On a cloudy summer day, a friend and I went to a cafe. A light rain started not long after we received our drinks, forcing people to hurry from the outdoors to shelter. After talking with my friend for some time, on topics ranging from meeting girls at night to what World War 3 would look like, I noticed a little girl outside in the rain, looking straight up into the sky, eyes squinted just enough to shield the rain drops.
My first instinct was to sense that she was in danger. “Is she alone? Where are her parents?” I looked around and found a couple sitting two tables from me watching her closely. The girl ran to them with a big smile, her face wet. Her mom fixed her jacket and let her run back into the rain. She spread her arms out wide and skipped along from one side of the outdoor courtyard to the other, her hair getting wet.
“Look at the girl,” I said to my friend. “Everyone is running away from the rain but she’s running towards it.”
Whenever I see a little child approaching a rain puddle, I pause to watch. Almost always, the child attacks the puddle, jumping directly into its center to make the biggest splash. Then I wait for the inevitable scolding. “Don’t do that! You’ll get wet!” Already, the child is being socialized to act like an adult. Its playful instincts, weeded out.
Did my parents attempt to socialize me? I don’t remember them giving me a list of dos and donts. They didn’t tell me what was acceptable or not. When I wanted to play as an adult, jumping into puddles of words, I got a lot of people wet.
The little girl outside the cafe did not get bored with the rain. For half an hour, she twirled and danced, jumped and smiled. She couldn’t have been older than three, well before the age she enters school, when teachers and classmates give her their list of dos and donts to sculpt her and take away a simple joy of something as mundane as rain. “You’ll get wet! Come inside! It’s dirty!” Something she used to love will become something she hates and runs from.
Are we so far gone that we can’t enjoy the rain? Did society take us into its clutches, socialize us, iron us out, and hand us a constructed list of what is acceptable and what is not?
One month later, I was at a restaurant alone eating a burger and fries. A heavy storm began. Customers who came inside shook the water off their clothing before ordering at the counter. I took my time, hoping the storm would pass by the time I finished eating, but it was still coming down strong when I walked out the door. The rain was cold. I instinctively hunched over and lowered my head, like anyone else would, but then I told myself to relax. I loosened my shoulders and looked straight ahead.
I began the one-mile walk to my home, as slowly as I could manage. The first few minutes were chilly until my body adjusted to the temperature of the water. I watched other people, hunched over, defenseless without an umbrella, racing towards shelter. I walked by awnings with people in various stages of wetness, waiting for the rain to soften. I walked by taxi cabs with drivers waiting for a wet fare. I walked by other men who seemingly didn’t mind the rain, but whose bent, stiff necks betrayed their indifference, their pace a tick too fast.
Many people looked at me intently, a concentrated look. They seemed to ask, “What is he doing?” I recognized the look because it was the same one I gave to the little girl, a bewilderment, maybe even confusion, that someone is not doing what you would do, what you’re supposed to do.
I didn’t take it far. I didn’t twirl or dance, I didn’t smile. Something a child does every day can be interpreted as insane when done by an adult, though I’m not sure if that says more about the child or the adult.
I was fully soaked by the time I turned on an empty street. Not a soul around. I closed my eyes to hear and feel the rain, and I started to smile, and for the next five seconds I can say I experienced pure joy, something the little girl must’ve felt continuously for nearly an hour. It ended when a thought entered my mind that my phone may be getting wet. I dropped the smile and opened my eyes.
In the last stretch to my front door, I had to pass a lively pub, still at my slow pace. A dozen drinkers were congregating out front, smoking under an awning. They stared at me sternly. The alcohol allowed them to give a response that others had thought but not shown. “This guy is weird.” I felt self-conscious and quickened my pace home.
Twenty five years from now, there will be a heavy rain. A young woman will be caught in it without an umbrella. She will lower her head, tighten her shoulders, and seek shelter. Waiting for the rain to stop, shivering from the cold, she will see an old man, water dripping from his white beard, his eyes closed, smiling at nothing. He’s a crazy old man, she’ll think, but then her mind flashes with a memory of when she was a little child. She looks up into the sky.
This article was originally published On Roosh V.
Read Next: Billions Of Egos Dance For Your Attention
Interesting article.
The message I am getting is …. Stay young. Stay dumb. Stay full of cum.
Your life will be much more meaningful even as you get old.
Stay young. stay dumb. stay full of cum.
You should put that on a T shirt and sell it. no homo.
Hmmm… a t-shirt!
Well I have to put my education into good use finally. Glad that I didn’t drop out of pre-school.
Great article Roosh. Commenter George obviously didn’t get the message.
Yeah I was reading this article after being translated into Swahili. This is maybe why I miss the message. Well as long I am the first to comment since even though this article has been on for hours no one commented. Everyone went to focus on the trannie articles in here.
Well judging by the amount of people out there who have a nuclear meltdown because someone cut too close to them in traffic, I’d say it’s time to stop and smell the roses. Or….. clean the sand out of your vagina.
What’s with these sad face avatars? Not sure what avatar I’m gonna get until I hit “post comment” so I’ll have you know, I’m having a good day.
I’m still not 100% sure I did it right, but this article’s steps let you bypass your own ‘sad face’.
Avatars are generated randomly. If you want your own avatar, register at gravatar.com.
nice slice of joy of a rainy day there
See, I knew it. Awwwww sad monocle face. Wtf.
Well I would go play in the rain if I didn’t have to face a thousand microaggressions today. Even the fertile sign of rain reminds me of the patriarchy and I become instantly triggered.
I take a walk/hike and look down at my local city and enjoy being away from the bullshit, and back inside “a natural order” of things. I make sure not to talk. Just enjoy the honesty and clarity of nature.
Beautiful.
For many books there is a right time to read them in your life. Then they just ‘click’. Read them too young and you are unable to grasp them. Read them too old and they give you little. The articles Roosh writes seem to ‘click’ for me almost every time.
I recently moved to a smaller town and started taking walks in the fields and forests in the evenings, where there is rarely anyone else around. I take with me nothing but my keys and old clothes. I derive extraordinary joy from just standing there in the middle of an empty field, whether looking at the sunset, getting wet in the rain or freezing in the north wild. Often I also run like crazy and sometimes I sing. What I am yet to do but very tempted is wading through a near-by river and just laying on the ground.
And what I have realized is that it is not so much my fear of being judged by others that has been keeping me from doing crazy things but the fear of breaking my mobile phone by getting it wet or slammed on the ground. How stupid is that.
My favourite pastime is cycling muddy trails in the rain. Another activity to partake in phoneless… learned that the hard way heh. Will try lying on the ground… hadn’t thought of that. Thanks.
It’s too bad cowboys didn’t eat much pizza back in the Old West, because I think a good painting would be a cowboy giving his last slice to his horse. – Jack Handy
I bet the Disqus police never read this article.
Great article, I’m in my early 30’s and have increasingly witnessed close friends become enclosed, depressed, or manipulated into becoming the men they were afraid to become. These people (men mostly) all display severe cases of blue-pilitis. These men, only a few short years ago would come out biking, drinking with their mates. I refuse to think a few years can make such a drastic difference in one’s attitude towards life. This common situation denotes a sick society where people are forced to uphold an image of perfection, and abide by socially engineered laws aimed at deconstructing society.
To get back to the initial story, one day I was taking a stroll outside to catch some air and stopped to watch a flock of birds effortlessly glide through an air stream. Some guy stopped his car next to me, rolled down his window and said he was shocked to see that someone would pause and just stare in the sky. He must have been a red piller.
We live in such a consumer driven culture people have forgotten what’s important. Every time I see another friend post their latest acquisition on social media I just roll my eyes. It’s like it never occurs to them that their insatiable need to show *it* (new house/cottage/car/boat) to everyone else only amplifies how meaningless the object really is. I don’t need that kind of external validation because my free time is spent enjoying nature and adventures with the people I love.
that’s an interesting story.
It reminds us to sometimes reconsider things we’ve seen a million times before and, for once, reconsidered them as if it was the very first time we encounter them. Not to simply see watch them, as jaded we are, but to observe, touch, and feel them and be in the present time instead of using our collection of memories and preconceived ideas to quickly categorize and dismiss them. It helps us to enjoy simple things and fully be in the “here and now”, what buddhists use to do when get in trance.
enjoying simple things is a real relearning because as we used to grow older we lose touch with those things, but a child would be in awed because he ‘s still in touch with thay “sense of marvellous”.
Plus, if one can disconnect and relearn to enjoy such things, it will be a fresh air in a mundane live, full of feminists, social hystery, stupid people, stupid faces, stupid bitches.
Well, let’s play in the rain, walk in the forest, run in the sand or wander in the mountain, our sanity will thank us for those moments with ouselves and our inner child.
In heaven you’ll probably find a water puddle that refills itself everytime you jump in it so you can continuously behave as a child until your heart is content.
It’s one of the best things my dad ever said to me when I was a young kid. “Go on son, enjoy the rain” before my bitch mom turned him into half insanity. Roosh is actually starting to feel like a father figure.
I am getting pretty old.
That’s ok. I’m older than you, but I am still learning new things from you.
I don’t say this often, but when you leave this earth, and lord has called you, you will be missed. I hope someone will have taken up the mantle you started. And I also hope someone says this to me one day.
Be “in the NOW.”
The only time you can really be in anyway.
I experienced something similar when I adjusted my attitude about everything, and decided I can live just fine without hot water…cold showers everyday since. If you can step into ice cold water to start your day and not flinch, you can do anything.
Now my attitude is to do most things the harder way to build character, when I have the time. And even when I don’t have the time.
Me too! Cold showers were the start… it gave me a new perspective about most things we are taught to like/dislike. Made me really think about what I truly enjoyed in life. Caused me to purge a lot of physical crap I had accumulated. Despite the fact that I’d never been in debt, the act of clearing out physical objects I really didn’t need was very liberating. Also makes cleaning easier, but that’s a side point. I cycle to work everyday and one day (in the pissing rain no less) a colleague said she saw me in traffic. Her words: I was really envious of you at that moment, you were soaking wet but looked so happy-like a little kid. Keep up the simple life my friend.
It’s the moment when you don’t give a fuck about what other people think. You’ll be happier like the little one playing in the rain.
I’m 57. Everyone around my age grew up hearing this from a parent: “Kids, outside!” So we’d go outside and mess around till dinnertime. I probably put a million miles on my Schwinn spider-bike with a sissy bar. I visit my parents in the suburbs now and then. Where are the children? Inside playing video games, of course. But this has been going on . . . since the invention of video games. Maybe blame the parents.
I’m singin’ in the rain, singin’ in the rain.
I’ve always said there is a real writer in there. We got glimpses of him in the Bang era when you had pussy fever. He comes out to play more often now which is a good thing.
It adds depth to this site and creates a well rounded man. Fuck the people who only want to hear about how to slay vag, they are only getting half the story.
Roosh is in the path of Dao / Zen. He entered it through the door of hedonism, he survived it. Now events carry more information, every action is meaningful and he’s transforming into a philosopher. This is rare, and as far as I can see, a lotus flower raising from the mud. I’m glad to see him develop in my timeline rather than in records, it’s a beautiful person to witness evolve.
What you say in this article is very beautiful and I can totally relate, except that I am not afraid of what people think of me, I will smile often, especially when I am happy, I normally also enjoy the rain and the snow, and won’t try to cover myself from it, I never wear an umbrella. And I swear if somebody told me I was weird, I would not run away, I would respond to the insult but not in a way that would show that I was angered by it more like “You are the one that is weird”. When I walk in nature I can always enjoy it and my favorite moment is being at the beach, in the water while it is raining and big clouds are approaching in the distance. Just this summer, at Miami Beach I was one of the only people in the water at this very moment, it was raining and I was welcoming the rain, standing up with my arms pointing outwards, maybe people were looking but I wouldn’t know because I was so in the present moment that nobody could have bothered me and taken me away from this moment.
Where you live rain is cold, where I live rain is warm.
Cold + wet = potential death, only sensible to avoid death.
hearbreaking..