I am in Chennai. TG is somewhere in Andhra Pradesh, the neighboring northern state. The do-gooders from GIZ have stolen him away for the week. They perhaps are putting him to better use than I could. I will fly to the northern part of Andhra Pradesh on Saturday, to meet him. Then we will head north to Kolkata. Below are the emails we write to each other.
Note: They are edited for content
Escapes kept me alive for the worst years of my life. Escapes are just as much life as reality. Life is just the time we spend eating and finding money. The rest of sadness is just thinking about shit too damn much: I want to escape for a good chunk of my life. I love the people who create the best escapes. Those are the godsends and the king makers. Teaching us to dream about more than some dim view of what is real. Quit thinking that you hate the way the world works just cause of the frivolity and unfairness. We only see .00000001% of what the world is: a fantasy novel is, mathematically speaking, as much a percentage of the infinite "reality" as every single thing your senses tell you. Don't look at the world around you. Look at the world as a play ground; its all we get and we get to breathe and feel things on our skin and see color and hear juxtaposed tonality. The suffering is no more real than marauding flocks of giant tree bats in cyclone-ploded arboretums. Your feeling like you want glitz and comfort is no more important or worthy of shame than a butterfly feeling like it wants a mango. Its interesting. Its insignificant. Its personal and fun and silly and not worthy of guilt. Nothing you do is worthy of guilt or shame. We are infinitesimal, largely intestinal, progeny of a gross testicle, grown slaves of the subliminal, worthy of love but not ridicule. For christ's sweet-ass sake, lets quit moping, ever, and just have fun before we die. We are healthy enough to feel good, so lets choose to do so no matter what. If our stupid brains tell us we're sad, deny it. Don't feel what you feel: that's just hormones deviating according to cellular stimuli; feel what you tell your brain you want to feel: gratitude. I'm grateful that I'm wearing shorts and can push against a matress with my toes. i'm grateful that i get to talk to you and say a bunch of silly things. i'm grateful that i feel air going into and out of my lungs. that children threw flowers into my hair today, that the streets were full, that somewhere, someone is ecstatic and blissful right now. that i don't have to care about anything, that nothing that is too much for me to handle is my responsibility. i'm happy for movies and not knowing myself and not feeling guilty right now. There is no injustice because there is no justice. There is no justice because no one deserves anything. No one deserves anything because having ever been alive is its own reward. I don't want to be a void. I want to have existed; I don't care how many horrible things happen, they're worth it and its not my fault. Lets just take the little lives we were born to and enjoy them; its childish and selfish to do anything else. Lets escape- all the time.
Note: They are edited for content
Ok so, I'll try this. Writing. I'm sitting in the room, with
Slum Dog Millionaire on the television. I'm laughing to myself, because
India in real life is so much more like this movie than any of the other
movies I had watched prior to coming here. I had forgotten it. If I had watched it again, maybe the culture shock would have been less.
I have spent so
much time alone, venturing through the world, trying on different
things, you think that I would know myself better. I am having a mid
life crisis before my mid life. I crave glitter, ease, and speed, while
at the same time longing for quiet, simple, and gentle. How can I have
both? When I have one, I always long for the other.
This past year I have trained myself to
care an awful lot about looks, money, and possessions. Now I'm
trying to train myself to care about simple things again. It is harder
than I thought. It is hard not to be comfortable. I have become so used
to being comfortable.
I hate that the world is this way. I get used
to one
injustice, and then I am introduced to new ones. I don't understand the
world we live in. How can I choose something to pursue in this life,
when so much of it seems frivolous and unfair. That is what this trip
is. Learning how the world works, and I hate it so much. That is the
truth, it is not India, it the state of the world.
How can I go on existing in this place, contributing
to the terrible unfairness. You are doing something to change it. What
am I doing? Sitting in a $20 a night hotel, writing fantasies. That is
the only way I can exist in this world, by creating escapes. Only in
them can I escape.
Good night,
I will see you soon :)
Escapes kept me alive for the worst years of my life. Escapes are just as much life as reality. Life is just the time we spend eating and finding money. The rest of sadness is just thinking about shit too damn much: I want to escape for a good chunk of my life. I love the people who create the best escapes. Those are the godsends and the king makers. Teaching us to dream about more than some dim view of what is real. Quit thinking that you hate the way the world works just cause of the frivolity and unfairness. We only see .00000001% of what the world is: a fantasy novel is, mathematically speaking, as much a percentage of the infinite "reality" as every single thing your senses tell you. Don't look at the world around you. Look at the world as a play ground; its all we get and we get to breathe and feel things on our skin and see color and hear juxtaposed tonality. The suffering is no more real than marauding flocks of giant tree bats in cyclone-ploded arboretums. Your feeling like you want glitz and comfort is no more important or worthy of shame than a butterfly feeling like it wants a mango. Its interesting. Its insignificant. Its personal and fun and silly and not worthy of guilt. Nothing you do is worthy of guilt or shame. We are infinitesimal, largely intestinal, progeny of a gross testicle, grown slaves of the subliminal, worthy of love but not ridicule. For christ's sweet-ass sake, lets quit moping, ever, and just have fun before we die. We are healthy enough to feel good, so lets choose to do so no matter what. If our stupid brains tell us we're sad, deny it. Don't feel what you feel: that's just hormones deviating according to cellular stimuli; feel what you tell your brain you want to feel: gratitude. I'm grateful that I'm wearing shorts and can push against a matress with my toes. i'm grateful that i get to talk to you and say a bunch of silly things. i'm grateful that i feel air going into and out of my lungs. that children threw flowers into my hair today, that the streets were full, that somewhere, someone is ecstatic and blissful right now. that i don't have to care about anything, that nothing that is too much for me to handle is my responsibility. i'm happy for movies and not knowing myself and not feeling guilty right now. There is no injustice because there is no justice. There is no justice because no one deserves anything. No one deserves anything because having ever been alive is its own reward. I don't want to be a void. I want to have existed; I don't care how many horrible things happen, they're worth it and its not my fault. Lets just take the little lives we were born to and enjoy them; its childish and selfish to do anything else. Lets escape- all the time.
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