Notes on No Where Man
"One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug."
One morning, as I was waking up from uneasy dreams, I happened to glance in the mirror. At first I was slightly startled, then curious. How strange, I thought looking closer at the face staring back at me. It took some time for it to fully dawn on me, but it was soon quite clear - I did not know this face. I did not know this person.
When I looked around, I did not know whose room I was standing in or whose life I had somehow come to inhabit. True, I had recently been returned from the dead, but who was this 'I ' and who had I been returned to?
No where man finds himself bereft of illusion and its comforts. Having faced down his demons, having seen his fear strip everything from him, he is left standing alone, a stranger to himself and his world. He looks in the mirror and says, " This is not me, this is not my life." But then the question inexorably rises, " If this isn't my face, whose face is it? If not my life, then whose life?"
In this series of mono-prints, the alienation explored is a personal one. Alienation from one's own beliefs, principles, ambitions and values; from the very things gathered to shore up the illusion of the self. Here the self as a construct is exposed and far from feeling someone and somewhere in the world, we wake to discover like Gregor Samsa, that we are no one and no where.
Alienation is uncomfortable, distressing, painful, even traumatic. But perhaps, there is a way out. An out that involves the hardship of bearing the responsibility to think and reason for one’s self. Only then can alienation be the transformative experience necessary for us to arrive at a redeemed understanding of our selves and others, and the reality we inhabit.
The Meaning of Wonder
I was brought up to have meaning. My life had to have meaning, and my first duty was to discover this meaning. My Western upbringing demanded this. Who are you? Why are you here? Those were the questions of meaning I was duty bound to set off to answer. Assuredly, any failure to discover the meaning of my life, would be a tragedy beyond measure. However, to my good fortune, my Eastern upbringing gave me an answer, Be. I find it interesting that one side starts with the questions of meaning while the other with an answer to meaning. The Western philosophy has long striven to find the answer to the meaning of the individual. I have come to realize that meaning is a very Western preoccupation. In Eastern thought, there is only being. Being as meaning.
The trick of course is how to be. And just being, without all the stuff we collect and drag with us, without our preconceptions and misconceptions, without our judgements and prejudices, without the comfort of our illusions - should be simple but of course, it isn't. We are addicted to being the centre of our world. And besides being a conceit, it is surely an illusion. The East has an answer to how we can be:
see things as they are.
People ensure me that without meaning my life will be, well, meaningless! I infer from this that they mean my life will be futile, of no account and so on. I have a feeling that no matter how much meaning I may pile on my life's plate, on the vast cosmic time scale, my life will fall short of reaching any meaningful mark. After all, when measured against what the scientists aptly refer to as 'deep time', it is impossible for anything or anyone to matter. Strangely, I don't mind that in the slightest.
The universe is the great leveler: we are all equal. It seems that the period of time in which a universe can support life - the age of stars - is but an instant of its entire life span. And that time is now.
Being an instant of an instant, of an instant of yet another instant doesn't leave me depressed or meaningless. It leaves me with a deep sense of privilege to exist at all, not to mention a deep sense of connection with the things on this planet that exist with me in this briefest fraction of time. As Professor Cox says, We are the cosmos made conscious of itself. A fleeting burst.
When I am not over-awed by the figures that deep time is measured in and what it all represents, I can sometimes extend that connection to the furthest edges of our expanding universe. There, at its edge, I gaze across an expanse of time I cannot begin to imagine; an expanse so vast I can scarcely believe let alone comprehend that I am a part of all this, if only for an instant.
And in my wonder, I find meaning.
17 October : A Small Act of Sharing
A while ago now, when I first began writing this post, I was asked, quite rightly, why I was writing it? Was it for fame and fortune? Did I expect people to read it? My answer to both questions was, No. The next question, obvious in its reasonableness, ensued quickly: If you don't expect anyone to read what you are writing, why write at all?
Fortunately, my desire to write a post, or blog, had not come from any latent writing skill that had yet to be fulfilled. There wasn't a novel waiting to leap out onto the page. Rather I had come to write a blog because I had arrived at a point in my life where I understood the importance of sharing. But what did I have to share? As it turns out, I simply have my self.
I am not sure that what I share through writing is of any use to anyone, especially if no one reads it, but somewhere in my mind I know the attempt is important. It is where we start. And sometimes, it is all we have. I am not a particularly open person. My extreme private nature makes me shy away from openness. But I also know that I have benefitted all through my life from what people have been generous enough and brave enough to share with me. Mostly their experiences: their joy and sadness; their successes and their failures. Life. They have helped me learn how to get through life, how to deal with triumph and disaster, how to be happy. From them, I have been guided to good books, and good films; to good wines and good spots to eat; I have discovered great views, and quiet places; I have found laughter at unexpected times. I have learnt patience. Most of all, I have gained insights and wisdom which have been invaluable in a life that has no user manual to guide us.
Sharing doesn't come naturally to me. I blame it on being an only child. I don't know where the journey will take me, but here I am. It is an attempt. And all I really have, is me.
I can only hope, as a way of sharing, it will suffice, as a start.
14 October : When is enough, enough?
When Jose Saramago writes, "The political history of South America is filled with frustration and deception, wearying entire populations with lies and trickery..", I naturally think of the political history of another continent, the one I live in.
It seems to me that the good people of Africa have suffered, since the continent's discovery by the Europeans, from a succession of despotic, greedy, power-hungry leaders, breath-taking in their utter lack of humanity and any value other than that of increasing their personal wealth at the expense of others. Caring leaders, who are not motivated by a scramble for wealth, have sadly been in the minority. Africa and its people have a history of being ruthlessly exploited and pillaged, and one wonders who or what is to blame. I doubt that blame really matters in today's Africa. Looking backwards does not always facilitate progress. And understanding the past, with all its ills, does not excuse the present ills and poor behavior. Poor behavior that in today's world is not limited to the African continent, or to politics.
Gordon Gekko, the fictional character in Oliver Stone's 1987 drama about Wall Street, famously says, Greed is good. Clearly, it is good, for the few. An industry trusted with the financial well-being of society, meaning you and me, looked after the society of the few who managed to perpetrate a monumental fraud, get away with it, get paid out for it and get out with their - or should I say, more accurately, other people's millions - intact. Considering the global recession - meaning unemployment, poverty, hardship, deprivation for millions around the world - created by the actions of a small group of Gordon Gekko-like-minded individuals who are not unknown to us, has caused untold pain in the lives of so many, surely this could be good cause for a charge of a crime against humanity? The reason for my detour from Africa was that the breath-taking exploitation of people and resources, the sheer inhumanity it takes on the part of the perpetrators, the lack of any value other than personal greed, and the scale of corruption of the human spirit, is not limited to the African continent. It is everywhere. And while we may look on in dismay, and look back to blame, the sad truth is, people behave badly when they know they can get away with it.
I agree with Saramago, it is high time to change all this.
29 Sept: One Small Gesture
It is easy, if not natural, to wake up each morning and feel overwhelmed by the state of political corruption in one's own country, the prospects of the global economy, the future of a planet threatened by the over-population of one of its species and that's all before breakfast! That's without getting into the really traumatizing topics which leave one in a mixed state of helplessness and depression. In spite of all the things one can do, there is still so much one can't do. For most of us, affecting some noticeable change on the world, while it may still be an ambition, is well beyond the scope of our powers. It is an ambition I have been forced to relinquish. Still, while accepting the world is beyond me, I do harbour some hope that I can contribute in some meaningful way to the small world in which I exist and spend my time every day. So it is I have made a pact with myself to pick up one item of litter whenever I go for a walk and deposit it in an appropriate receptacle - usually a litter bin provided for the very purpose and usually just a couple of feet away from the offending item.
It is my one small gesture. It won't change the world, but I figure if everyone everywhere did the same, picked up one piece of litter a day, all over the world... There'd be a change of a sorts. For a start, the world would be a cleaner place. I have since added to this one small gesture another: to be kind to anyone who crosses my path during the course of a day. Friend or foe, stranger or acquaintance, whether for a second or more.
It is strangely easier than I thought. I don't have to give anything, I don't have to do anything. I simply have to be kind. It is my small gesture against all the world's ills: kindness. It probably won't solve much, but I have a lingering idea that if everyone everywhere took it upon themselves just to do one kind thing a day, however small, in fact the smaller the better... Who knows?
"Maybe that's how we will manage not to go on killing one another" Saramago