Gifts

Some people are born with certain gifts. They are beautiful, quick-thinking or of keen understanding. They have an instictive knowledge of how to make friends and keep them, how to make the sun dance for them and to keep love circling around them like an invisible satellite.

But there are other people. Those who are born with uncertain gifts. They like stories, but not the ones that can be narrated with words. They climb the highest mountains, only to plunge to the darkest abyss, just because they love the sensation of falling. They are angels and demons, sages and jokers, meek and at the same time fierce, and the only thing they have got in common is that they despise stillness, they abhore it. They are always on the move, dashing around the fields of life towards the inevitable appointment with the dark stranger, and sometimes, they stop to look at their watch, shake it to see if it has stopped, frown and move again. They enter libraries and bookstores and ask pointed questions, while setting books alight with their blazing eyes. They hunt the truth, no matter how painful, and relish on the agony of discovering themselves. They shun the easy comforts, knowing that death is the ultimate comfort, but only for those who have earned it. Death is the only stillness that they would welcome, after all movement has been spent well.

And now, my friend, you are standing in a small room with two curtains. The first curtain glows with a warm, welcoming light, promising you a nice, easy life, with friends, love, a dog, a car, a family. The other one is dark, silent, painted in the blue colour of knowledge, withjust a faint hint of a red, harsh, passionate light coming from its forbidding folds. It hints of sacrifices and tears, burning desires and solemn realisations. Like everybody who has walked the earth, you are faced with the most ancient, most basic choice.

Choose your gifts.

Choose your path.

Choose life.