Rumble Fish

Siamese fighting fish… such strange animals. They're known for being territorial and aggressive and that's where the title of the book “Rumble Fish” comes from. People stuck in an aggression loop, you beat me, I beat you, then something comes up and we are uneven again, so we start stomping each other. The only time we think we are settled is when we’ve made our “bubble nests”, fragile, temporary things… such lonely lives we lead.

I just finished reading the book. It was a random decision, just for once thinking about what I'd like to read rather than what I have to read. I’m honestly finding it hard to keep up with uni at this stage. I’m normally good at it but I’m screwing it up this time, for family commitments, work and all that. That’s probably why I got home today with nothing written for my thesis, went to our bedroom, sat on the bed in front of the weird blue light that comes from the filmy window and started reading. It was out of a feeling of sheer disappointment, like I felt “there’s nothing else I can do, so I’ll just read”. “Rumble Fish” was quick and deep, like a sucker punch that takes away your breath and leaves your lungs aching until long after. My only regret is that I didn’t read this when I was 18. Those were my golden times. Just done school, with a head roiling with ideas and hopes. The way it looks, life won’t reach that standard of “meaningfulness” for a long time, maybe never. Funny thing is, I never thought my eighteenth would be the best year of my life back then. I actually thought that it was pretty commonplace when I was living it. I guess the best times in your life are when you have the loftiest aspirations, not when you're close to realizing your dreams.

Just on Monday, a senior colleague told me he was retiring. He is a really funny middle-aged guy. He is big and broad-shouldered but he huddles his limbs in his suit to look smaller and whispers when he talks; the kind of man that would rather be liked than revered. He has a sense of humour that really resembles that of my late uncle, with whispery, delicate jokes that are carefully crafted not to offend anyone. On the last day before he would leave, he came up and said hello. I gave him a music CD and a copy of a comic I had drawn a while ago, cuz he said he liked comics. He said he was gonna leave for Italy, live there for as long as he liked cuz he had its citizenship. He hadn’t liked the imposed retirement plan, but he shrugged it off with a sad smile. I guess he just wanted to continue work. Being retired meant he was now alone, without a plan, and I doubt he had a well-established family. He never talked about that aspect of his life.

I hate the System for that. It gives you this fake promise that if you work and earn money, it’ll be enough. It keeps you so busy that you don’t even get to question what you’re earning your money for. To eat, to fuck, and then what…? The objective is to mold you into a docile, productive citizen. Oh, of course the less time you spend on your existential questions, the better it would be for a system that needs your work. “Love” is supposed to be a collaboration with another docile citizen, that would make you more productive at work. As soon as it gets more serious than that, as soon as it gets out of control, complex, incomprehensible, even suicidal, you face the dreadful consequences of not following the rules. If you can’t bear the consequences, you get dissolved in the system in a way that you are neither its loyal soldier, nor a fierce rebel. I feel a lot like this right now, stuck in the space in-between. Can’t accept its values, can’t fight them either. I just wish I could forget about long term plans for a while and break out. Reminds me of the Motorcycle Boy and the rumble fish. He wondered if the rumble fish would live better if he would drop them in the river. Well, I wonder that too.