My friends keep their blogs which remains a sort of miracle in my eyes. I once thought blogging was something one grows out of, as a butterfly outgrows a cocoon and flies out of it. A sort of bias caused by a brand of victim mentality that too much information and opinions actually hurt the eyes of the beholder of truth. (Quite incidentally, Obama recently has said something of the sort, that he feels democracy is hurt by being bombarded with too many opinions and needless information. Why be another voice in the crowd, when there are so many competent news /story / essay/ novel / personal essay / blog / *insert your name here*/ machines out there?) Time and again, however, my teachers always remind me that such pessimism isn’t really a way of existence of a democratic country’s citizen, much less a way of living. ( The most recent of teachers of mine being an unnamed movie that happened to find me in my livingroom. I thought I’d just mention this, since, this is very important! Obviously.) Getting the most out of life, at least for me, means meeting life head on, and for the literature oriented person like me, that does mean writing. And democracy doesn’t mean a collection of the most level headed, well-informed, judicious opinions, I think it rather means owning your world, owning your living, being out there, doing things.
I want to write about Justice. What reminds me of something of my own sense of justice is McKee’s cartoon clip from Augusta Chronicle, reprinted in last week’s Newsweek. It shows a caricature of the Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena Kagan who professes; “…My favorite color…? Well, Larry, That’s an interesting question, made all the more complicated when one considers the sheer magnitude of the myriad of colors that could actually be one’s favorites, if one chose to have a favorite, but if you’ll grant me a point of personal priviledge…” and the man, purportedly Larry Lassig who recently debated her, saying gloomily, “That does it… I quit.” Alive in this comical clip for me is a very real sort of scrupulousness in definining things, that applies to things that matter to people. The careful deference to the thought and diversity of individuals, to the potential and freedom of people. Even as it may not be said to be the entirety of justice, it may be the very important core, the beginning, this recognition of the “inalianable rights” and its application in life. Hard to envision, but not entirely impossible, this business of rights. One only needs to look to religious teaching and the Golden Rule; “Do unto others as I like to be done.” The most encompassing sense of Justice would be one of fainess that oversees deals between individuals, even guiding over the natural capitalistic spirit of competitiveness, that translates into a humanistic guide even in the environement of global enterprises, transcending different cultures. Because, underneath all the different choices, and different ways of thinking, we’re all humans.
I want to write about–Hope, that resonates the world even in the bleakest moments of human desperation, such as that of the victims of Haiti, or the Tsunami victims. Last week I saw a photograph that was backgrounded in a dim light, its general lighting dark, but the center of the focus bright colored, where a small African girl sat offering plates of shiny yellow mounds of cooked grains, in the midst of others who were standing. She herself was squatting down on the hut’s ground that was of soil. Her figure crouching, her arms outstretched as she distributed the food, her motion stood out purposeful and particularly human. I want to write about the hand that scoops the grains onto others plates, the calmness of the mind in its motion. The soft light in her eyes even as the cool, indifferent, numb air of mundane takes over others’ face when they take their plates; the relentlessness of her gesture, the softness of the line of her back. I want to write about how, when the particular traits of her teen life and her living condition may say the contrary, her generousity and comforting action say otherwise. Like in the picture, the hope that gathers and redempts is soft, gentle, and plain force that rises out of individuals. It’s of an individual choice, transcending difficult circumstances.
Finally, I want to write about love, the love that touches one’s life, the soft touch of a parent that one feels as a kid as being tucked into bed at night. The warmth and the innate guidance of one’s family, the care and nurturing of one’s community, and the sense of love that abides in it. Also a greater sense of solidarity that makes almsgiving possible, and what I think C. S. Lewis named “the greatest of all loves.” I want to write about love.
In short, I want to write about the softness of things. Better yet, I want to write about life. The gift of it, its splendor and its exclusivity. Since nothing else ever compares to it, comes close to it. Even in the guise of another. As I view it it’s irreplaceable. Even in my rough estimation its depth and beauty calls to my mind.
Words fail me. To write about the topics I want, and defer to passionately, I know I am inadequate, my words falling behind the intricacies, lost in their face. I stand in their awe.
