afford to let others clear their road, so they take the reins into their own hands. But they still follow, they believe they had everything under control, but they are still walking in the same line, with their own strength, but still behind others. In this way we walk to reach an aim, an aim that is not seen, neither by us, neither are our observers able to see us walking to this aim. Same as the camera is kept in the same perspective, filming the camels walking forward, no matter if the people on them are more than one or just a person, no matter if leading the camel themselves or by another person walking next to it. The camera is just filming the camels and the people pass through it’s angle of vision, continuously, without any changes, without any turning points, any ups and downs. The only change that occurs is that at some point the caravan comes to it’s end. The last camel follows the row, passes the camera’s perspective and walks further behind the others. It’s like showing that people pass through life and no matter if they come, stay or go, life (on earth) is always there. Yet maybe they could contribute to it, giving it a little change, make the camera move and follow them, instead of walking through it’s perspective that always stays in the same place. Many things could change if we would give them another direction, instead of going with the flow. But it is easier to swim with the stream than against it, and in this way we stay captured in our own life. Fearing to do something new and different, to take on a challenge, to taste a different life and see if another version of it could work out for us, fearing the reaction of others, of society, of the mass, fearing not being accepted, we suppress our desire and continue living the same, monotonous life which we believe to be secure in, making ourselves being a prisoner of our own life.