Member-only story
You Don’t Always Need To Be Right
It doesn’t mean you’re going to be wrong
When I was younger, I used to take a dreamy pleasure in walking nighttime streets under the cool sodium hum of streetlamps, finding late-night dispensaries of food, drink and cigarettes. I criss-crossed my hometown via alleyways and public parks, and enjoyed the rare chance to own the landscape whilst everyone else was safely tucked up in front of their TVs. Alongside prowling cats and the flash of an urban fox, the glow of late-night walking had an exulted aspect to it, and with a sweet pang of melancholy, sometimes felt infinite and a touch mythical.
Nowadays, new thoughts insert themselves. The late-night scene looks like a different prospect to me now. Not that it’s changed; it’s just that I’m older. I’m now one of the people nestled behind their glowing-orange windows, mesmerised by the blue light of a TV screen.
The problem is not (only) that I don’t want to be outside at such a late hour, but that it just doesn’t enchant me as it once did. It’s one of the curious things about growing older — I’m beginning to discover — is that ideas that once seemed bold, proud and patently attractive, begin to get swallowed up by indecision and practical considerations.
I care more, I suppose, and the world loses some of its magic.
