Every now and again, nature reminds us of how immense and powerful she is. Even the sound of the thunder is thrilling and scary in its own right. Glad we decided, at some point, to build shelters.
Hannah Arendt was Jewish, although not openly religious. She tended to be skeptical of most -isms, as her experience growing up in and around and then escaping Germany during the Nazi period left her so.
Still, in her book The Human Condition, she talked about and Jesus and what he represented, religiously and symbolically. Metaphysical after-life questions or historical-realism questions aside, Jesus represents an appreciation of the power of man to act and forgive, as well as the capacity to take action to change the course of history. Quoted from the book:
“The miracle that saves the world, the realm of human affairs, from its normal, ‘natural’ ruin is ultimately the fact of natality, in which the faculty of action is ontologically rooted. It is, in other words, the birth of new [people] and the new beginning, the action they are capable of by virtue of being born. Only the full experience of this capacity can bestow upon human affairs faith and hope.”
In some sense, Jesus narratively represents this kind of new possibility, of being risen-again in the sense of being-forgiven and having a second chance, a redemption. This forgiveness is important because it gives us the opportunity to act again. We take these notions religiously but they also have secular significance aside from the religious.
From an article on the topic, which also quotes The Human Condition:
So in some sense, Easter is about Jesus and Christianity but is also about being born-again inasmuch as finding forgiveness or giving it and obtaining new hope following that redemption, which is what action does: it gives us the possibility to change the course of things in history and be freed, to some extent, from what has happened and been done.
A good, shorter, Kelly Reichardt sliver-of-American-experience film about two old friends reconnecting on a trip to the wilderness, sharing in memories, meditating on their different lives and experiences and opining on the future.
On a morning visit with a family, I noticed these two quotes hanging intimately near some family photos. One attributable to Churchill, the other unknown. They are cheesy in a self-motivational kind of way. But I have a thing for slivers of inspiring wisdom. And I do think they help in desparate moments, so here you go:
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On another visit, I talked to a person coming to terms with old age, learning that one’s abilities change as time goes one: when one cannot walk or bend or stand or do the things one loves as one used to. It is a difficult transition, and I see it regularly. And still, people face it bravely. Having social connections helps I think, whoever they are: friends, family, loved ones. They help get us through, but we also need to open up them, which is hard itself (I know).
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I was on a run this afternoon on what is called here in Modesto “The Virginia Corridor,” and the corridor itself is very pretty, especially on a cool, breezy Spring March day in Modesto. I like watching the people as they go by, or as I run by them. Crying children, packs and packs of dogs, couples, elderly individuals, skateboarders and the like. Some happy, some sad, all experiencing the vibrancy of life. It is nice to come up against difference: people speaking different languages with different styles. We all have a way we present ourselves. Part of the public space is seeing difference in a real way, in motion.
Sometimes, difference lends itself to conflict, though. Out of the corner of my eye, while I was running, I noticed a few bikers on the street: younger guys who were just riding around but who biked in front of a car on the road (intentionally or unintentionally, I am not sure). The woman driving the car kept trying to drive forward, but they confrontationally kept riding right in front of the woman, egging her on out of perceived slight.
At their age, they probably weren’t even thinking of how bad a bike-car accident could be and instead focused on some sense of honor. Everyone walking by, at this point, looked over, curious and startled tried to pretend to not notice anything (as we so often do), as the screeches from the speeding up-slowing car and the yells of the young men were pretty loud at this point. Fortunately or unfortunately, the woman found her opening, sped her car up loudly and drove quickly past the bikers (probably dangerously fast for a residential neighborhood), yelling something at them, to which they yelled something back. The bikers biked away, puffing up their chests. And while it wasn’t at all clear who was in the wrong (if anyone), a man walking nearby yelled something to the bikers: “Ever heard of Darwinism?” A funny way for that episode to end.
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Last, I read a story about Kafka, which I am going to copy and paste here. I claim no authorship, but I just wanted to post it, along with the image that circulates with it. Neither are of my creation, but they are pleasant to read.
“When he was 40, the renown Bohemian novelist and short story writer FRANZ KAFKA (1883–1924), who never married and had no children, was strolling through Steglitz Park in Berlin. He chanced upon a young girl crying her eyes out because she had lost her favorite doll. She and Kafka looked for the doll without success. Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would look again.
The next day, when they still had not found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter “written” by the doll that said, “Please do not cry. I have gone on a trip to see the world. I’m going to write to you about my adventures.”
Thus began a story that continued to the end of Kafka’s life.
When they would meet, Kafka read aloud his carefully composed letters of adventures and conversations about the beloved doll, which the girl found enchanting. Finally, Kafka read her a letter of the story that brought the doll back to Berlin, and he then gave her a doll he had purchased. “This does not look at all my doll,” she said. Kafka handed her another letter that explained, “My trips, they have changed me.” The girl hugged the new doll and took it home with her. A year later, Kafka died.
Many years later, the now grown-up girl found a letter tucked into an unnoticed crevice in the doll. The tiny letter, signed by Kafka, said, “Everything you love is very likely to be lost, but in the end, love will return in a different way.”
Image from Jordi Sierra I Fabra’s, Kafka and the Travelling Doll
I’m reading this Russian author Chekhov who has a very interesting writing style. Known as a great short story writer, he’s very much interested in particular situations, moments and people rather than universal themes (or maybe particular moments are how he explores universal themes).
In one story called “the death of a clerk,” a clerk sneezes on a general at the theater, who promptly and instinctively forgives the clerk. But the clerk cannot bear to forgive himself. The clerk worries endlessly and anxiously (and without justification) about the general’s forgiveness and becomes bizarrely obsessed with the possibility that the general holds a secret grudge against him. So the clerk again and again visits the general’s office to seek forgiveness, which, every time the general forgives him without a second thought. Eventually, the general, after several visits from the clerk, gets annoyed and, in a rage, orders the clerk out. What begin as a minor social faux pas grew into something shout-worthy. And not because the initial mistake was great but because the fixated man could not let it go, which, in my experience is sometimes very hard.
But I guess also, there’s another lesson here: it’s not just about seeking the understanding of another: it’s about forgiving ourselves, and what happens if we just can’t let ourselves be forgiven and to let go of something we wished we wouldn’t have done. Easier said than done I guess. And also, fixating is hard to break out of sometimes.
Over time, I’ve noticed that life has this weird quality, especially in our complex, advanced society: so much of life is waiting, preparing, anticipating, hoping for or expecting. Then a thing happens or it doesn’t happen, and then you move onto the next thing: wait for it, prepare for it, anticipate or hope for it and then it happens or doesn’t happen and onto the next…ad infinitum…
But meanwhile, it’s good to just enjoy the ride, I think, the experience, whether it’s good or bad. We’re only here once, and we might as well make the most of it.
An older film, but just phenomenal: Peter O’ Toole as the famed Lawrence of Arabia, a British officer who assisted migratory Arab tribes in their fight against the Turks in aspirations to become their own nation.
Bearer of Pity 