This is a crucial issue in Serbia, it seems, but not only in Serbia, as global image of the world, the one which we most often see, is such that the ‘society’ has become elusive.

Everything is moving, everything has become nomadic, we are told we should travel, move, change places, migrate, look for happiness somewhere else if we can’t find it here, grab the chances at places where we may not belong.

Of course, this is yet another illusion imposed by a small part of the population that has something to eat and where to sleep: the global image of the world and of different societies and communities is different: people stay in one place for centuries, hoping that the next generation will have enough water and food to survive.

Serbia is not a country in which it is easy to travel, but a country which is easy to leave.

300 thousand, 400 thousand, 500 thousand young and best people have left the country since the beginning of transition, the word often used as euphemism for the years of breakdown.

What should have been transition from one system that could not survive into the system that proved to be more flexible, what should have been a leap from failed self-management to capitalism with soul, has not happened, as the transformation was accompanied by a terrible war we don’t even want to remember.

War, sanctions, bas state, stress, bad food, general collapse has left the consequences for everybody: according to some contemporary surveys, a lot of people in Serbia die of heart diseases.

So, if the hearts of the citizens of Serbia are ill, if the internal traffic of bad blood vessels is dramatically hampered, blood vessels through which poor rather than good blood cells flow, how can we expect the ‘heart of the society’ to be kept and that those invisible paths that connect the society are passable, durable and able to connect different interests to at least one common and most important, the one that will give the ‘heart of the society’ a momentum for life?

On the other hand, it seems to me that if I knew how to do it, I would become either rich or in power. Serbia, as it is now, seems to be too shabby and mutilated, in terms of society, to take steps that would lead it to where it should be.

Due to the social myocardial insufficiency, the society has no direction: it is rather like in a song by Darkwood Dub – uncontrolled movement in multiple directions.

However, as it is always in life, in every life, while there are people there is hope that things will change for better. There are so many good things in Serbia, small and local initiatives, which may be small but successful. Yes, these are ‘the cells’ that will develop in some better ‘organs’ one day.

Life is too short to be spent on fools, prophets, and those who complain. We learn lessons to have better fun. Happy people, content with their lives, may be able to make something. People clinging to the wall or brought to the edge can only devote themselves to prayer or try to run away. Society lives for a long time, but sometimes it dies, and this is not seen because of a different time frame.

The past should be left to historians, archaeologists and diagnostics, so that they could find a cure. The future should be left to the fanatics and those who believe in visions and we should not fall for nonsense. What we can do is deal with this here and now, just as it is, and try to keep up. Not because we could get somewhere, who would know that, but not to fall.

As long as we walk, as humans or as a society, our heart is beating.

‘The Heart is Beating, I Can Feel It, Who Can Hear It’.