Still Sundays

August 14th.

“The present is the whole of the past concentrated.” ~ Iqbal; Bernard Shaw on Tolstoy’s “What is Art”?; opinions about opinions; Anders, the homeless man in London, on books.

I awoke this Sunday morning in some rainforest. The rain, glossy chandeliers, was falling without crashing. It took me a minute to realize I was in New York City.

It was nice to take a break from putting thoughts on the braille made of words last Sunday. Does Stillness too take a break? No, I don’t think so. We do. It’s hard to swim in peace: no sharks of conflict that actually bite, no shore of tomorrow, no ship of yesterday, how long can you stay afloat in the now?

Words don’t come as easily as they once did. Is that what the beginning of old age of understanding looks like? The head of understanding has silver hair that sparkle. The more you understand, the more calcium of precision lost in your bony words. Maybe I don’t want to understand after all, just like people who don’t want to grow old. Both are inevitable, might as well do it gracefully, which means more stretching and less running.

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Hello Sunday, August 14^th 2011.

It’s my brother’s birthday. This particular brother works for Los Angeles’ law enforcement and is assigned to the special unit called “Counter Terrorism and Special Operations.” That is a fancy way of saying he is the main bridge between the oceans of confusion, fear, and understanding. He is the communication vehicle amongst all who have many reasons to not trust one another: the L.A.P.D., the United States federal government, immigrant citizens and legal residents, the extremely wealthy Muslims who own the strings to various lobbyists to the guy who works at the local 7-11 who most can’t tell apart from a Bangladeshi or an Indian, those Muslims who like parasites have found a home in the United States’ skin to spread fear and hate using religion as an excuse, and also those Muslims who have fled their respective countries so they can worship a God however they wish or no God at all without being persecuted for their beliefs.

Happy birthday, Prince. I admire your courage and have tremendous respect for your efforts to maintain harmony with integrity in a very chaotic world. Thank you for your service.

It is also Pakistan’s birthday. A country that is still a child in many ways. 65 years old. I know many adults who have not resolved most of their issues by 65 and yet we expect an entire country to figure it all out given its history: British imperialism to the fracture with India and then Bangladesh, the external political pressures, the internal puppets. A child whose birthday no one can truly celebrate because no one wants to own its deformities caused by abuse, both self-inflicted and from others.

Iqbal wrote, “The present is the whole of the past concentrated in one point.”

Pakistan is that one big point that we can’t ignore. No child is hopeless and all adults can change at any age.

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As soon as one says the word “truth” landmines of “how do you know what is the truth?” blast in every other step of the conversation. The fear of sounding judgmental and creating some conflict guard against stating what actually is. Indeed, there are many truths and we make up many that fit our storylines for the comfort of the lies we live.

But somehow we all know there are some truths that can’t be denied. Harmony need not come at the cost of dishonesty.

I have been re-reading Tolstoy on Art by Tolstoy, translated by Aylmer Maude in personal consultation with Tolstoy. Tolstoy never considered War and Peace a novel. So many truths all so true? It just can’t be real. So they defined his long work as a novel that is “realist fiction.”

When Tolstoy’s essay What is Art? appeared, Bernard Shaw wrote: “This  book is a most effective booby trap. It is written with so utter a contempt for the objections which the routine critic is sure to allege against it that many a dilettantist reviewer has already accepted it as a butt set up by Providence.”

I understand that many own and have not finished reading the “novel” with over 500 characters called War and Peace (I haven’t), but I don’t understand how people can quote and misquote Tolstoy without at the very least having read his shorter works, especially his essays!

Before there was Tolstoy in my world there was my father who taught me I am probably dead-on if I find most of Picasso’s art boring. How come? Because I had no knowledge, academic or otherwise, about what art critics and all those who have spent their lives studying and understanding Picasso said and wrote about his work. I just had an opinion upon seeing his work. “Your opinion is just as good as the next person’s as long as it is  weighed and considered on whatever scales you decide.”

I am beginning to think those whose opinions count only do so because they happen to have an opinion, regardless if the opinion is independent or with some merit. Most artists and writers consider warm approval or empty but provocative admiration as opinions worthy of consideration. Most don’t realize there is indeed a place beyond educated, constructive criticism and meritless applause for the sake of camaraderie. That place of communication, where two (or more) are so lucky to meet, allows for a small space where some light can enter from which we can evolve individually as can the craft.

When I used to teach full time this statement by educator Jeffrey Wilhelm was part of my education philosophy. It is now part of my literature and art philosophy:

Democracy…looks to and reaches into the future…democracy is much less about governing and much more about associated living. For us [teachers], democracy means that tensions should be embraced and meanings should be negotiated, not controlled or preempted by the most powerful. Democracy is about learning to tap into and celebrate difference, which offers a wider array of vision and deeper pools of resources. Democracy is about sharing power instead of overpowering or being overpowered… [ultimately] democracy is about the social act of becoming—of helping ourselves and those around us to continually grow and become more complex, of not being satisfied with the status quo.  (Strategic Reading, 2001)

Art at its best continues to redefine democracy.

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A few days before I returned to New York City, London was set on fire—literally—by angry citizens who violently looted stores and set cars and houses on fire. There I was complaining about the high cost of hotels ($100 to $120 a night for a room that doesn’t even have a bathroom inside) and the local citizens had had it with unemployment and hopelessness.

That second night of the riots I hung out with a very wise and safe homeless man, Anders, who had run away from the crazy mob in North London to where I was staying in Central London. We told each other some stories. I found his stories quite unbelievable but he equally found mine inconceivable. He told me about his trip to India many years ago—where did you get the money?—I wasn’t always poor, sweetheart! I just haven’t found any work in a long time now and I don’t have any help to get out of my situation—okay, continue, then what happened in India?—Well, you see they put me on this boat…

I told him that I don’t worry about much now but growing up I was a very anxious child. And I hadn’t been this anxious since I was eight! I found myself telling him…

A few years before our immigration to the United States, when I was eight, the events in my little environment became most unusual. An uproar had erupted in the Islamic world following the publication of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. The Iranian Ayatollah had called upon the Muslims to kill this “infidel.”  The Saudi religious police, Muttawas, came searching for “the book” in our house.  Since we had a big library and apparently they couldn’t distinguish my parents’ medical reference books from the children’s books, they removed and tore random books and magazines, including a copy of Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes, a personal favorite.

I told him that maybe that is why I have to buy books and my attachment to books.

Anders said, “Books are important but only in so far as to show us and re-affirm what we already know. What we don’t know outside of books we can not understand or learn inside of books.”

I exclaimed, “what was the point of writing any at all!” Anders replied, “We write to show others what they already know but can’t recall they know.”

I bought him cigarettes.

We sat quietly and listened to the sirens not too far away… looters without any interest in burning bookstores…and the guffaw of men spending money on drinks at a bar across the street where I wasn’t welcome because I was with Anders.

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