Freedom never comes - Part 23

"You are really funny," laughed Heinz Wohlfarth and looked at his friend that got up stretched himself, bend down to his feet to exercise, moved his hips, stood upright again and said, "I mean, when we humans solve a problem, right, than this in the end means we create another problem that needs another answer and so on."

"Hamster people!" commented George Fähnrich with low voice and a look at Heinz Wohlfarth that could kill an army during its attack against the enemy. "Nothing but hamster people."

"Oh, my good friend," laughed Heinz Wohlfarth and smiled all over his face, "you are unfair to us...I mean the human race. do not insult us that way."

"What about the truth?"

"What do you mean by that?" asked Heinz Wohlfarth. He looked into the shopping street behind them and saw a group of workers waiting by the roadside. Few moments later a bus pulled over, opened the door, the workers got in, the bus closed its door and drove off. School children got into the cars of their parents and drove off. Shops one by one opened their doors to welcome buyers. The noise level increased.

"The truth never lies and even it is often unpleasant to be confronted with...still it is the truth that must be recognized and dealt with...in the appropriate way," answered George Fähnrich seeing how a young man, helped an old woman across the street to reach the other side safely. She thanked him and gave him a tender look. While he walked back to his side of the road, the old woman walked to the bench close to the dunes as she did each and every morning watching people passing by. TV program was not what she wanted to see on a quiet morning rather to see how people wake up and go about their lives, much more entertaining, far more exciting.

"I often wonder what motivates people to be innovative," mentioned Heinz Wohlfarth, got up, took a deep breath, and another one and another one. He looked up to the horizon.

"Laziness!" was George Fähnrich`s answer.

"Most certainly in most cases," agreed Heinz Wohlfarth and saw behind him in the shopping street cars coming and going, buses coming and going, buyers entering and leaving shops with heavy bags, office workers taking their morning coffee to-go, got a lift from their colleagues to share the ride to Tel Aviv and trucks off-loading their cargo at the back doors of the shops. Three men were busy painting a newly constructed house, took great care of the wooden fence around.

"Adam and Eve are still ancestors of us. We simply do not get them out of our genes!" smiled George Fähnrich seeing a Taxi approaching to a house painted all in white, walls and windows shining white, an old man handicap got out of the door standing for moments to see his ride coming and got into the Taxi to take him to the nearest hospital. "Humans are a bunch of lazy people that want to live in paradise...a paradise with milk and honey and the absence of work." He paused for a moment, looked down to his feet covered in sand and said:" We want to walk far in life and when you want that, sometimes you realize work, often hard work, is needed to reach your desired destiny. So it is better to keep going and going, to invent something, to be unhappy over time with the invention as the comfort factor is not enough and then man walks again in his shoes with hard work to make his life more comfortable and then... ."

"The hamster peoples!" laughed Heinz Wohlfarth and saw a big truck entering the shopping street. Men in red had taken garbage bins to the roadside ready for the truck to empty them and take the human waste to the nearest recycling facility and the very rest to the dumping side for Bio-Gas production and burning.

"You finally got it!" laughed George Fähnrich, took his blue towel, cleaned the sand off his feet, got his light brown plastic sleepers on, folded his sleeping bag, helped his friend to do the same. collected the breakfast waste to dispose it off in the nearest paper basket they saw tied around the lamp post beneath the place they had spent the night. "Have you ever seen in Africa a waste bin in the public space?"

"I was never in Africa and honestly speaking, I have no intention ever to go there. I mean, let us be honest to ourselves, Africa is not a place for us, we are too white for that continent. This is only for the people with black skin as they are well protected from the sun...s we better stay in our own corner. Africa is truly black in all meanings of the word, too many problems, not only caused by us but mainly by themselves. So why should I ever want to go there...honestly...I say no... never ever in my entire life," proclaimed Heinz Wohlfarth and stepped onto the pavement of the shopping street.

George Fähnrich looked at him with wisdom in his eyes and a smile on his face: "As life in the end is not in our own hands...you will see what life will bring to you. Maybe one day, one day something will happen in your life that makes you get involved in Africa more than you ever wanted and thought off."

"This will never...never ever happen...am I stupid? Most certainly not!" insisted Heinz Wohlfarth and saw the old woman sitting quietly on the bench watching life in the shopping street unfolding. They greeted her with respect, she greeted them back. "When you will see me one day old like her you will know Africa is a no-go area for me...that is for sure."

"If I would be you, I would take life more with respect...respect for what life has called you to do and not what pleases you...what you dream off. Life is service to your destiny!" replied George Fähnrich, crossed the road at the traffic light in the middle of the shopping street, looked into the shop selling newspapers and stationery.

Heinz Wohlfarth looked over to the other side of the street seeing the old woman was greeted by a young man, by his age he could have been her grandson and said: "Life without a plan is useless as destiny needs a road map and the mindset of us humans must be located into the future and as future comes in stages to climb and climb from level to level this must be well thought through for which a plan is needed."

"Ideas need a plan to make ideas visible and effective...for sure," agreed George Fähnrich while walking down the shopping street, looked through the window of a bakery, stopped, saw cream cakes in the shop window, felt his stomach being still full and no way that they could carry a cream cake safely with them without seeing the cream melting in their hands and run down to the ground into the gutter. "But when you have all your plans for your life like an accountant written very well in black and white and a big sheet of papers and...," he turned to Heinz Wohlfarth that was still checking on the old woman`s situation, "you drive on the Autobahn, a drunken driver crashes into your car, you have been driving very careful, even seeing the drunken driver before you but could not possibly foresee his final reaction and end up in hospital and a wheel chair...dream over!"

"That does not happen so often! So be realistic!"

"You marry a woman, and as you marry her you have checked yourself very well and tested her and yourself in and for that relationship. No one gets married thinking or assuming one day, one day the end will come. To get married is for a lifetime...but," said George Fähnrich and smiled knowing he has a strong argument on his side.

"I know what comes next," laughed Heinz Wohlfarth seeing a small restaurant selling Falafel in pita bread with fresh vegetables and many sauces to choose from just opened for the day, "half of all marriages these days end up in divorce...I know, I know!"

"There you have it!" said George Fähnrich happily triumph end. He handed over the Falafel to Heinz Wohlfarth and stuffed his pita bread with tomatoes, potato slices, olives and white cabbage sliced very thin. He preferred sauce with mayonnaise and ketchup with a touch of curry while Heinz Wohlfarth opted for plain yoghurt sauce with lemon taste.

As they turned around to leave the place and to get their ride back to Kibbutz Ginegar, they bumped into a man nearly spitting all their food over the man that stood unexpectedly behind them. They excused themselves saying they hope he is okay.

"I am okay...as I am always okay. Nothing to worry about myself. And sorry, that I stand in your way!" said the man they did not know the name of. Everything happens so fast, the man disappeared out of their sight.

Heinz Wohlfarth was silent before saying: “The man was dressed in white, all white so shining. And...," he paused for a moment keeping his Falafel tight in his hands, "I think I saw an iron rod in his hands."

"For sure," laughed George Fähnrich, "but...when I think of him and see how he was looking...I guess you are right...he had an iron rod in his hand and he was all dressed in shining white...now I remember." He looked around but saw no man in white shining cloths anymore.

They walled to the outskirts of Netanya hoping their chance to get a ride back would be greater than inside the town. At a Bus Stop did they position themselves noticing only few cars passed by not willing to take them into their cars.

"I wonder," started Heinz Wohlfarth to say while sitting on the ground tried to stand for long, “whether society and their cultural settings have any influence on the issue of freedom, be it absolute freedom, whatever that might be or relative freedom, whatever that might also be. I mean we cannot separate ourselves from other people always and all the time, even when we try to live alone in the woods and get all our food from there, still we carry our past, the education from our parents and family and friends with us, so never purified to understand and discover things that influence our understanding of life for which reason our choice to make decision to set us free...free as we can see and understand it!"

"We are standing...sorry sitting here," laughed George Fähnrich and sat beside his Hamburg friend, "and you have nothing better on your mind but to give us a lecture like at University. We better live life and see things that make us understand life`s matters than thinking and thinking too much, too often. Sometimes, honestly, I wish I would be stupid, simple minded person. That could be so great. No disturbances by finding out; eating, drinking, having sex and work, using toilet and bed...simple life!"

"You mean as most people do?"

"Yes...as most people do...that would be cool. Nothing to worry, nothing to see and understand, just to be myself and no thinking of the future. No fighting for a better life...just living. Wouldn`t that be great...so cool, man." George Fähnrich laughed his head off with his hands behind his neck looking up to the skies. "Sit back and enjoy life, man...so cool!"