After some time in life, we will inevitably realise that we don’t need the answer to every question. Partly because we can’t but also because we don’t always know what are the right questions to ask anyway.

Sometimes, it takes time for us to realise the second part and in the process realising of it, we will keep insisting on it. Maybe in quiet confidence, maybe to the extent that it subtly frustrates, maybe even by expressing it in bitter angst.

I shall be talking about two ideas, will connect them both, and then relate it to the above thoughts by asking questions with regard to each.

The first idea was presented some time ago when I had watched a friend in his relationship honeymoon-period, reciting a 'how-it-all-happened' with his girlfriend of about three months beside him, and then hearing from his girlfriend her side of the story. Though both reports were made in the presence of each party, I guess only the people who weren't involved in it were wise enough to notice the differences in what was said by each. Some were tricky to spot while some were quite obviously observed. There were different empahses, different motives and reasons, different events considered significant, different turning points in situations, even different feelings felt.

Such a thought struck me again, more strongly this time, when I was visiting a bangkok slum area. This was home to one of the students who had participated in the English Camp I had facilitated. The camp wasn't a stay-over one but a day camp (like 9 to 4pm) and it was held at a church. The kids who attended it actually belonged to the neighbourhood the church was situated in. Thus, after the camp, we had the opportunity to fetch some of the kids home since most of them lived in homes that were in walkable distance from the church. When the youth organisation's staff had first mentioned this practice, I had originally agreed with the other facilitators that it would be nice to take the kids home since it allowed us to build a closer and more personal relationship with them. Afterall, we would be visiting their family and everyday surroundings.

However, when you actually are in the place that they live, entered through a narrow walkway along a roadside, your path towards the 'home' guided by the uneven wooden boards covering a ground that was slightly damp with a gambling arcade machine strangely next to the 'bedroom' area. And when you stand easily so out of place and allow thoughts consisting of concepts like hygine, political structures, NGOs, human dignity to flow into what you are thinking about. And when you visit everyday although you can only do it for another two more days since you have to catch your flight home later on... A closer and more personal relationship isn't really what one feels that he has achieved upon emerging from it.

The questions that can be asked here – Do both parties really need to feel the same experience for the reality to be justified as ‘real’? Beyond the moral and heartstring implications of one not being honest in the expression of feelings, what about if there was honesty, but not full honesty? What about if the relational experiences were just merely different based on the subjectivism involved? I don't think relativism in the realm of feelings has really been explored much in the light of how the post-modernistic society today confuses relativism to be applicable in the realm of truth, but even if we were aware of considering relativism in feelings, we would probably treat it with more idealism than logical analysis. As Logan said in X-Men Origins: Wolverine when he realised that Sliverfox had mutant powers of persuasion and that the relationship between them could have been false, “It was real for me.” But would that be good enough? Can we say the feelings, notwithstanding whoever that may be invovled in its crossfire, are all right when I'm all right with it?

The second idea is close to the first and can possibly be a thought that progresses after acknowledging the possibility of differences in a connection. The idea can occur when the realisation that connections between humans exist in a state of flux, or another way to say it, we need to move on. Its not an emo kind of thing - it's just a practical limitation of being a finite being.

The guilt and feeling of being overwhelmed by all the relationships is easily identified when you volunteer at a youth organisation. The various people you come into contact with, the many faces that you will meet, the persons that come into your life and become a monetary routine for that period of time. The difficulty faced here (or rather, the realisation that dawns on you) is that a single person can't save the world. Just as a superhero's acts of heroism are clouded by their problems in personal life, volunteers can go onto the 'scene' where they're in - be teacers, facilitators, speakers, pastors, trainer, and when they walk down from it, meet individuals.

And thats when they realise, its not about a 5 days intensive workshop. Not about a time when you ask rhetorical questions which you expect to set one thinking. Its not even about an honestly made one hour speech.

Commitment, consistency, time. Really, it's back to such basics. The simple reality that strikes us revealing that it can't be given not due to competency, but due to ability.

This realisation has its questions as well. To give an example, let us consider people who are attention-seeking, not really socially accepted and largely rejected by cliques. I had met such a 'type' back in my training days. It was during the Passing Out Parade training time that I really got the chance to 'get to know' him better since my squad was marching beside his. When we had our water breaks, the interval allowed some courteous gestures to be expressed and even granted me a chance to be a good listening ear for awhile. In other words, I was nice. I did not ignore him like the rest, but as a friend gently probed when I mentioned this to him, why stop there?

Why didn't I step out of the comfort of sitting with my squad to go and sit next to him and have a conversation instead of just being polite? Why not carry on the relationship, why not give your energy, time and commitment into it?

Mainly, the questions and issues struggle with the difficulty of 'definitions' in relationships. As the man who wanted to justify himself asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbour?"

Jesus answered that question by the parable of the good samritan, he did not answer questions. He stated how to be a good neighbour.

At the end of the day, that is really an answer enough. Afterall, Sliverfox did tell Logan later on, "It was real for me too."



"...because solitude had made a selection in her memory and burned the dimming piles of nostalgic waste that life had accumulated in her heart, and had purified, magnified, and externalized the others, the most bitter ones."
- One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Labels: Life, muse

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