I've come full circle

In my twenties, in the times of long hair and rock music, I had no doubt at all that the state, institutions as well as their represenatives had no clue at all about anything. To me, they not only lived on another planet, it was a planet I had no interest in.

That youthful arrogance vanished with age and the so-called necessities of life, I even started to become interested in politics, culture and the media that I then, strangely enough, did not equate with maintaining the status quo.

Now in my seventies, I realise that I've come full circle. It is nowadays beyond me how anyone can believe that people holding office or representing institutions have any clue what is going on. Once again, these people seem to me more than distant, I am not even willing to contemplate their talking points.

I've also come to realise that it wasn't youtful arrogance that made me think the way I do – rather it was the feeling that to live a life as a so-called valuable member of society was surely not a good way to live for, in my view, all these people were willing to adapt to a system I had no sympathy for.

"O heróico num ser humano é não pertencer a um rebanho" (The heroic thing about a human being is not to belong to a herd.), according to José Saramago. He is right, of course. How baffling, however, that the ones who make the herd a herd think of themselves as individuals.