MEKTOUB…
Today I am up at 4 15 AM. Mary met Joseph a day like every other day… another day supposed to bring nothing special. I look around and I see only people submerged by the decease of our time : absence of happiness… Happiness seems to be part of an old fairy tale…Was it like that 20 years ago and I was not aware of it? I am overwhelmed by the feeling that all around me, there is only stress and distress , attempts to be, search for a possible truth .
Mary met Joseph a day not like every day… A day when Joseph wanted to be another himself and Mary wanted to meet the Mary who was hiding herself under the blankets of society, the smokes of appearance .
It seems that everybody is looking for a refuge in the easiest artifices, the masks of a disguised truth and then falls again in the hallways of despair, the sewers of distress, and despite all this I see as always the need to be recognized and accepted.
I look at all my stuff, my books, my trinkets, my statues, my masks, my dolls. Did I spend most of my life working like a demented person just to buy more of that crap ? I look at all my awards , Oscars, prizes, award plaques, and I smile in front of the silliness of it…
The shattered sky becomes more shattered every day.
I received the following email from a friend living in Europe, I will keep it unknown since I am so discreet, as you know….
“Already
distressful news about my world.. I just came back from the local (office)branch.
On the way there I had to pull over like ten times to let the ambulances pass.
It is unbelievable....Only one doorman and an assistant were there. The others
are sick or in isolation as contacts of other sick people. Euffff. The
assistant was having a ''to do list'' of a few feet in length. It is crystal
clear that he won't manage anything in due time………………..... At 4 pm, when I got
back to the city, the main DHL office was already closed. There are several
others in the neighborhoods, but I checked on google and all get closed
now at 4 pm. The severe mandates start taking effect on Monday, but they
do not apply to ''boostered'' people, so I am a free person in a dying country
(how horrible this sounds!). …….Here the
situation is desperate, my students, who go to hospitals for other courses and
practical activities, are in depression and tell me that it is literally a
warzone there. Even the mortuaries are full and dead bodies lie outside in
black bags. 99% unvaccinated. The President finally realized the outcome of the
politics ''we set up vaccination centers even in McDonald's and McDrive, next
it's up to you'' and yesterday appointed as prime-minister a general (military)
who successfully commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now the situation
will be handled like in the army and a population that in the last 6 months
protested, rioted and distributed unimpeded crazy ideas will suddenly face
army-like mandates and punishments. From an extreme to another, but currently
there is no other way.”
Unfortunately, the situation is not much better in New York city. It is now 6 am...After a painful night , awakened so many times by the sirens of the police, the ambulances, and by the screaming of the people in the streets, I get up and I look out the window, It is dark out and only a few homeless in the street...
I live near Columbus circle, supposedly a great neighborhood, street construction is the beautiful view I have...
More construction everywhere every day.
All streets in New York look the same, a non-answer to the
anguish and the fear...
We are submerged with non-collected garbage, in every
corner of every street workers are digging huge holes
probably checking and replacing rusty pipes (symbol of our
soul), it is even difficult to drive on these roads which are not
tarred or asphalted; to follow the covid restrictions, restaurants
are invading the streets, cars and delivery trucks double parked
all over, bicycles going like crazy with no respect at all for red
lights, for one way street, for NOTHING….
Most of people walking looking at their phone , scaffoldings in
front of each building , and huge cranes blocking the traffic…
To drive in the city is going to war and It is even dangerous to
walk out during the day, since we have to keep an eye all the
time at who is approaching us, who looks strange, who looks
like a possible aggressor…
…..
My head is spinning with disgust, my stomach is full of strange
ideas. Again memories
and millions of images are
assaulting me.
Je pars A la recherche du temps perdu …. ( Title of a beautiful
book by Marcel Proust)
I am floating in an ocean … This morning the ocean is
incredibly ideal, ideal temperature, no waves, no seeds, No
JELLYFISH...and NOBODY around! Che Pace!!!! 0r may be
because it is very early in the morning and everybody continues
to be asleep , missing some moments of life.... I walk in the water,
I swim, I float, and I dream... And I think and I remember...all
the oceans and seas I have plunged my body at one time young
and strong.
The
Mediterranean sea in Carthage near Tunis, the ocean in Martinique, the sea in
Madagascar, The red sea and the Caspian sea and the Caribbean sea or the
beaches of Dar Es Salaam or South Africa or Sweden or ten others… One day , I will write about my travels in Africa, in Asia (
Especially in Nepal and Afghanistan), in Europe.
And I think about my achievements to ignore the incredibly challenging times we are all living. Achievements? Did I really achieve anything?
What does
achievement really mean? Is it to be recognized for what we have done? What is the purpose of all this? Sometimes we know how to make important what
really is not!!!! ... It seems
every day that the world is being controlled by non-capable people, every day
we hear about the nomination of somebody with no experience in a position of
knowledge and responsibilities …What have we done? Where are the dreams we had
20, 30 years ago of an equal society? Everybody is just struggling for more power, more
influence, more justification of his own wellbeing . Another person has been chosen to be in charge of a
very important business…Somebody with so much personal ambition that he reminds
me the careerist, the social climber, the go-getter of the Bourgeois class
in the 19 century Paris, he acts like he is from a Balzac
novel.......Revolting...
Convince people that we know what we are
talking about...some of us have the great talent to become a reference to their
own truth...They don’t know more than anybody but they are succeeding in making
believe that they KNOW...They talk well, they are full of self-importance, they
pontificate about the most banal things, they make the obvious become a vision,
and since we live in a culture with no culture, many are looking for their
opinion., but
people have no shame? The most surprising is that I am still asking this
question, I had the answer a very long time ago...Shame is an invention of
religion, it is not part of our basic psyche, we do not know shame, some are
just afraid to be caught, exposed, or shown, so we are ashamed....It makes me
laugh or grin...
It is now 8 am. It is raining...I am 77 years old and I am wondering why, why
what? I do not even know…I never needed recognition, so why?
Why? Really ? I never needed recognition? Is that true ? Or
am I dreaming again of being special??? Or maybe it is my
French accent??? Ah ah ah… I miss the theater, am I addicted to the theater? The smell of
the theater, the darkness, the ghosts, the silent laughs and cries,
the only place where we all can be ourselves, protected by the
anonymity, the character, the disguise...Live an entire destiny in
a few hours, go thru many, many lives with the words of
another...
We have an expression in my family “ MEKTOUB” meaning
“IT WAS WRITTEN”.
Should we accept MEKTOUB or fight it ? Fight it by finding
new ways, new thoughts, and adapt to new realities… Yes, life
goes on and still will give us great joys, great achievements, and
beautiful memories,
SO LETS GO ON, I DO NOT ACCEPT
MEKTOUB
