Once, a long time ago, oh Nation, I went on vacation with a group of closer and more distant friends. Mostly distant. We set out as children, with no plan, to a roughly defined place. We assumed we would return home to our parents in about two weeks. We came back after six weeks, much less children and greeting our parents with a previously unknown sense of distance. What happened during those six weeks is a blur. I have only a few fading scenes in my mind. Some walks, some dances, some nights and late mornings. A mix of dreams and reality. Drinking beer mixed with wine. I only clearly remember two awkward situations. The first involved a young, long-haired man sitting motionless on the beach, staring at the distant horizon. Something about his, as they say, aura, compelled me to speak to him. Perhaps it was a desperate, budding need at the time to find a guide on the path of so-called artistic pursuits. This man turned out to be German, quite willing to accept words of admiration, but rather from a young Polish girl than from me, as he conveyed in short words, in English, with a heavy accent. The second situation involved the disappearance of some valuable item belonging to someone in the group. This led to a series of unpleasant discussions with more and less directly articulated suspicions and accusations, and attempts to identify the presumed thief. For reasons still mysterious to me, I felt for a while that I was leading the group and it was up to me to steer the situation in the right direction. I was quickly made to realize that I couldn't have been more wrong and that I was actually among the few particularly suspected of theft.

Later in life, I succumbed a few more times to the illusion that I was or should be a guide and authority. A mirage on the distant horizon.

They say the world needs guides. I doubt it more and more. In fact, may providence protect us from guides.