Brazil finds ways to stay light in a bleak world

The author recalls a childhood memory of dusk, when old sodium streetlights would turn on and cast the world in a yellow monochrome, a moment that always made him sad. One evening, his father asked why he became quiet. Not understanding the feeling, the father suggested they get ice cream in the village. They rode his bicycle to the shop just before it closed. Standing under a lantern in the snow, the father enjoyed his ice cream with sprinkles and said, “Lekker he?” (Delicious, huh?). The author felt his father was acknowledging they were both experiencing the same melancholy.

Now thirty years old, the author lost his father to cancer ten years ago. He reflects that growing up felt similar to those evenings: as time passed, the world lost some of its color. He cites broken hearts, bad decisions, unrealized dreams, and unspoken words as marks time leaves on everyone. This raises questions about how to cope, hold onto color, resist bitterness, and stay light-hearted.

In his twenties, the author sought to stay lighthearted by immersing himself in philosophy, the arts, powerlifting, trading, traveling, filmmaking, and writing. He believed pursuing meaningful answers justified life’s suffering. A mentor in art school told him, “Sam, being a romantic in this world is one of the hardest things you can do,” a statement that only made sense years later. Despite outward success, the question of staying light-hearted while carrying the past remained unresolved. The more he found, the bleaker the world seemed, and the sodium-lamp feeling became constant. Colors no longer returned in the mornings. He reached a point where he felt he had exhausted his known world, and a thought of stepping out kept returning.

During this time, he spoke to a woman who seemed light, full of color, and always smiling. She had a tea box with playful names like Namastea, empatea, and tearapy. They laughed together. She told him he seemed like a man who explores as genuinely as he can and asked why he wouldn’t continue exploring, regardless of convenience. He realized he had stopped searching for questions in his search for answers.

The author describes the unknown as a child’s friend that becomes an enemy in adulthood, causing heartache and hopelessness. This hopelessness led him into an abyss where he felt he had nothing left to lose, allowing him to go anywhere and do anything. The unknown became the only place left that felt alive. He and his love walked backwards for two months across northern Spain on the Camino de Santiago to experience embracing the unknown. Initially expecting catastrophe, they found that slowing down led to feeling lighter, freer, and more present. They then left Amsterdam and moved to the campo of Panama to experience real solitude. There, he confronted everything he had been outrunning: the unwillingness to accept things as they are, the need to be something in a bleak world, and the desire to make sense of it all.

Learning about his father through others’ stories, the author discovered his father had also struggled with existence. On that night with the ice cream, the father did not try to fix or rationalize the sadness. Instead, he got on his bike and rode to the ice cream shop. The author now sees this as a refusal to let the monochrome win. His father did not fight the streetlights or pretend the world was not turning colorless; he simply decided that was not a reason to skip vanilla with sprinkles. Sitting in the sun with his love in Panama, overlooking Volcán Barú as day turned to night, the author found himself saying, “Lekker he?” He realized he was living in the same place his father had been: not above the world or against it, but inside it, enjoying something nice with someone he loves.