daily contigencies of life

perhaps it was the sleep deprivation, the poor diet (consisting largely of takeaway curries, store-bought hummus, and the occasional wake-us-up popsicles from the ice cream truck outside the library), or the unvaried existence, but these past few weeks seem to have been marked by skewed perceptions and the breakdown of reality. we saw little of the outside world, and even then only at 45-minute increments. if they allowed food inside the cage that is the british library of economics and political science, i doubt that our exposure to air and pavement would have included much more than the walk from home to bus stop to campus and back.

yet however cruel and unsustainable the lifestyle of exam revision was, there was nevertheless a shame that came over me whenever i caught myself complaining - and i caught myself doing that more than just sometimes. how could i not be ashamed? it is difficult to study, yes, even more difficult to study and do well. but when reading about conflicts in subsaharan africa, the favelas in brazil, slums in india, the debt crises in latin america and eastern europe, how can there be any comparison between my microscopic misery and their real legitimate suffering? i am embarrassed of the thought whenever i think about it. to juxtapose my academic stress to the anguish of so many, affected by genocides, unlivable homes, corruption ruining every attempted recontruction - my ‘woes’ are almost sadly laughable. was i not born in a developing country? was i not exposed to starved families, drugs, homelessness? i should be embarrassed, i should be ashamed.

then i remembered something i heard on the bbc. a reporter asked israeli author amoz oz how he felt when writing about the conflict in the middle east. does he feel pressured to write about the daily contigencies of life in israel in the conflict? is this what he feels his narrative is set out to do?

and he said,
The daily contigencies of life in Israel and the occupied territories are not just the conflict. Life goes on. Even on the slopes of an erupting volcano, people still raise kids and plant vegetables and conduct love affairs and cheat on their income tax. They still do it. Life goes on. And one my zeals in writing novels is to devote my novels not just to the conflict, not just to the topics that fill the media and the papers but to the essential topics of love and hate and loneliness and longing and desire and death and desolation.*

not that it makes it appropriate for me to practice so little fortitude as to be overwhelmed by trifling exams, but the man’s reply places things in an even greater perspective than the one i was seeking. his reply is a reminder of the universe i am a part of – a universe that has room for both superficial distress and deep sorrow, simple joys and genuine kindness. the communities that i am now a part, that i am learning, that i am to join, that i am to serve…it’s all the same place. what the author pronounced as essential was not the conflict, not the eruption of the volcano, but love, hate, loneliness, longing, desire, death, desolation. these are the elements of which life is made of. this – life in its daily form – is what is real.

while there is the very easy mistake of blowing situations out of proportion, it is useful to be reminded that there should be no guilt attached to academic stress and the distress of the everyday. no shame in venting about the too-long hours we spend indoors cramming, leaving too-short time for social interaction. after all, the reason i am studying now is to work in the hope that other 23-year-olds can lament about their exams rather than the loss of their families, so that parents can worry about their child going off to university they feel to be too far away, like my own parents worry for me, rather than being afraid of displacement within their own nations, the land of their blood.

Appreciate, not dismiss, the everyday and the immediate world surrounding. It is, after all, the compass and inspiration to my future and my work.

[*The following interview was heard on the BBC World Service, Global News Highlights, 07 May 2009.]

~ by Jean Louise on 15 June 2009.