I feel I have been dumped by a Referendum

After Brexit I feel like I’ve just split up with my partner, but it’s not one of those civilized, amicable divorces − if there is such a thing − but one of the ‘rat varieties’, meaning: your ex has just left you without telling you. In fact he has moved out and you are left with the mortgage and the bills. Even worse, you don’t actually know where he is − dead, gone with the wind, circumnavigating the globe or even space travelling. Who knows and who cares. What really matters is that you are left on your own in an empty flat and have no idea what to do and where to go. Your love story has ended tragically, but you don’t know if you are staying or leaving. Your ex has left you, and he couldn’t even be bothered to tell you. You are now sitting in the comfy armchair and are so numb that your brain is like a frozen cod. Do you still have a home and for how long? Did he hate you? You lived with him all this years and you never had an inkling that you were not his type. Unfortunately it happens. He was always kind and didn’t lose his temper much, he bought you the occasional box of chocolate, and now it’s all over.

The first twenty-four hours have gone by and your brain is now slowly defrosting. You decide to go out, cautiously, to roam the streets, still in a state of coma, in search of an explanation. You are looking for a sign that it has not all be invain, but nothing happens. Everything looks different but nothing has changed. 

The wind blows your hair up, the rain drips on your glasses; the bus is full and doesn’t stop. It’s all the same or so it seems, but a strange fume pervades the air; it’s dark and sticky, you see it disappear over your shoulders and then you see it reappearing again from a side road. It embraces passers-by and dogs, the dogs bark and grow irritable. Slowly, the nasty fume grows and thickens. The smell becomes stronger and you are wondering if this might have anything to do with your divorce. You wonder if this crowd that only a few days ago was cheery and friendly has also divorced you for unknown reasons that you don’t comprehend.

Your eyes are full of tears and you see everything through water like a fish in a fish ball. Now you are a fish and everybody else is a fish too. You will have to learn how to swim in the marine abysses; there will be sharks and killer whales, piranhas and poisonous urchins. You have fallen into the deep sea of uncertainties. You believed in logic and order, in science and rationality. This is a far cry from all of that. You see a library and desperately jump in to dry your body drenched in salty water. You know what you’re looking for, “The Conquest of Happiness”. You open a page and read:

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

Bertrand Russell