The sum of ideas
You are what you believe in. You are what you stand for. You are how you live your life and for whom. A person is the sum of all his/her parts — and this includes all the words uttered or written; songs sung and listened to, the daily deeds and outpouring of euphoria, anguish or anger.
Our passions often are what govern us — sometimes subtly, sometimes with the nakedness of a man shedding his clothes before bathing. We are defined by the things dearest and nearest us, how we interpret cloud formations, the constellation of stars, the rythmic rocking of waves hitting the shore. We are our ideas. But much more than that, we are how we take part in society: parasite, benefactor, productive and involved member. Slug or running tiger.
I have been writing (journals, diaries, letters to family and friends) since I was eight years old and was given my first Anything Book. Often, I wrote down my thoughts and feelings to help me make sense of them. By rereading my descriptions and explanations of how my day went (as if I were an unconcerned bystander, mute and impartial but curious all the same), it helped me to understand what kind of person I was growing up to become. After all, I had my role models before me: my father, my mother, my sister - and all of them had very distinct personalities. I wanted to see whom I was most like, and, if I suddenly died, I would go to heaven or hell.
I used to make up lists like the following one- lists of things I believed in,things I hated or disagreed with, things I liked,my reactions to the world at large and to people I come across. In the process of putting labels on the hammersmash of thoughts and feelings, I became more familiar to the stranger who was myself. (Does this sound strange? The most elegant articulation of this…separate awareness of Self from actual self was espressed by Sarah Woodruff , the heroine of John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman. When pressed to explain her actions and accosted for being such an enigma, she answers: "I am infinitely strange even to myself." )
1. Violence is necessary to fight violence. It’s a sad and tragic fact; but it simply won’t do to deny this. To deny this is to allow ones’self to condone the brutality being done day in and day out to the poor, helpless and exploited. Life is precious, but those who exploit for profit and kill in defense of a system of exploitation have made life a plain commodity; and each individual a mere statistic. To sow dragon’s teeth is a noble act if it’s done in defense of life.
2. Justice means punishing those who exploit and steal from the poor; those who maintain a status quo wherein a few hundred families live in the lap of luxury while millions of others starve and die of malnutrition and disease. Justice is lightning and gentle rain: it blights and it heals.
3. The best kind of bananas are latundan. Chiesa is the weirdest looking and tasting fruit. Grapes that don’t have seeds are somewhat strange. I don’t know what the English word for atis is. Pineapples are so sour sometimes they burn your tongue like acid.
4. Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being is beautifully written (well, I don’t really know about the Czech original, but the English translation is pretty darn good), but the message it sends about socialism is strictly from the point of view of narrow-minded, self-obsessed intellectuals whose main fears and worries are for themselves.
5. In the war of belief and opinions, nobody really wins. People state their stand and argue with those who have opposing views for years and decades and even centuries on end. Gigabytes are used up, along with reams and reams of paper equivalent to hundres of acres of rainforests cut down and grain-silos of ink in the campaign to express ideas, emotion, anguish, anger, euphoria. No one, however, is really convinced with mere words. How these words affect the reader and goad him or her to change his/her worldview and push him/her to take action is what, in the end, truly counts. A greater war is necessary to settle the issue.
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There are days when I becoe strongly aware of my own past, reminded of things I’ve done, felt or experienced: a slightest smell or sound brings me back. Yesterday I woke up at around 6am, and it was still dark outside. It was raining gently, and it felt simply peaceful — as if, if I stepped out the door, I would be entering a wild and uncultivated garden, with every inch covered with dandelions, daisies and sunflowers.
It was the cold weather that reminded me, and the faint sound of a nursery rhyme or lullaby our next door neighbor was softly singing to her baby as she nursed him).
I remembered St. Catherine Station in Utrecht, the Netherlands being peaceful at 9am. There are people hurrying about — civilians rushing to board their trains heading for Germany or Belgium, or rushing to meet loved ones getting off the trains from Germany or Belgium; employees sweeping the pale gray and bone-white tile floors; shop-keepers dusting their shelves or rearranging jars of candy, sheafs of newspapers, magazines, bouquets of full-bloom flowers in their gleaming aluminum tubs.
I pick up my blue and green backpack and lug it over my shoulder, my ears tickled by the wafts of cool air wafting from the airconditioning units and the breeze coming through through the open doors that lead to the street outside. I am wide awake yet sleepy at the same time. The world is a completely new place, and everywhere around me, the people are pale-skinned and mostly blond. I am bundled up in a sweater and a jacket, a black knitted scarf around my neck, while everyone else seem to be clad only in the usual shirt and jeans.
I pick up my blue and green backpack and lug it over my shoulder, my ears tickled by the wafts of cool air wafting from the airconditioning units and the breeze coming through through the open doors that lead to the street outside. I am wide awake yet sleepy at the same time. The world is a completely new place, and everywhere around me, the people are pale-skinned and mostly blond. I am bundled up in a sweater and a jacket, a black knitted scarf around my neck, while everyone else seem to be clad only in the usual shirt and jeans.
I smell brewed coffee and cinammon buns toasting. I hear the wheels of small suitcases whirring and rotating, making gentle,frictioned contact with the cold floor. I am happy where I am, just standing here, feeling alive. This may well have been how it felt when I was born - my senses being awakened for the first time.
