RESCUING

Today my Saturday begins with two reflections: 1) if you want to make it in this world you have to do what there is to do to make it, among other things make sure you pile up the diplomas, awards, medals, and the like. This thought was sparked by a mail from my friend, Robert Gibbons, who needed to send a letter to a head master somewhere in the US of A. The master lists his achievements in his very signature: 3 MAs, 2 PhDs, 2 professional certificates, and many more things – you get the picture. Robert says to me: “I must say, that the credentials possessed, accomplished, sought, won, bought by this headmaster are as good as any I've, seen, at the same Time revealing for the entire years' search, the futility of it ALL!!!” This made me think about how right the poststructuralists were to have made the obvious and commonsensical remark: men with such credentials are in power, not because they are essentially smart, but because they’ve managed to convince others that they are, women included. So it’s all in the narrative. To understand this even better, it’s enough to look at politicians. If we didn’t live by fragments and details, the campaigners would not keep so busy with the respectable trade of digging. Digging dirt that can tell a different story about the one who claims to be spotless. So the big picture is always in the small picture. Obama has been in Denmark for 5 hours and a half to try to get the Olympic games to Chicago. He didn’t succeed, yet everybody agreed that his mere presence in Denmark was big. So big. A very big thing, indeed! Now, I thought, if Obama had a different reputation than the one the media construe, say, that of a womanizer, or something similar, I wonder how big his presence here would have been deemed, you know, cosmically speaking. For when people go and say that it’s fucking big that he’s here, they never elaborate. They just believe.

Which brings me to my 2nd reflection: on belief. While I was in the bathroom, my husband played a vinyl with some Indian tunes produced by L. Shankar, a major violin virtuoso. Listening to the sounds as they were filtered through two doors, they reminded me of a Somali tune. This thought then reminded me of a prose poem I wrote last year which I dedicated to a Somali friend. In that poem I made a reference to Ketav Levonah, the white Torah. The word levonah itself means incense, which the poem is actually about. So there I was, smearing creams on my body, thinking of smell and religion. After I finished I sat by my computer and amused myself with checking to see who has been visiting my blog. Looking at my stats is a wonderfully entertaining moment of wasting time. One phrase caught my attention. Someone from Sacramento, California was searching google for “Ketav Levonah,” and, voilà, google being very smart directed the person to my website. All the better, as I never had anyone stumble on my writing with that phrase before. So I made a mark of it for posterity like a good statistician, while I also wondered what the poststructuralists would make of this kind of coincidence that seems to bypass the two-dimensionality of the stories that make up our identity: either you are this, or you’re that. There’s no middle way. Of course, if I declared that I "believed" in cosmic things, they would assure me that that is a sure way to madness, in this world precisely in which it ain’t the stars that rule but the star-achievers. In other words, “belief” is the wrong tool to employ in making statements that run counter to reason.

Humm, my fingers are tapping nervously on the table as we speak. I have to think about this one some more, and the damned philosophers into belief and decision-making are still out there deliberating. As yet, they haven’t produced anything sensible on the very topic. Jack-shit, in fact. So I’m thinking: if I don’t “believe” in anything, I’d have to conclude this based on hard evidence: I know for sure that I’m not a “fan” of politicians, and I also know for sure what I like. I like to quote Kafka on achievement: “success is the biggest disappointment.” Ooohhh, I can hear Homer Simpson interjecting: “Aaahhh! Then you’re a loser.” Damned! I knew there was something wrong with me. Anyone into the business of rescuing? A volunteer? Thank god for volunteers.