To never forget

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.”
-Arundhati Roy

One of the signature quotes at the end of email messages, one of the quotes that always stun me in an absolutely refreshing way.

It is so easy to become immune to the violence and distress that once so thoroughly disturbed us during our daily news reading. It is so easy to frown and wrinkle our noses in disgust at the dirt-filled rat-infested conditions which the beggars live in, and then to walk on buy into the comfort of the five-star hotel, and out of sight, the poverty temporarily goes out of mind. It is so difficult to imagine and witness the pure joy on the faces of the little ones who spend their whole days playing with a simple ball, a game we take for granted, a game we are bored with, and it strikes us so hard to see these young children with more joy than us with all our expensive ostentatious goods. It is increasingly hard to appreciate beauty in what we do and have, when we have become shaped to complain without batting an eyelid, and to shout at what is not going well. We have became what we eat, and in this world of fast food, fast service, we have lost our patience for even the simplest things, we do not see anymore than we do not get nourished. It shocks us to see a woman with cancer encouraging her loved ones not to be upset, when really it should have been the other way round. We have become so accustomed to the grind of life which tells us money and status rule the world, that people high up on their pedestals should be treated like gods while poor people and those junior staff should be disregarded, ill-respected and not worthy of our time. We forget that sometimes certain things are just as they seem, and we spend precious amounts of time complicating two-dimensional matters when we should be spending more time solving and analyzing the world we live in. We become masks of insecurity mingling at events for the sake of networking, when actually we just want to spend some solitary time to gather our thoughts. What are we rushing to, where are we colliding headlong into? Why do we look away from that which is not pretty, nice or even just normal? Why do we forget so soon the things which have taken place? Why are we shocked when things which have been building up ages suddenly happen? What do we need before we can remember?

There is electricity in the air

What a terribly exciting month; so many things have happened in just the span of the last 5 days; the first African-American to have pushed the Americans into a land brimming with the promise on which the hopes of their forefathers banked on; candidacy that was never expeced to run among the leading; least of all to win. Yet all over the world, there has been a sigh of relief; the Asian stock markets abounded with a new life; perhaps there is hope for the economy and world politics at large?

Blame it on my lack of interest in politics in previous US elections, or blame it on my youth; but this isto me definitely a point of history in the making. Never before has globalization bonded continents across in the anticipation of one common outcome, for a country that isn’t even theirs. Africa’s heartbeat can be heard across the news wires; their celelbrations for their much supported representative Obama evident so blatant and stark; bulls reserved specially for feasting upon when Obama would eventually clear the tiles and declare a landslide victory; this was a magic moment; the one which Martin Luther King would have been so proud of he would cry tears of joy; the day of fulfilment of his dream “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” and “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

There is an excitement in the air; his youthful energy and charisma seems to have charmed voters and observers in the USA as well as across the shining seas. America’s economy may be down in the dumps, and may have chain-dragged everyone else (participants and passers-by) worldwide, but the extent of the ripple effect of this historic elections has proven one thing– that America is still so tremendously important that we are all banking that we made the right decision in supporting a young, inexperienced senator with what currently seems like little more than many theories and assured calmness that he will not only weather through the stormy ride but emerge victorious. In this present time; he is a symbol of hope that many are deep down praying will not be a mirage.

Further away from the political scene, November is also a month where I rejoice for my friends around. I can’t say it till I hear it for myself, but I believe wedding bells will be ringing soon; a joyous occasion is bursting to arrive. There is a spirit of festivity in the air; an electricity to light up the world that just a little while ago seemed stale and depressed. Trust me, the world is currently less preoccupied with crazy christmas shopping that will eventually manifest towards the month’s end; right now, there are more and greater things that are happening, and all I can say is, life is for the living.

La medida del amor..es amar sin medida.

De abuela de Juan. Esto es verdadera.

The measure of love is love without measure.

Forgotten pearls

I speak to this someone in solitude,
The one who knows me well.
Whom else may I find solace in,
In whom else may I dwell?

I like to talk to this someone,
Who makes me feel like no one else.
This very one not at all like some,
That wish me be somebody else.

We are all fools that have no where to hide
Falling in great disguise
To shield our precious fallible hearts
That like oysters if opened must die.

We forget that we have pearls
All waiting in full glory.
To push open the hard cracked shell
Bursting to tell their story.

We can’t remember what we
Refused to commit to memory;
So we choose instead to flip and move on
And choose no more to tarry.

This was written after being inspired by Shakespeare’s famous comedy As You Like It, whose most well know phrase has been so oft used that no one really knew its source:

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” — Jaques (Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166)

Such a luxury most do not embrace

Literature is a luxury; popular fiction is a neccesity.

How very true; we feed ourselves everything but the very best; we read mostly trash yet do not bother flipping pages of greater writers; we mix around and engage in flippant chatter with inconsequential people.

We are a sum of the things we read, eat and the people we hang around with. How does that work for you?