By and large people continually progress within an illusion that they believe to be their life. It’s not their true life, but an imagined version, carefully filtered through their biases, experiences, and accumulated knowledge. We first learned this in school—where we mimicked what others did, believed what they believed, and assumed it was the correct way to live.
To make matters worse, most people reside in the time frame—past or future—they’ve unconsciously locked themselves into through their habitual thinking. You can effortlessly identify their mental state just by paying attention to the way they speak. Of course, I realize this requires some effort on your part, as enduring another person’s endless blabber without risking an immediate bout of tinnitus is no small feat.
Believe me, I’m well aware of my responsibilities here, and I assure you, your well-being is a priority as I write this. So please bear with me, as there’s more I’d like to unpack about our perception of time.
As I mentioned, if you listen carefully, you can often discern whether the person you’re speaking to is stuck reliving the past or has their sights firmly fixed on the future.
The former typically comes across as melancholic, remorseful, or even outright depressed—pining for the "good old days" that have long since passed. After all, the older we get, the better we once were, right? The latter, by contrast, often seems riddled with anxiety, perpetually fearing anything and everything that might or might not happen.
In my experience, most people subject themselves to endless torment by living in a dreadful, imaginary future. These poor souls are easy to spot by their fearful demeanour—and to be fair, they’re not entirely wrong. For anyone inclined to think this way, the future offers a veritable potpourris of calamities to agonise over.
For starters, there's the ever-looming risk of accidents. Take your pick: falling off a ladder, stepping on an explosive device, getting shot or stabbed, or being run over by a car, an elephant, or, perhaps, a tank. Then there's the possibility of being abandoned in a dinghy somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, or finding yourself stranded on the antenna of the Empire State Building. Perhaps you'd prefer being unceremoniously flung into thorny bushes on a Nairobi highway from a border patrol truck—or, better yet, waking up in a T-Rex's nest.
And that’s just scratching the surface.
In addition to the aforementioned catastrophes, there’s humanity's all-time favorite hobby: worrying about health—rooted, of course, in the unavoidable prospect of dying and the paralyzing fear that accompanies it. Naturally, there’s an alluring buffet of maladies just waiting to crash the party: every conceivable type of cancer, strokes, tinnitus, dementia, Alzheimer’s, emotional and urinary incontinence, brain seizures—though diagnosing the latter seems a bit tricky, given how little use many people make of their brains to begin with.
Not to be outdone, let’s not forget the all-star lineup of fungi, viruses, and bacteria eager to join the fray. It really makes you pause and marvel: how have humans managed to survive this long, surrounded by so much chaos, calamity and mayhem?
This, in my view, is precisely why the pension fund was invented: to give pensioners endless opportunities to cycle through an enchilada of doctors, specialists, therapists, and surgeons, ensuring their calendars remain as full as their pill organizers.
Speaking of the modern blessings bestowed upon our cherished pensioners in the altruistic, compassionate embrace of Western society, allow me to digress ever so slightly.
If the prospect of spending your twilight years bouncing between doctors' waiting rooms, hospital canteens, and shopping mall cafeterias wasn’t already soul-crushing enough, enter your ever-thoughtful, feckless offspring. With feigned solemnity, they wheel you out of your humble dwelling and into the sterile clinch of a nursing home. Naturally, they’ll assure you that this new "habitat" is in everyone's best interest—mainly theirs. After all, with their oh-so-busy, oh-so-crucial lives, they simply can’t slash out enough time to tend to your "pitiful needs." It's nothing personal; it's just progress, right?
Since you’ll no longer be needing your former domicile—with your fresh new nursing home address—your considerate offspring will relieve you of the "burden" by promptly offloading it to the highest bidder. Naturally, they’ll make quick work of liquidating everything else you’ve ever owned, ensuring nothing goes to waste.
After all, those useless heirlooms are far better suited to propping up their social status than cluttering your soon-to-be-forgotten life.
But this newfound efficiency creates an uncomfortable dilemma, doesn’t it? With your worldly possessions redistributed and no estate left to manage, one can’t help but wonder—what’s the point of you sticking around much longer?
Your delightful war stories and good ol’ days tales only go so far before they prompt eye-rolls and hasty exits.
Eventually, you come to grips with the fact that your life has been as dull as being dull lately anyway—void of passion and excitement like a parking lot at midnight. With any luck, you’ll have the good sense not to rack up further unnecessary expenses, tie up loose ends, and graciously exit the stage.
In a grand show of profound gratitude, your self-serving heirs will summon a few embellished highlights from your unremarkable existence and cue up Sinatra’s "My Way" at your funeral. The mourners, all donning somber expressions, will silently puzzle over which part of your humdrum life was ever conducted on your terms.
The gist of this admittedly exaggerated picture—yes, I know there are wonderful, family-loving kids out there—is that you come from nothing, and you’ll return to nothing. Whatever unfolds in the fleeting stretch in between it’s what people call their life.
So what now?
Try living in the present. Not tomorrow, not yesterday—just now. Stop postponing your dreams and ambitions. Follow your heart.
God exists beyond space and time, and He speaks to us in the stillness of our dreams. The present moment, the “Now”, shares that same timeless quality. It’s eternal, unchanging, and the only thing you truly have.
Time slips by, hours vanish, and nothing can reclaim them. But the now? It never ends.
As Lao Tzu—or maybe it was Confucius, or some other ancient sage—once said:
“The past is history,
The future is a mystery,
But the now is a gift.
That’s why it’s called the present.”
In essence, our lives unfold according to the expectations we set, which are themselves shaped by the experiences we've accumulated. Expect a dull existence riddled with illness and calamities, and that’s precisely what you’ll receive.
It sounds bizarre, even illogical—and perhaps it is. To be honest, I’ve never been particularly skilled at understanding logic anyway. To this day, rationality remains as foreign to me as a manual on quantum mechanics written in ancient Greek. But what is logic? Must something be logical to be true?
The reality of our existence is less a clean equation and more an absurd paradox. Logic is merely a crutch, a construct of the human mind to delay despair when confronted with the chaos of reality. We cling to it because it’s comprehensible, and comprehension gives us the illusion of control and security.
At least, it does for everyone else—logic and I have always had a fragile relationship at best.
But then, fate strikes, and we find ourselves in real trouble. It’s in these moments we come to realize that true security is an illusion, no matter how fervently we chase it. To truly live freely, we must sever our mental ties to these imagined safeties.
This is one reason I fundamentally reject so-called authorities, choosing instead to chart my course by my own moral compass. Of course, this means owning every decision and squarely facing its consequences, no matter how they unfold.
In my view, taking responsibility for my actions is the price of freedom—and it’s a price I willingly pay, every single day.
Such is life.
Back in the Yukon, I found myself under a flurry of grievances, each more irritating than the last…
The egregious animal abusers.
The humanoid corpse masquerading as my passenger.
The hideous mountains.
The complete lack of sleep—because, of course, I’d forgotten to account for the 22-hour "days" near the Arctic Circle when I was haggling over my daily wage.
Classic Dumb-Ass me, a pro at self-delusion.
Naturally, I felt shortchanged when my employer developed the charming habit of waking me at 11 p.m. to suggest we go flying, since it wasn’t quite dark yet.
Then there were the demanding flying conditions—paired with an aircraft that was held together, I suspect, by duct tape and wishful thinking.
A cocktail of mounting concerns, really.
One day, I was out with one of the guides, luckily one of the few who were not smelling like decaying carcasses, scouting for stone sheep high up in the mountains—a task that firmly held the title of my least favorite chore.
Picture this: a 3,000-foot sheer drop yawning below, the edge of the cliff practically brushing the wingtip, and me—someone not exactly fond of heights—wrestling with violent downdrafts and upwinds that threatened to turn our little airborne contraption into an unfortunate pile of rubble.
The lad behind me, my passenger—who fancied himself a budding aviation authority—had his binoculars trained on the cliffside, scanning for the elusive and breathtakingly beautiful white stone sheep. These elusive creatures were worth over $10,000 a pop to hunters eager for an impressive trophy to hang on their walls back home.
I glanced back and told him to put away the binoculars unless he was keen to examine the rock face on a microscopic level. I promised, with just the faintest edge of sarcasm, to bring him close enough to the cliff that he'd have no need for magnification.
“Is this safe, flying so close to the cliff?” The self-proclaimed aviation PhD-holder in the back finally piped up, sounding concerned.
“Of course it’s not, you moron!” I shot back. “But didn’t you just say—and I quote: ‘Get me as close to the drop as possible unless you’re a pussy’? Be careful what you wish for, my friend!”
The truth was, I was probably more terrified than he was, but there was no way I’d let him know that. So closer we went, the cliff face filling the windshield as we hugged the escarpment, bouncing with the winds. Up and down we danced along the ridge, flirting with disaster.
We crested the hill, and that’s when it happened: a vicious downdraft slammed us like a hammer, and we dropped 1,500 feet in what felt like a heartbeat. The fall was so violent that both of us smacked our heads against the unforgiving metal headliner, and any loose gear in the cockpit instantly relocated itself to unpredictable places.
Unfortunately, among the flying debris was my trimming wheel—a crucial lever for keeping the aircraft’s attitude balanced. It had popped right off.
“Hey, genius!” I shouted over the roar of the engine and the blood pounding in my ears. “Mind making yourself useful for once? See if you can find the damned trim wheel before we end up as a permanent fixture on this rock!”
“Is that important? Do we need that?” he asked, rather irritably, while trying to staunch the bleeding gash on his scalp.
It was a remarkably foolish question coming from an aviation pundit, but I gave him a pass. He was busy soaking his shirt in blood and fighting off a wave of nausea.
“Well, only if we ever want to land,” I replied, not bothering to veil my sarcasm. Empathy wasn’t exactly flowing between us—I considered him a prat.
A moment later, I heard him rummaging around the cockpit, muttering curses as loose gear shifted about. Finally, he came up with the elusive trim wheel, holding it up like some kind of trophy.
“Great,” I said. “Now, unless you want to try flying this thing, be a sport and reattach it. I’m a little preoccupied keeping us out of a mountainside.”
To his credit, he managed to fumble it back into place without much further incident.
After two grueling hours of fighting gusts and searching for elusive stone sheep, we returned to base to refuel and grab a quick lunch. It was then, upon landing, that my brave scout decided to lighten his load, leaning over the pontoon to regurgitate an unholy blend of half-digested bacon, eggs, and pancakes into the pristine lake below.
“Tough guy,” I muttered, shaking my head as he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
This was how most days unfolded: stretches of me fixing various parts of the plane or, on occasion, picking a tame horse and acquainting myself with the art of horseback riding—which, to my surprise, I found utterly delightful.
Secretly, I had to admit that I enjoyed riding far more than flying.
It was on horseback that I realized something profound: operating airplanes—though truthfully, only my own airplane—and being in the Maasai Mara in Kenya were two inseparable sides of the same coin. One was incomplete without the other.
The sole reason I had ventured into aviation was to fly in Kenya. Navigating the rolling hills, skimming across wide stretches of savanna, weaving low between acacia trees with passengers in tow—passengers I actually liked—was, without doubt, one of the greatest blessings of my life.
Even now, after so many years, when I close my eyes, I vividly recall the wonderful people I had the privilege to fly with.
There was James, the Camp Manager of Hemingway’s Ol Seki—who became a dear friend, a brilliant backup photographer, and a man of profound integrity. I think of the countless honeymooners, flying each couple separately around the Maasai Mara, their joy and awe so contagious.
And then there was Tochi, a wealthy businessman from Nairobi, who, without any prompting, donated a set of brand-new Bush Wheel tires—an extravagant gift we could never have afforded on our own.
I remember the good lads of Hemingway’s—Henry, Raphael, Garry, Moses, and many more, too numerous to list. Their camaraderie and kindness are etched in my heart, as enduring as the golden plains of the Mara itself.
Anyway…
Back at the cabin, the growing disparity between me, my associates, and especially my employer became impossible to ignore. Most of it stemmed from one glaring issue: my complete inability to be an employee.
I hadn’t worked for anyone in nearly 40 years. Even my four years in the Navy couldn’t really be classified as “work.” For over 13 years, I had run my own business, so I knew how to operate a commercial enterprise. This, unfortunately, also meant I had developed a tendency to critique business practices I disagreed with—a habit that, unsurprisingly, wasn’t met with much enthusiasm. Nobody likes a smart-ass.
And then, of course, there’s my pesky moral compass, which tends to jab me at the most inconvenient times, further complicating matters.
In short, it was high time to extract myself from this situation—which I did, much faster than I expected.
But since I’ve rambled on long enough already, that’s a story for another day…
Marcel Romdane
