Freek de Jonge
When someone asks me who I am, I invariably answer; nobody. If anyone asks me there and against what I am or have become, I also answer; nobody. Because to no one it makes a shred of difference between who and what. And to no one my social position matters, an ass. And whether I am anywhere, no, I am nowhere. Nowhere for and nowhere against. Nowhere arrived, not attached to the chain of civic decency. The sad fate of the vast majority of my generation, who were once hippies. But once blessed with wife and child, lost their ideals along with their wild and long hair. I have also become nobody, should you sometimes wonder. The idea that I am nobody is not my own. I borrow this from one of the first cabaret programs of Neerlands Hoop. A cabaret duo formed by Freek de Jonge and Bram Vermeulen.
The line of the poem was; nobody is happy; be nobody! Followed by; nowhere is peace; be nowhere! It is still clear in my mind. It mentally almost gives an overdose of happiness to know that you just have to be a totall nobody and nowhere arrived. That only a nobody lives forever. That no one knows how much love or justice there is in the world. Nobody knows the trouble I have seen! Can a person be any freer than if no one makes demands on him? Or no one forces you to take responsibility for having arrived nowhere. No, no one is free, be no one. If only because all misery begins with someone thinking they are someone. And then more than someone else. Am I just looking for that one woman who will join me in not being a burden to anyone.
Ludo
