There is this esoteric rapper called Aesop Rock. He’s more of a spoken word poet, to be honest. No, more of an enigma. He speaks in cryptic riddles and tangled metaphors until the words seem to make no sense anymore. Some time ago, his best friend, Camu Tao, died. Aes took that kinda hard, choosing to retreat into isolation for like eight years, spiraling into depression, experimenting with illegal substances, scribbling stories on his cabin walls. As he said himself: “Here go the hindsight. Eight years been one long blindside. I could pinpoint seven more turns that occurred ‘cause I never really healed from the first.”

Aesop Rock is a weird dude.

And when there are wordsmiths like this around, I often ask myself: what am I to say? Live free and die young? No, because living free is just another way of saying living selfishly. Of believing the universe as a function of you, of considering everyone as an extension of your ego, of entitling yourself to what you don’t deserve. I know this because I have been guilty of this. Franzen told me: “The one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom to screw up your life whatever way you want to.”  

I have thrown enough shade, caused enough controversies, invited enough hate. There has been enough ink shed. 

What am I to say? The more things change, the more they remain the same? No, when things change, they change. That is the definition of the word. To pretend otherwise is to delay the inevitable. We’re in our own cute little snow globes, and someone occasionally chucks it across the room but the thing is, it rarely breaks. The view from the outside remains the same. But things are different on the inside. All is forgiven but nothing forgotten. Things change.

And in the back of my head, ever-present, there remains the constant, unceasing tick-tock of the clock reminding me that things will change and I must bid adieu to Pilani soon.

What am I to say? That I will not miss her?