Editorial - The Search for the Meaning of Life Brought Me to Rathmines

I raved about the latest season of Bojack Horseman in the Film section a few issues back, and a lot of my love for it came from its deep, cutting impact on me. The show has this bizarre almost-Nihilistic effect on its viewers. Unlike Rick & Morty, whose nihilistic element makes the worst fans think they’re amazing geniuses, Bojack makes you realise that life is pointless, and that you should give up...but then there’s this fleeting feeling that even though life is meaningless, you should search for its meaning whatever the cost. For me this random, grand search for meaning was going on my first holiday in over a decade.My last holiday wasn’t great, so I hoped that this trip, a weekend away to Reykjavik, would be a simply outstanding trip. No pressure. As sad as it is, I planned this holiday around the Express, picking a weekend we didn’t have to go to print. What I should’ve planned around, more so than the paper, was the weather.Our first stumbling block was dropped in our path by that fecking cabinet meeting, with road closures meaning it took longer for us to get to the airport. The weather in Iceland, when we got there, was beautiful. A bit nippy, but mostly dry, so we were fine. The sky was so clear on our first night we could actually see the Aurora Borealis entirely from our kitchen! It was a bit expensive over there...okay, it was really expensive (a normal can of Coke cost about €2.50-4) but we did okay. Then news of that wonderful thing, our Ophelia, started trickling through. We instantly entered panic mode, as several questions came flooding through: would our flight be cancelled? If our flight was cancelled, would we have to wait a week to fly back, as this airline only operated once or twice a week? Would our relatives be okay back home? You’d be surprised to hear that you only see the worst news when you’re panicking (and can’t watch the 6-1 news yourself...thanks, RTÉ’s geo-blocking).Our holiday should’ve been like this: Flight to Reykjavik on Friday, two and a half relaxing days, early flight back to Cork and a return to normalcy on Monday. How it actually turned out: Flight to Reykjavik on Friday, a grand day (we crashed hard on the first half day), day of panicked sightseeing (including seeing the Penis Museum, which was incredibly disappointing #PenisExpress), and heading to the airport extra early only for our flight to be cancelled. We booked into a shite hostel next to the airport for a night while we tried to get seats on that morning’s flight to Dublin, which we got on, rendering our new room pointless. Queue an extra unplanned day in Rathmines, a headachey GoBe bus to Cork, and yet another day of crashing on couches before finally getting back to my house on Wednesday. A lovely two/three day getaway in the scenic Icelandic capital turned into six or so days of frustrated commuting, basically.The lesson is: life IS pointless, but you shouldn’t ever try.