Te Aute Crossroad S1 E8

Episode 8: Remorse

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It was some gloomy old Greek guy sitting on a rock¹ who said We come into the world alone and we die alone.

I’d have to say, as a general rule, being alone doesn’t bother me so much: nothing wrong with a bit of solitude from time to time. What can make you truly miserable however, is when your oldest and closest friend abandons you. I’m talking about your self, your other half; that part of you that’s always with you. It’s possible to be okay with the whole world thinking you’re an idiot, but when your own self jumps ship, takes sides with the rest of the world—What did you do that for? You stupid freakin’ idiot!—that’s really bleak.

Take buyer’s remorse as an example. At the time, your self seemed right on board. Yeah, no, that looks good on you. Expensive, sure, but you know, it’s good quality. Oh, my God, you didn’t buy it did you? On the credit card. Jeez. How long’s that going to take to pay off?? I really don’t understand you sometimes. No, no, don’t be blaming me: I never liked it in the first place. You’re a stupid, freakin’, idiot.

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The lawyer had told us to visit the property a week or so before possession date. It was months since we’d seen it, so we were excited and arrived ahead of time. Parked at the bottom of the drive and—as you do—looked at our phones. No signal. We had come to realise, now we’d been in the area for a few weeks, that it was rather more remote than we had understood (putting it mildly), but no mobile phone coverage? What about our (imaginary) clients? What century is this...?

It was time. The drive was pretty rough: just a farm track, really. Needed a grader. Oh, here’s the house. Doesn’t that look grand! Hmmm, a bit tired. Can’t say I noticed that before. Oh well. Phew, look at the roof. Can you see how it’s bowed between the rafters, under the weight of the concrete tiles? Oh, dear. God, the cork tiles are painted. Purple. Oh well. Gosh it’s quite cold in here, isn’t it. No wonder they’ve put that wood-burner in the dining room. Ugly thing: not in keeping. Urghh: swimming pool’s not in great nick…

Is this the same place we came to?

How come we never noticed any of this before??

What have we done???

Through our many choices, we slowly stake out a course for our lives. (Torbjørn Ekelund)

1. Diogenes. A strange chap—today he’d be one of the homeless on the street. He advocated living simply, shamelessly free from social constraints. A philosophy he lived to an anti-social extreme.