Mark found himself in a boring, dull city of the twenty-first century. It was a midsized European city. He ended up there by birth and was just about to finish high school. His neighborhood was urban, with an abundance of benches, parks for kids, soccer fields, and basketball and volleyball courts. At those points, groups of young people gathered spontaneously, forming teams and playing various sports against each other, usually ending their tournaments when one team achieved two wins.
  In their apartments and houses you could find a few books slowly read by the parents, sports balls, and just occasionally, some musical instrument. The computer was still a luxury good in this city, as the century was just warming up, so neither the internet nor mobile phones were broadly used. Summer afternoons were long; the day, in any case, felt long without internet. It was the calm before the storm of millennials.
  They lived in some kind of desert where the devices of the future popped up from time to time. Mark felt slight anxiety because of the absolute absence of boundaries. If he wanted to study something, he could, but it wasn't enforced. If he wanted to practice guitar, he could do that as well; or he could read books. What was he supposed to do? There were no directions, so there were no guarantees, punishments or rewards. You could be anything in that neighborhood, but the majority stayed at their parents’ houses and chose to be nobody and nothing.
  They only wanted a life without commitments. It was unbelievable that even the extreme inactivity of those people was tolerated by their very parents and the community in general. They were so lazy they spent their entire lives burning through some savings, inheritances, and earnings from occasional jobs. Some sports, a movie or two. Men would live without women, babbling on a corner. If you moved away to a busy city and returned ten years later, you would get the impression that the same people were still standing at the corner, almost in the same position they were in when you left. Such time travel to a busy city and back was a peculiar test of the theory of relativity. The one going away would undergo many changes by then, while the one staying behind would remain perfectly intact.
  To Mark, they seemed a bit taxidermized. He didn't want to end up like that. Dissatisfaction was growing inside him. He didn't have the faintest idea if he was a musician, writer, athlete, engineer, or anything else. The abilities he possessed were still unknown to him; everybody who knew him would simply say that everything was okay, that he could be whatever he wanted. “You are versatile,” they used to say, “You’re good at everything.”
  The way the residents of this city mutually caressed their dull heads was simply remarkable. They did it through complimenting. And when we say “dull” here, we don’t mean in the sense of an arrogant insult, because they weren’t really dull at all.
  On the contrary, they were very talented and had potential in many professional fields, but they didn’t care to lift a finger to bring any of that potential to life. The entire environment turned against hard work, to the extent that anyone putting a lot of effort into anything was considered crazy. That would be just fine if their only goal was to preserve their peace and idyllic life, such as in a small town or village. But that wasn’t the case. They were simply obsessed with becoming something gigantic and used superlatives to talk about themselves. They couldn’t settle down! They wanted it right now—to become someone or something, not just in their city, but on a global scale. Sitting around, drinking coffee or beer, dying of boredom, they were convinced that they were the prettiest, strongest, richest, cleverest; if something in the list was missing, they were sure it was just a question of time before it would appear in their life. Appear by itself, without any effort. It’s strange how they believed that. Well, isn’t it a bit dull to live with attitudes and convictions like that?
  Maybe it was just a comfort that came from the thought that they were the most important people in the world. Some strange kind of heliocentrism. Still, Mark felt that those were just empty words and that it couldn’t be true. He had a clear understanding that real success requires effort and everything else was merely a lullaby. Actually, most citizens were dormant and dreamed of being someone or something else. They paved their way to success by snoring.
  Marvelous points of view and brilliant plans, but not a single drop of action. It makes you wonder: If the plans were so brilliant, why hadn’t anyone carried them out before? Why didn’t anyone plan to implement them now? It would usually turn out that the person asking the question missed the point. That person would be advised not to take everything for granted: “It would be banal, stupid, and meaningless to take any grounded, concrete steps at that moment.” Anyone who used that kind of narrative to describe a brilliant—yet indefinitely postponed—plan always positioned themselves above the real work, high in the clouds of their own ideas.
  When the walls were closing in, they still did nothing, offering only excuses: “Force majeure” or “Conditions were not met”. Or they would say: “Life simply didn't want it that way. Destiny.” Incredible passivity was obvious in their actions, but their storytelling was very enthusiastic. That used to drive Mark crazy. He couldn’t figure out how to get the bus full of lazy people moving, so he would rather keep quiet and wait for them to complete their story. Something authentic—that was what he needed. Flying through the clouds was familiar to him, but the lies and fairytales he was fed daily made him nervous and dissatisfied. He despised where he lived and was unhappy.
  In love with literature he was, but the airy environment he lived in blew him toward something concrete, physics. The study of physics took him away from that city of sleepy and ambitious people. He was freed! Finally, he was doing something tangible, concrete. But, alas, the loneliness came. Fast food, books, university classes, and—again—loneliness. Then, he often visited his old hometown to relax and connect with people. Besides that, he was a child of that same city.
  Even slowness and laziness create a form of human connection. Work, effort, and learning, positive as they were, fostered separation and loneliness in a big city. It didn’t have to be that way. There are places where people learn and make friends at the same time. Those are creative settings where workers or students are fulfilled by their engagement and wish to share that happiness with others. Their coffee breaks had more sincere, friendly intentions than years of false friendship in settings where people study and work just to compete with others, feeding only their vanity. Here in the big city, everything required Mark’s energy and effort, not to reward him, but rather to take advantage of him.
  Mark had a dream, and in that dream heard a voice that spoke to him, like a personal counselor: “Ehh, Mark, Mark. Only now did you feel life forces pulling you in separate directions. You’re finally discovering what you are made of and how rich the psyche is. You can’t go on without people. You can’t go on without effort and work. You can’t go on without knowledge and true values. So where does it lead you from here? Right now, it doesn’t lead anywhere; all those elastic bands of human needs are pulling you in opposite directions, to keep you levitating above a single point without moving. Whichever band you choose to pull, that is the direction you will go. Mark, humans need all of that: spiritual food, material food, and human connection. And everything crucifies you in a moment. That wasn’t a matter of choice. You were given all those seeds, whether you wanted them or not. But which one will grow the strongest—and pull you in its direction—is a matter of the seed of your free will. Come on, make up your mind and take the path of your choice. Hit the road! But, alas, how to make a decision? Is it easy to make a decision? Are you going to regret it? It seems that there is no decision without regret, as each brings both good and bad. So, does it matter which decision we make? Well, it does, because different decisions bring a different share of good and bad. And that difference is of crucial importance. Strive to make a decision that brings more good than evil and you'll be on the right track. Often, the right way is the hard way.”
  “But how do we recognize evil when it comes?” Mark asked his counselor in the dream.
  “Ehh, little greenhorn Mark. You’re asking me how to become wise, as if it’s a walk in the park. The years will pass and you will go through a lot before you gain a nugget of wisdom. But listen to your inner voice; see where it is taking you and strive to hear the good in it, and it will be good. For now, live by your own little wisdoms and watch out for the false know-it-alls trying to hook you with their tricks. Remember, young people are prey to scoundrels! You will recognize those scammers by their rootless lives. For them, everything is in words, but the acts are missing. Sometimes, they don’t have to be real scoundrels; they could be naive people seduced by them. Build a little fence around yourself, out of wisdom, and take care,” the counselor said, and Mark woke up at that moment.

Translated by the author Johnny B