For the love of God, tell me what to do!!

I'm in another transition phase. After eight months in Serbia, it is certain that I am leaving at the end of the month. The question of "what's next," which is what everyone is asking me, is still unclear. Since this is not exactly an ideal time to enter the job market, and because I missed all the deadlines for getting into a graduate program or law school, I'm sort of treading water. Well, that is not entirely true, because I have the Roma paper to write and the ANS Conference to attend at the end of April. So my next weeks are well defined: writing and travelling. I suppose that isn't so bad. But it is the large black hole of unemployment in the post ANS period which is bearing down on me.

But what is the point of writing this? Simply that I find it interesting that I do not see the "freedom" (whatever that means) I currently have as a blessing, but rather as a curse. I mean, I am really free to go anywhere and do anything, yet all I want is for someone to come along and tell me what to do, to give me a job and define things for me. I remember a quote from my good friend Brian who said something like 'we want our freedom only so we can give it away to someone else.' I have to agree with that on many levels: personal and political. For me, thus on the personal level, I hate to be to confined and tied down by material things and jobs, yet when I experience that sensation of being so free, I run for cover and the 'safety' of belonging to something, and thus being tied down again, etc...

You can see this play out on a political level too. People were so eager to be 'free' of Bush, that they went and gave a huge mandate to Obama, rather than trying to reclaim the problems for themselves. Ok, maybe you can argue that in a democratic system the vote is essentially the individuals power to dictate how they think the problems need be addressed. But you can also say, particularly in the American two party system, there is very limited choice, and voting is just shifting power from one side to the other: thus freeing yourself of one party only to rush into the other one. I think this analysis is particularly relevant during the financial crisis (as it would have been following 9/11 also), where Americans are particularly frightened and looking for help. Obama really has a huge amount of power, because the citizens have given him a mandate, and no politician will seriously challenge him at the moment.

But we can also look at places like Kosovo and Montenegro and make a similar assessment. Both of them were so eager to get away from Serbia, thus in a sense freeing themselves of Belgrade. But both expressed immediate intentions to join the EU, thus giving up their sovereignty and adopting EU laws, practices and standards. In order to enter the EU, they must give up a significant amount of power to Brussels. In Kosovo, the situation is even more complex given the power of the EULEX, NATO et al. The international community essentially ruled by decree from 1999 until the declaration of independence in February, 2007, and today they still have control over virtually all the infrastructure and institutions, building them in the western image.

What this tells me is that we don't really like to be totally alone, that there is something of a heard mentality still in us, despite the supposed 'hyper individualism' of Western culture and globalization. I am free to go anywhere, yet to really do that would be to break from the group to which I belong, and renounce, to some degree, the desire to join another one. Just like with Kosovo and Montenegro, it is a precarious position to be in and can be very uncomfortable (because it is not the norm, and visibly sets you apart). Thus it drives me, and the Kosovars and Montenegrians, right back into the arms of another group, which can come in the form of a job, a relationship, a graduate program, EU membership, an ideology, etc...

On Language

He sat down to write. What else was he going to do? Wanting to deceive them, or perhaps himself, of the true narrative, he wrote as if constructing a short story. This was to be a short story about a man in search of truth, in search of meaning in a world that often felt more alien than familiar. The search takes place under the brutal weight of jealousy and is colored by fear. 

This man in the story wished to see himself as Diomedes, tearing into battle to fight Gods and heros, but truthfully he felt more like a small child, void of the appropriate faculties for dealing with hardship. But this was not what the story is about. It is about language. In the story, the man suddenly felt himself so very far away from all that was of comfort, disconnected from his family and, laboring along with a broken heart, he struggled to reconcile his decisions with his current predicament. But, feeling it was all too autobiographical, he, the writer, decided to write about language instead. Anyway, he was tired of feeling sorry for himself, knowing it only lead down a frightful road. So he wanted to make this more optimistic, even if it betrayed, to some degree, his true thoughts.

He endowed his character with experience in these matters. He, the character, had been living on the street where one goes to feel sorry for ones self. He had been living there only a short while this time, but had spent a few years there in the past. But though this man didn't control his own fate, which was, after all, the job of the writer, he knew he wouldn't be on this street for long. He knew how to manage his internal rust. He knew because he had been there before. On this street. In this place.

But experience alone, the writer thought, was not enough to guarantee survival. If anything, experience without a mechanism to understand that experience was worse than no experience at all. Imagine knowing what was happening to you, yet having no way to deal with it.  The writer could think of nothing worse. Consequently, neither could his character. Sadly, they, the writer and the character, both had the feeling they knew someone like that. So what was it, that would make it different, more bearable this time round, wondered the character? To which the writer replied: language.

Last time he, the character had loved, loved and lost, he was totally inexperienced and didn't have any kind of guidance for dealing with these things. He had taken a few extreme measures to gain attention and to express his deep pain. He cut himself; nothing dangerous, though. Just enough to see a bit of blood, and to get the source of his misery to notice. He also medicated himself on a regular basis.

But that story was a cliche if ever there was one: young man suffers angst and goes on a years long self-pity binge until one day he decides to change things and be his own master. Anyway, a character is never his own master. That is the job of the writer. So instead he, the writer, focused on what was different now. Now he, the character, had language. He had learned, through friends, through his own travels, and through his intellectual mothers and fathers, to construct something out of this pain. He now spoke out about what he was going through, he put pen to paper and read books and watched movies to see how others dealt with it.

Though this made him, the character, a fairly selfish guy, something which he, the writer, despised, it was only a temporary narcissism. But what was it about language, mused the writer, through the character, that made this lost love more tolerable? For one thing, in the immediate, physical context, it meant that he, the character, would be able to formulate words to express his feelings, which acted as a release mechanism. Language was a sort of valve on his internal, emotional pressure cooker. It was a button he could press whenever things got to gloomy and his throat became constricted as a result. 

Moreover, language allowed him to make meaning out of what he was experiencing. He could look back on memories and see where the source of the pain was; see which decisions had gotten him to this point; and he could see the correlation between cause and effect, helping him to see why something had happened. He didn't have to just sit there, cursing the writer for this injustice, as a martyr of his own pain.  He could pick himself up and know why it happened and accept his own responsability. That, according to the writer, should be hailed as progress. Of course, it wasn't an instant remedy for how the character felt, but it was a remedy none-the-less.

Language did one more thing for him, the character. It made him more self-aware than he had ever been in the past. Language connected him to his identity and allowed him to find theories and other narratives, other characters and other writers, who could show him all the possible ways to move out of the neighborhood. Through language he could identify with experience, or perhaps, he could twist his experience to fit a narrative that offered some way forward. Language allowed him to deconstruct himself and then reconstruct himself however he felt it was appropriate. This process allowed him to inhabit this pain as an experience, as he would any other experience.

Language, the writer and the character thought: what a wonderful thing! With that, aware of his own language and ability to control it, the character climbed off the page and slaughtered the writer. What a narcissist!, he thought. Imagine taking up that much space to write about yourself and your pain. Imagine putting me, the character, through such a cliche ridden story, so full of gloom and doom! Bah! There must be more important things to write about.

So he sat down to write. After all, what else was he going to do?

On Writing

On writing, and Human Alienation.

Why write? Tonight I'm dwelling on why I do this, why it is the one constant in my life? Currently this frame of mind is influenced by the Israeli incursion into Gaza (perpetually playing in the background via BBC), a recent viewing of the Reaganite film Field of Dreams, and a specific kind of loneliness that comes from the realization that the person you love has thrown you out with the bath water.

So why write? I write because I am; because I live; because I feel; because I love; because I desire; because I hate; and because I can. But what does that mean? I write because I see myself as a protagonist in the story of my life, and because every experience has meaning to it. Since life, specifically earthling life, is short in the context of this planet and universe, we have only a few opportunities to make something of significance out of our lives, to understand what our lives mean, and to give those who will come after us a chance to learn from us. Unlike Kevin Costner however, I am not seeking some reconciliation with my Dad, and unlike America, I am not seeking to (re)create a past that never actually existed.

Rather I want to make a life for myself that has a purpose. But this is not some drive to 'fit in' with the majority, or to create some kind of Utopian society; instead it is a completely personal quest. Most likely the only person who will benefit from this writing, and the sense created out of my experiences, is me. The process of writing, to me, is similar to cleaning up my room. The 'clutter' lying all around my floor is experience and information. Writing, like cleaning up, is the opportunity to organize these experiences in a way that makes them accessible and meaningful. I can order and catalogue my life, assign emotion and significance, so I show myself what I want and what I don't want.

Experience is like refined notes and raw sounds; it allows us to define and test the limits of our identity so that we can find the path most appealing and comforting to us. I fear this is something that most people do not do however (writing and synthesizing their experience), and as a result never get a good sense of why: why they do what they do. There is, of course, the other extreme, which is the one closer to my state-of-mind. That is, those who are committed to the possibility of finding significance and meaning from experience, ultimately never settle on their own identity, busy as they are being critical and engaged in the search for "what it all means". There is a very real danger in being so obsessed with the search, that you miss the meaning. Thus, it is equally important to have your own conclusions. These conclusions are personal, and can always be, and maybe should be, revised. Like everything else in life, these conclusions are contextual, and subject to change.

In truth, perhaps as the result of experience and influences, I also write because I find myself somewhat alienated from the world. It is an uncomfortable experience to be sure, to be alienated, and thus I try to counter it by seeking out things, activities, theories, and dogmas, which will help me stop feeling this way. But as much as the alienated individual is "unhappy", I think they are, more than a powerful politician or a rich tycoon, the earthlings who move us all forward. Maybe I say this because I feel myself as a kindred spirit, but I also think that artists and philosophers have done more good than all others (good in the 'greater good' sense, but I would credit kind individuals and teachers with doing much 'localized' good). Writing, in the context of what I have written above, is how I am trying to deal with my alienation from the rest of the world. I seeing it as that which helps me deal with everything, from the daily grid to the war in Gaza.

Writing is also a practical activity: if I never get paid for it, that is ok. I won't be tearing up some large acreage of my corn field to create my text, it only takes up a tiny portion of cyber-space. I can also do my writing any time I feel like it, thus it can be fit-in between activities that are economically beneficial; I can write on the train, during lunch, in the evening, early in the morning, and maybe during the quiet moments at work. I can write in public forums, or I can write privately. It is, as my dear friend Simon would say, cheap and cheerful.

There is no moral or ethical value system assigned to this experience, nor is there a judgment of where one will end up at the end of this journey. In one sense I am suggesting that we each have a unique path to follow, and we each must find the thing that makes us happy and fulfilled. Now, there is some ambiguity in such a statement, and means you might argue this justifies people following a path taht creates pain and suffering for others. Maybe someone finds fulfillment in going to war? I see the argument, but I reject it. As I said, I am not moralizing, and I am not suggesting that the path to fulfillment must fit within a certain moral or ethical code. But I would suggest that anyone who takes the time to explore their identity, to try on various masks, to critically view their most mundane and most extraordinary experiences, will rarely make violence a key part of their life. This type of self-exploration and discovery takes an open mind and a profound respect (maybe even love) for others. It takes a bit of courage, and willingness to interact with a huge diversity of people.

How then, after all that, can you still what to see harm come to the others? How can you, after witnessing the beautiful and the tragic, decide the tragic is better? I don't think you can. If you do, then you have not reached an understanding of yourself in the context of everything else.