Leaving an episodic bunch of friends-for-life to their wonted roaming of erstwhile ruins, you set out on a reclusive hike up the

short remaining bit of slope standing between you and the peak of this mountain. Fluffy white clouds float across the crystal clear skies, soaking up the soft rays of a mid-spring afternoon and giving the whole scene a serene, somewhat surreal setting. Up a flight of stairs you proceed, leaping up a terrace or two with the agility of a chain-smoking panther and the zest reserved only for the chronically slothful. After all, you ve labored-not in getting to this heritage site to begin with, but took the comfy train from !usco instead. "oon enough, though, the whole of #achu $icchu% this mysterious city, long ago forsaken on top of the colossal $eruvian Andes, shall be your breath for the taking. &ou ve always been drawn to the overview% the general and universal sides to life, while most folks, such as your friends down at the site, busy themselves with collecting photo after photo of particular heaps of rocks. &our friends also chose to trek these mountains for two and a half days, a tradition among backpackers, so as to also possess a photo of #achu $icchu at sunrise. 'bviously, they all insist the long hike was well worth the time and effort, and you believe them. (hen again, one can hardly e)pect people who undertook such an endeavor to be willing to confess to the possibility of it not being worth their while. *ints of monotonicity aside, and overlooking evident tension between group fractions that ll keep any war nice and chilled, there s still much to be said for trekking. 'ne thing that can be said, for e)ample, is that you simply don t care for it one bit. Although a day s hike is, overall, a rather en+oyable e)perience, by the second day, it always goes downhill, particularly if you need to keep on hiking uphill. ,-hy walk if you can stand. you always say. ,And why stand if you can sit down. And so, you finally reach the very top of the mountain and sit your ass down on a lively patch of soft grass. "till panting, you pull out a pack of /nca cigarettes from your

shirt pocket, s0ueeze one out and let it burn to ashes between your lips, while dreamily taking in the superb view of what remains of once a truly celestial metropolis. How the hell did these humongous rocks get all the way up here? you cannot help wondering. And how were these temples constructed with such precision, yet without the use of proper tools? *owever, most mind-boggling of all are the people% indigenous folks, who toiled so long and hard on the construction of such a ma+estic city, only to forsake it a mere century later for no apparent reason whatsoever1. /ndeed, #an works in mysterious ways. 2od, however, does not1 2od hasn t worked a day in its life, while mankind has been slaving continuously for millennia after millennia, ever since the mythological fall from its grace. (ake the grand pyramids in 3gypt, for e)ample, or the 2reat -all of !hina. -hile e)perts are debating the e)traordinary, e)traterrestrial or e)traneous possible e)planations for +ust how such remarkable structures could have been constructed back in a day and age of relative backwardness, let me offer an over-simplified e)planation of my own. *ow about, by a whole lotta people, slaving real hard and for a mighty long time1 4ut, hell1 $ut great fits of lunacy, banality and waste aside, and you still remain with endless toil from sunrise to sunset% from birth to demise% from generation to generation. "urvival, nourishment, security, reproduction, leisure, progress, and so on and so forth. Labor of labors, ,tis all labor. !all it the human condition or the will of the gods, when your own little detour from real life will end, you too shall have to +ump right back on this wagon of wagons% this chariot on fire, get a degree, get a +ob, get a life, get a wife, produce some kids, make money, spend money, buy a house, save for the future, for old age, for death, for ta)es... 5evertheless, right now you re +ust sitting on a patch of grass, blowing smoke at the clouds and bathing in the magnificence of a city forsaken in time. A historic monument to wisdom yet to have been deciphered or the most monumental administrative fuck up in the whole of history, #achu $icchu does make you think. &ou think of the year and a half that has passed since you last held a +ob, and of how so very much you like it this way. 2ranted, has the last +ob title you held been anything other than a construction worker, you might have been hankering for work a bit more.

(hen again, can t 0uite think of a worthwhile trade you ve e)perienced in your short yet diverse career as a 6ack-of-all that felt worth waking up early in the morning for. All these adolescent years of working for the 7ibbutz% those turns of duty at its commune dining room% those three whole years of playing at being a soldier - all a complete and utter waste of time, as far as / m concerned, if not for a handful of useful skills gained and the means to finance present +ourney. #aybe the people, who populated these narrowly paved streets% who lived, loved and lusted in these little stone houses, were not too different than you and /. #aybe they finally caught on to +ust how much "isyphean toil maintaining a stone city on the very top of the Andes demands, packed it up one fine day and moved back into wooden huts down in the valley, simply ,cause they couldn t be bothered slaving their short lives away. And so, with that thought still in mind, you let go of your burdens and watch as they roll back down the mountainside. &ou ll be picking them up again soon enough anyhow. &ou always do. (hen, you shall again be forced to push ,em back up the slippery slope of life until the end of days. &ou get back on your feet, take one last, long look at the entirety of the #achu $icchu ruins, then commence your descend back into their midst. 4y the (emple of the "un, a bunch of friends await. (hey d like to get going soon, as they re +aded from hiking all this way and long for nothing less than a hot shower and a soft bed. 'h well, guess they ve earned it after all. 888 Leaving your trusty army buddy behind to his splashing about in a blissful hot spring, you set out on a reclusive hike up the short remaining bit of slope standing between you and the peak of this mountain. "heepish white clouds graze in the celadon skies, gnawing on the mellow rays of a late-summer afternoon, giving the whole scene a serene, somewhat meditative setting. Up a flight of stairs you proceed, scaling a boulder or two with the skill of an inebriate mountain goat and the zest reserved only for the uprightly challenged. After all, you ve hardly been off yer bum the whole day long, driving all this way from "anta Fe and all.

"oon enough, though, a 5ew #e)ican paradise of rocky mountains and deep ravines shall be yours for the borrowing. &ou were always drawn to the bigger picture, while your buddy as ever captivated by the finer details. (ogether, you ve ridden the old !hevy across the "tates, through countless national parks and heritage sites, trying to s0ueeze in as many particular e)periences, while also constructing a general enough prospective. (hat is to say9 sightseeing e)tensively without ever leaving the car. "ome may say that this is a pitiful way to travel, and / would be the first to agree. *owever, when faced with such an overwhelming abundance of attractions and places of interest, you ve really gotta know how to pick your battles. &ou must learn to preserve your resources, be they physical, mental or material, for that which matters the most. And right now, after having been on the road for four days, using rest areas for sleeping and gas stations for washing up, what really matters to you both is the privilege of rela)ing in one of nature s divine little hot tubs. ,-hy stand if you can sit, and why sit if you can float in sky domed thermal water. And so, you finally reach the very top of the mountain and rest your back against a boulder, cursing under your heaving breath. &our sweaty fingers are already s0ueezing out a #arlborough cigarette, while you allow the splendid view to seep in% taking in the peaky toes of the colossal :ockies, whose limbs stretch across the entire continent. That was sure an effort worth making, you conclude. -hat makes an effort worth making is largely a matter of choice. Free will can turn the most seemingly futile effort into a personal achievement. (he concept of -ork, on the other hand, has very little to do with free will. /t is an involuntary effort that is never, by definition, its own reward, as the incentive of pay implies means rather than an end. (hus, work is differentiated from play. *unting, gathering and farming, for e)ample, so essential for the survival of the human race, have been taking their toll on humanity since prehistoric ages nonetheless% eons were consumed by laborious riverside scrubbing, so that clean clothes could be worn once in a blue moon. *owever, this accumulated and immeasurable amount of effort has also resulted in numerous advancements in the field of toil-reduction we like to

call progress. 6ust toss a load into the washer, or pop into your local supermarket to buy a (; dinner, and you ve saved on what used to be a lifetime of labor. (herefore, few could argue with the notion that the privileged masses in the more fortunate parts of our world can now en+oy various toil-reduced lifestyles% lifestyles scarcely available to the public a mere few decades ago, and still largely unavailable to the less fortunate ma+ority of our planet s population. "o why, oh why, do we still insist on this fanatic devotion to a life of continuous labor rather than allowing for the welldeserved leisure of smelling the roses. For, if we seem to possess an e)ceeding ability to ad+ust to nature s ever changing circumstances, how come we also seem to be culturally incapable of ad+usting to manmade alterations in basic human conditions. -ork ethic, the foundation for our survival and progress as a species% curved in stone tablets of tradition and placed in the center of society for all to see, appears to be making less and less sense nowadays, as technology is steadily replacing the need for human labor. (ools and vassals% engines and machines% electricity and computers all do our work for us. &et society fears change to such an e)tent that this sacred tradition% this leftover custom from an age of survival turned moral principle, is still passed on from generation to generation, conditioning the individual into dependence on work not only as a mean but, above all, as a self-defining sense of purposefulness. 5evertheless, right now you re on the top of the world, purposelessly partaking in that which nature provides for us free of charge, and simply refuse to take it all too seriously. A passing, silly little phase you d soon grow out of or a mature assertion of ideals that defy social norms, the whole thing does, however, make you think. &ou think of the couple of years spent since you last held a +ob, and of the ineluctable fact that you ll be obliged to get yourself yet another one of those soon enough. At the age of twenty four, you already find yourself mentally semi-retired, and happily so. :e+oining the labor force shall occur only once your funds are completely e)hausted and only for as long as it takes to get yourself back on the horse. And soon enough, your thrift lifesavings, wholly invested in this +ourney around "outh America and across a portion of its northern kin, are to tucker out. Fortunately enough, the promised land of stars and angels lies a short distance to the west, and with a bit of luck, you d be able to nail a +ob there +ust in time.

And so, with that thought in mind, you let your empty pockets worry you no more than they absolutely need to. /n any case, you re learning how to ad+ust to simple, ine)pensive living with each and every day you spend on the road, but more importantly, spent in freedom from main stream conventions, moralities and suchlike doctrines. &ou take one last, long look around these rims of the great :ocky #ountain :ange, then commence your descend back to where you came from. <own in the bubbling spring, an army buddy awaits. *e s had enough splashing about and would like to sort out accommodation for the night% preferably a soft bad and *4'. 'h well, guess he s earned it after all. 888 *aving been traveling on your own for 0uite some time, you leave no one of any personal significance behind, as you set out on a reclusive hike up the lengthy remaining bit of slope standing between you and the peak of this mountain. (he skies above are of a painfully icy sapphire persuasion, casting a mid-winter afternoon chill across a landscape wholly coated in ma+estic white robes and giving the whole scene an edgy, somewhat painfully real setting. Up the slippery slope you proceed, plodding into snow knee deep with every step you take, yet pushing on with the determination of a yak on crack and the zest reserved only for the neither finalized nor resolved. After all, you ve +ust come from Auschwitz, and there s nothing like a visit to a concentration camp for a renewed zest for living. "oon enough, though, the ma+estic peak of #t. =akopane, lofty prince of the (atra #ountains, in turn the northmost stretch of the colossal !arpathian #ountain :ange that divides 3urope east to west, shall ting > ling your very spine. &ou always cherished the historic prospective, while most people you know are either zealously keen on remembrance or overeager to forget. *istory always repeats itself, with the significant modifier of getting incessantly better at what it does. 5evertheless, some specific aspects of recent history you find e)tremely hard to put in prospective, no matter how hard you try.

4eing brought up on the knees of a culture nursing an open wound the size of near annihilation does leave an imprint whether one likes it or not. /t leaves an imprint too deep for the mind to deal with ob+ectively, no matter how well prepared it felt itself to be. For you did come prepared for anything% the horrors and the anguish and the degradation of humanity. Anything but for how very serene, somewhat surreal even, the camp settings would turn out to be. 2iddy birds were sitting on top of barbwire fences, chirping gaily in the soft rays of a maternal sun. Lively green patches, covered in flowery, virginal gowns of yellow and white, spread across fertile soil once soaked with blood. 3ven the wooden pla0ues commemorating these ignominious events bared the most detached, almost academic, air of an open museum of natural history. ,-here do the birds go when the death camp freezes over. And so, step by step, you finally make it to the very top of the mountain and sit yourself down on a stagnant patch of cushy snow. From a black casing strapped to your back you pull out a semi-frozen trumpet, warm up the mouth piece, put is to your lips and then let a sad, mournful entreaty glide across the $olish landscape% across the sand and the sea% the rustle of the water and the glisten of the sky% an entreaty for mankind. &ou play for humanity, in all its faultiness, and for the si) million who were lost. &ou play for yourself% a stranger in a strange land% a wandering 6ew% a refugee from the <utch lands of +oyless toil. -hen the music finally dies out, you light up a full flavored #ocne cigarette, inhale the fumed, crisp cold air, and then let it out with a soft sigh. /ndeed, you now realize, you ve escaped *olland at the very last moment, +ust before that country would have sucked all that is vital and authentic out of you, leaving you an empty vessel, to be molded into a fitting building block for society. And the basic building block for society is a worker. A worker bee% a laborer ant% a proletarian. A worker is defined by his society according to trade, thus tends to lose all aspiration for self-definition over time. (hen again, why should he take the responsibility for who he is in his own hands, when it can so easily be shed. -hen it can so easily be left to society. After all, personal liberty is but a small price to pay for a sense of belonging.

4ut what happens when the worker finally retires, after his entire adult life has been devoted to this or that trade. -hat defines him then. (he fact is that, even in a world stripped of social conditioning and work ethic, most would still prefer to keep on working% to be productive and purposeful of their own free wills. <irect free will, though, differentiates this willful effort from that involuntary one, thus transforming it into its very own essence. Let those who wish to continue working work as much as they wish then, and those who wish to be playing play. 3ven at this day and age, given the potentially reduced amount of toil technological progress provides us with, human labor still re0uired can easily be divided in such a way that would enable our population to be sustained on no more than a couple of working days a week. 4ut what are we to do with such an abundance of free time on our hands. *ow will we suddenly cope with no one telling us what to do, after millenniums upon millenniums spent in habitual laboring. &ou know damn well what you would like to do, though. 2iven half a chance, you d continue gathering different e)periences, en+oying the essence of life and avoiding taking it all too seriously for as long as humanly possible. And if that sort of unconventional choice should place you on the outskirts of whatever host society you may be drifting through at the time, then so be it1 At the end of the day, once it gets too unsettling on the outskirts, you can always return home. *ome, where one is accepted for who he really is no matter what? And so, with that thought in mind, you pack your trumpet back in its casing, sling it over your shoulder and let out another sigh of reconciliation. -ith that, you also come to terms with all burdens belonging specifically to you or collectively to your people. At least your recent emancipation would allow you to fend off the necessity of working for a mighty long while, especially if you d stay on this eastern side of 3urope. &ou take one last, long glance from the royal peak of =akopane, so fittingly cloaked in white, then commence your descend back towards the base lodge. 5o one is waiting for you down there, but there s a sweet $olish kwiatek@ awaiting your return elsewhere% a flower child so very infatuated with the promise of a gypsy to sweep her off her feet. 'h well, guess you ve earned that after all.
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