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Write letters?

I struggle with time, which is only made worse by the unfiltered flood of information. I still have difficulty distinguishing which information is more important. Now that I’ve built a new path for myself, where I am forced to find worthy causes for my time, it has become a heavier thing. I want to spend it as easily, as I breathe, but I become too conscious that there are sixty seconds in a minute, and I then spend it in spurts – as if hyperventilating. I need time, but my body doesn’t quite know what to do with it. Do I pace the room? Do I let my mind wander? Do I sit to read? Do I search for videos of kittens on Youtube? Do I use time to talk to someone (on Facebook, Twitter, Gchat)?

We’d like to think that as long as one’s happy, one’s making good use of time. So if one spends his own happy time, making others happy too, the cycle of happiness then becomes self-perpetuating, expands and extends out to one’s social circles. This is the dream, that my friends and the people I surround myself with, live in a peaceful community untainted by greedy self-interest and modern-day loneliness. You’d like to be less conscious of time because you’re busy and you’re busy with meaningful preoccupations and people.

Ask questions?

But the joke’s on me and the time I have chosen to spend, drawing and mailing postcards to friends, grows heavy with the silence that follows it. I write this with no bitterness or resentment whatsoever. I have been struggling to come to terms with the fact that this is the sign of our times. Social bonds are weak and people come and go in clicks (of mice) and with the push of a power button – we get lost in our own infinities. You don’t just have a group of people coming to terms with an infinite reality, but you have each and every person dealing with infinity in their own way.

∞

That’s a lot of infinities to think about. With the convenience of self-reliance, it’s harder for us to reach out to friends to ask for inclusion. The multiplicity of infinity is excruciatingly isolating. Someone intelligent who I look up to, I can’t remember if it was Ben, described Twitter as a room full of people shouting their thoughts at each other,  fighting to be heard. In a way, this too describes how it feels like to be in a room full of people, anywhere.

Thrust with more time, I am learning again how best to spend it – how I’d like to spend it. I have a new appreciation for the details of daily living, of friendships, of talking to people, so that I can find a way to my dream community, where infinity is dealt with together. It doesn’t matter if opinions differ. In my dreams, we acknowledge that we are in the same pursuit of happiness, contributing to help each other’s confrontation with infinity. We don’t have to be holding hands, just respecting each other and listening. Kind of like how Livejournal is, but more public.

I know that I like spending my time asking hard questions, and being with people who like to help find an answer, so I throw this back at you: Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

I’d like to think we can still strive for that.

I had never heard this expression used before and only vaguely understood what it meant. As I read through Chris Bohjalian’s novel, which shares the title of this entry (and is the inspiration for this as well), it became clearer what it could mean.

Idiom:

1. skeleton at the feast, a person or thing that casts gloom over a joyful occasion; a note or reminder of sorrow in the midst of joy.

Everything around us, is a sort of skeleton at the feast. Now that the world is vastly connected. Poverty stricken countries are reminders of the richer ones. The death toll of a calamity reminds us of the survivors.  The crazy chatter of unsubstantial gossip about celebrities from all corners of the world adds to a priceless flood of other, more useful information. We now have access to an ever-replenishing library, that people once, could only imagine. Or perhaps I am alone in seeing the world this way. That despite the happiness (and allowing myself to feel the happiness), there are always little reminders of sorrows.

I finally finished this novel. You can tell by the way the perspectives of the characters were written that it was written carefully and sure enough, when I reached the acknowledgements, I learned that the book had been inspired by a real diary, and guided along by a few other books used as reference. I needed time with this one. Less time than I needed with The Information (which felt like I was swallowing ten courses in one go, without chewing, but it was nonetheless a satisfying meal). But I needed time nonetheless. Whenever I came across a passage or chapter that demonstrated the possible array of human brutality in desperate situations, I am reminded how in my twenty-three years on earth, and on my little island country, I have not yet needed to feel such a thing. I wonder if I ever would but hope that I would never have to.

Packed with blackened tortoise shells, an ancient shaman's grave may be evidence of early feasting. Illustration by Greg Harlin.

Survival has evolved into such a different word from how it meant during the World Wars. Even back when we were hunting and gathering, Survival had only one definition and that meant to stay alive. Now, it comes in different shapes. Sometimes it’s synonymous to making money, other times it means fitting in. Lately, I notice that it means finding someone who cares enough about you as you would in turn, care about them so that you have someone to survive with. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a romantic partner, but it seems that this is what many have chosen to look for.

The world is getting smaller, but I think as much as possible, we still have to try and survive it as a group or as it was once known, a tribe. The people in my (ideal and selfish) tribe, are my close friends, and they are scattered all over the world. I’ve been trying to reach out to them individually with the intention that they each feel less lonely and disappointed, whenever skeletons appear at their feast.