The Bomb

How old songs can be so apt feels so bitter. Doe Maar’s ‘De Bom’ (literally The Bomb, Eds.) song sounds like a protest from a long time ago. A bygone era in which you worked on your career and planned your future while in the background the possibility of total destruction hung in the air. This feels a lot closer now. At the time it was about the Cold War and protests against American cruise missiles in the Netherlands.

The return of Trump to the political stage has pushed up concerns. The Middle East is again on fire, with Israel and Gaza the tragic centre of a conflict that has gone on for generations and is unlikely to abate. Ukraine is still fighting to the bitter end in a war that has not been a ‘regional conflict’ for a long time, but is the pawn that the big powers push around.

We are amidst these situations. With our calendars. Our to-do lists. Our career moves.

We are living in strange times. The world is on alert but just continues as usual, as though there is nothing wrong. While rockets are being launched in several places in the world, we just continue scrolling. We make plans and work on our futures. Yet, a question hangs over our heads that we do not want to say aloud: what if the situation escalates? What if ‘the bomb’ falls on us?

We try to get control over something that cannot be controlled.

We try to get control over something that cannot be controlled. It is almost ironic that the more uncertainty there is in the world, the harder I try to create certainty in my own life. And this does not work. You can have everything arranged on paper – work, diplomas, plans – and that this is meaningful enough, regardless of what happens around you. And in the meantime, we know that this is on thin ice and only temporary.

The protest songs from then (e.g. The Bomb, ‘Vamos a la Playa’, ‘99 Luftballons’ etc.) are a good reflection for us. What are you actually doing now that everything is so vulnerable and uncertain? It emphasises asking yourself other kinds of questions. Do not ask yourself ‘am I building something that will continue?’, but ‘am I living in a way that suits me, even in such uncertainty?’.

Now, in my 36th year of life, I have the feeling that I am entering a new chapter in life. And so I have asked myself these questions. I am not thinking if I will leave anything permanent behind, but if I am living in a way that suits me. And I have stopped comparing myself to others who ‘have really made it’ and asking myself what I am doing wrong.

Maybe starting ‘again’ at 36 years of age is not a sign of moving backwards. Maybe it is simply the point when you realise that in reality nobody knows what they are doing and that we are all trying to do something meaningful in our own individual way in a world that is constantly changing. And that the real question is not what will happen if everything falls apart, but what you have done while it was still standing.