A Tempest of Realisations

The gentle spring breeze caressing his face served as an epiphany about human behaviour. A true slap in the face. The unequivocal proof of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, errors of consciousness. The cosmos does not care about anyone. Neither the Sun. Nor the planet, the rain, or the wind.

It had been six months since he was dismissed from his job. More than three decades of dedication. Since then, he had been hurled into a storm that gnawed at all his convictions.

All of them!

The much-vaunted purpose in life turned out to be a fallacy. His material possessions weighed heavily on him, far beyond any pleasure they offered. The money in the bank was sufficient, yet the same blow repeated itself ad infinitum in a sadistic cycle.

“Was there never any real control, just as the forces of nature drive winds and rains? Perhaps life merely stumbles along,” he thought.

The weather changed. Yet again. Always at odds with one’s wishes.

First, a subtle gust that cooled his skin. Then, a sharper wind that seemed to carry far more than dry leaves. It swept away any lingering certainties. The clouds in the sky gathered in a silent procession, bearing the storm. He stood there, unmoving, feeling the first raindrop touch his forehead.

The city seemed indifferent to the imminent chaos. And to him. Cars sped past, pedestrians went on with their lives, and the world continued to spin without regard for the forming tempest. He, however, felt every breath of wind as a provocation.

For decades, he had built his life around forecasts. Financial forecasts, career forecasts, even emotional ones. He behaved as though he could tame the designs of the gods, imprison the wind in a box, and label it “security.” How utterly farcical.

The droplets intensified. The rain arrived in earnest, strong and unrelenting.

He recalled the first time he felt in control. He was young, perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three. He had just been promoted and, upon getting into his car that evening, he glanced at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. “You did it,” he whispered. The rain was pounding that day too. But he did not mind. He believed himself greater than time, greater than any storm.

Gazing at a puddle that was forming, his thoughts were suddenly transported to a desert he had visited years before. There, the heat was oppressive by day and the cold biting by night. Nothing yielded to his will.

He hated every moment.

The weather should be stable, pleasant, à la carte to his preferences. But it was not to be. After all, life was not a climate-controlled shopping centre. It was a desert, a mountain, a stormy ocean. All at once. Only now did he realise the absurdity of that desire.

Someone honked, followed by the sound of metal crashing. Accidents happen. But people never prepare as they should. “Roads become dangerous at the start of the rainy season,” he thought.

He imagined that, ideally, the Sun would shine every morning and that every night would be rainy. He laughed at the idea! Nothing could be more ludicrous than scheduling the weather in shifts. “But it makes sense,” he mused.

His first kiss had happened one evening in a fine drizzle. They were in their early thirties, beneath the canopy of a cinema that had already closed. The world was spinning far too quickly. A cold wind blew strongly, yet in the midst of nervous laughter, she held his face and pressed her lips against his. Everything stopped. He did not remember how long they remained like that. The following morning, the Sun was shining.

“Perhaps every relationship should begin in a moment of rain. That way, it could grow and bear fruit,” he reflected silently.

Near the end, it was different. The night of their first argument. The weather was tense, stifling. A storm on the brink of eruption, both outside and within. He sought security, certainty, planning. She longed for space, freedom, change. “You think you can control everything, but you can’t,” she said. Then, after a sip of wine, she added, “Least of all me.”

He hated hearing that. “I don’t want to control you,” he lied.

The years passed. Laughter mingled with arguments, embraces with bitter silences. He tried to follow a plan. There was always a plan. But she… she was like the wind.

It ended!

From that point onwards, he began noting down small details, looking for absurd coincidences: how many times had it rained on the most important days of his life? Did winds blowing from the east bring change? Or was it the west?

He imagined he could reverse certain events if he simply organised a repertoire aligned with the seasons of the year.

He became obsessed with patterns: deserts, rainy cities, icy mountains. He observed the weather like a scientist-poet trying to calculate the future—in verses. He studied air currents, lunar cycles, the shapes of the clouds.

There had to be an equation.

By then, only work remained. There, indeed, it was praiseworthy to predict. And to control. Surveillance through a procedural panopticon. For himself and for others. A model of discipline and regulated encounters.

Yet, at the end of the working day, the world resumed its chaos and lack of control. He thought he ought to live at the office. He would be far safer there. It would be beneficial for his job as well. By living on the premises, he could anticipate problems more quickly and solve them in record time. And he would never again have to face rain or wind.

One night, feverish in a cheap hotel room, he scrawled graphs in his notebook. Life, death, chaos, and transformations. “What’s the point?” he asked himself.

His fever led him to delirium. From this troubled perspective, he realised how clouded his once-healthy daily life had become. Reality is merely a fragment of a greater reality. A mere sliver of cognition.

No, there is never any meaning. Nor direction. Nor reason. Nor indeed any truth. Chaos asserted itself. The formulas failed. Life was stubborn. It mattered not how many variables he included; there was always something uncontrollable.

The only constant was the wind. Always blowing. Always drifting wherever it fancied. He felt envious of this freedom! Like the birds, who cling to the air to dance with it.

Thunder tore through the sky, illuminating a bluish halo. At the edge of the clouds, a fine line separated possibilities. But to whom did that boundary belong? The sky or the cloud? “Perhaps it’s at this threshold, this clash of forces, that consciousness awakens,” he philosophised.

He remained there, still, feeling the weight of each drop trickling down his face. For the first time, he did not dash for cover. He did not take out his phone to check the weather forecast. Heavy raindrops fell mercilessly. He did not cower, nor did he curse the rain. On the contrary, he was grateful for that baptism. Not of faith, but of resignation.

A restless yet genuine peace welled up within him. At that moment, he smiled and began to walk.

The wind, merciless and erratic, shoved him forwards. As though it were telling him he must go on, no longer fight. The world would not bend to his will.

It never had.

And that was perfectly fine.

In that instant, he understood the storm was not punishment.

It was liberation.