By the shore

School is over, are you satisfied ?

That was the first summer after the school ending. The streets swarmed of youth. Teenagers having their first rides after receiving the driving license, enjoying trying to impress the young ladies who gathered around the cars, hoping for a seat on the coolest ones.
Some of them found shelter from the heath swimming at the public pools.
Young couples walked hand in hand, clasped tight, kissing on walls in the sunset light.
The town resounded with magical joy. Everyone was delighted of those first breaths of freedom.
Everyone except me...
There was something acrid in the air.
It suggested me that notwithstanding the great results I had achieved during my school career, now that it was over, I couldn't be happy, much less calm.
It was like when completing a puzzle you find out that one single piece is missing, small yet huge, and everything you did until then has been vain.
All the efforts, all the sacrifices, all the time...vanished...

The school years were quite happy.
I had a bunch of friends, not many but trusted; we still support each other.
Teachers loved me: I wasn't a smart guy, but I was keen on what I was studying, from english to physics all the subjects were my favourite ones. Furthermore, I was really quite and I always followed the rules, no matter if this was strange or boring to my classmates.
According to my professors I was a promise of whatever I decided to do. They saw a spark I can hardly perceive today.
I don't know if this is a professional bias, but teachers tend to believe that if the school is fine, then everything will be fine. They put a lot of pressure on you, they tell you that school is the pass to a good life and you believe them...what else to do?
I was the one praised and blinded by that "glory" entrusted to me by my old teachers, I ended up spending the best years of my life lost in thick books, often escaping outings among friends. While they were at the cinema, or experiencing their first love affairs, I sipped tea with Newton, Dante and Keats.
Not that I noticed it at the time...
As far as I was concerned, I was the one who invested time in the best way, planning a better future. But now...now that the future has become present...is mine true glory? Posterity the arduous verdict will declare...
As far as I feel now, each of those missed events helped create the first of the missing pieces in the puzzle that is me.
I admire Nietzsche, but I reckon he wouldn't appreciate the way I lived the first part of my life. Caged in a slave-morality I had completely forgotten what it meant "to do". I had replaced "actions" with "intentions", procrastinating a happy reality that was not to be sought in the future, mortifying oneself, but was to be created in the present, elevating to master.
What a pity to have studied his works only after the age of eighteen!
During lessons many classmates snubbed philosophy, considering it useless...here, people, the usefulness of philosophy: to understand a little more about life, so that future generations can live better. I believe, however, that philosophy (as history) is doomed to fail, as the germ of forgetfulness lurks in humanity and the teachings we inherit from those who precede us are often ignored as we often feel entitled to be superior to them for the simple fact that we come into the world after them.
So do I, to the point that I would probably repeat myself if I had the opportunity of living again those days. I don't feel I was wrong too much in spending so many afternoons studying, but I would certainly abandon my constant gaze to the future, enjoying the splendid days that life offers us in the present, there is no certainty of tomorrow.