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