To Dear Friends,
Particularly old ones but why not new ones too,
This little writing process of observations or stories from my non-linear paths is an effort to extend my arms towards you. I want to share some words in order to reach out and contribute. You may read it or not, at your own free will.
However, this is strictly for friends only. This is for you who are not quick to judge, who give space for misunderstandings or shortcomings in our understanding of each other. This is for you who don’t, at every turn and without dialogue, suspect your dear fellows of tricks aimed at putting you down or at elevating themselves into heroes. This is for you who also are, or have been, utterly lost and foolish – following, for example, the cliched old advice “have your dreams as your compass” and naturally ended up in ever confusing circles. Finally, this is for those of you who are ambitious in the field of human relations.
The purpose of my writing to you is many-fold. Firstly, I’d like this to be a love letter: I want to write you an ode; I want to create private rituals that you can participate in (or not, if you don’t want to or you have more pressing matters at hand in the storms of the real world) so that we can share paths despite the distances and very rare chances of meeting up. I wish that we may remain intensely present although painfully far from each other; I want to break the partial isolation (although it is of my own choice and a great privilege in itself) and still keep on being part of your tumultuous worlds while taking a deep breath in solitude; I want to celebrate the strong network that we can be, whilst we are utterly exposed and vulnerable in each other’s hands. Finally, I want to acknowledge that all my “good fortune” depends on, as well as sheer luck, this collective force of our care networks.
The work-in-progress name of my tentative ramblings is called Melancholy of Resistance (borrowed title from László Krasznahorkai’s novel). It consists of rants or vignettes from “my days and roads”, particularly searching for expressions of desire, imagination and courage, or the lack of them. It is a rather selfish “project” developing from a need to cope with a certain devastating panic that arises from thinking about our past and future as well as the state of the wider world, particularly of haunted corners of my roads, such as Afghanistan. Along the way i am trying to, at times, get over this incapacitating anxiety by celebrating, for example, the joys of collective decision making or improvisation. And I wonder sometimes: What value do experiences have if they are never told to anyone – or even, did they really happen at all?
My mind, like so many others, has also been occupied of late by the question of what is the “military hospital” that we need to create for ourselves and the others whom we care about, or who care about common humanity. How to be it? How to find the resilience without losing the ability to be gentle?
So, this arm I’m extending: is it a helping hand, or a hand reaching for help? Or are they the very same thing in the end of the day?
As Paiemaida, my wise young tent mate from the Calais jungle would say: “Ko ba ko na-merasa, Adam ba Adam merasa“ – “a mountain does not reach out to a mountain, but a human reaches out to a human”.