Riding a Motorcycle, Enjoying Leipzig, and the Pain and Chaos of the World

The sun curved at the western edge, perhaps 45 degrees from my line of sight. People were heading west—maybe going home, maybe just starting their journey. Today had already felt so brief, stripped away by exhaustion, fear, and deep confusion.

At 3:00 PM, I chose to ride a motorcycle that I borrowed from a friend. He was with his girlfriend, disturbing my solitude. Minute by minute, I babbled nonsense, already bored of watching them act lovey-dovey. Better to leave them alone—I’d rather take the bike and dive deeper into my own solitude.

The evening traffic was dense, fumes from vehicles clouding my vision. I put on my headset, opened my music app, and selected Leipzig. This felt like the perfect combination—to let my mind soar far away and curse this chaos.

As I started riding, the first song I played was "A Van Gogh Waiting." It felt like I was descending further into madness and hatred.

I’m wandering; searching

Concrete graveyard of clichés and absurd accusations

Manifesting into a festering static buzzing to no end.

Hahahaha, the lyrics made it feel like I was gathering all the resentment and anger inside me, fueling an urge to throw a Molotov at some building or a group of people I truly despise—or even the desire to shove a gun into my own mouth.

My mind was a storm—lost and afraid of what tomorrow might bring. Of friends I love turning against me, of a lover leaving me for their own happiness, of my parents letting me die alone in hunger.

I kept playing Leipzig’s songs, twisting the throttle harder, speeding up with the rhythm—chaotic and filled with rage.

From the motorcycle, my mouth repeatedly spat curses at everything I saw. I saw an old man pedaling his bicycle, carrying trash. I saw a mother holding her groceries. I saw a government system that was absolute bullshit, a country that was a complete joke, a boss who was a total bastard. And then, I saw a pair of high school students, basking in their happiness, as if they were at the peak of their youth.

The chaotic lyrics heightened my desire to create my own chaos. Every now and then, the thought flashed through my mind—to crash my bike into a yellow truck with "Allah is the Greatest" written on it. Or to slam into a private car with "Shalawat for the Prophet Muhammad" and a "Cemara Family" sticker on the back. Hahaha.

Hope is absurd, isn't it? Like a thin rope we cling to in the middle of a storm—sometimes it feels strong, sometimes it's on the verge of snapping. We live by holding onto hope—hope in ourselves, in others, in the system, in God, or maybe in something else entirely. But at the same time, hope is what often makes us fall, because we trust too much that everything will be okay.

Do we die because of others? Maybe. Because of their expectations, their pressures, the standards they create without ever asking if we agree. But maybe we also die because of ourselves—because we let ourselves get trapped in a maze of expectations we built on our own.

This writing, like life, doesn’t need to be neat or structured. Chaos has its own way of speaking. Maybe, in this disorder, we find something more honest.

So, if we can’t rely on order, on the system, or even on ourselves—then what’s left?

But in the end, nothing is more satisfying than embracing pain and chaos. And nothing is more beautiful than the sheer beauty of enduring that pain.