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Aug 6, 2010
“The best we can do for one another is to exchange our thoughts freely; and that, after all, is
about all”.
James A. Froude (1818-1894)
English Historian
The concept of a journey as a metaphor of life is an overhyped, overused cliché that rouses a myriad ruse to roost over a rover’s race. Yet despite the sonorous alliterations of an apparent limerick as I just used, the beauty of our life, this life, the only life we know, is still as simple as a journey from birth through death. Meanwhile, the notion of a journey as life’s most abundant metaphor remains its own reflective illustration. Between the end and the beginning of these two poles are memories fraught with reminiscences, vicissitudes, and a million pages of tales unsaid for stories unheard.
The pages are scanned. Words play an essential role in transforming thoughts into expressions that contain the residues of our existence. We are different than the other brutes of the animal kingdom because we are able to record our footsteps.
Apes, squirrels and other critters left faded footprints for a hunter’s perusal. That was all. From the hieroglyphic chronicles in caves through intricate characters that describe human virtue, from licentious verses of embellished poetry through structured portions of technical manuals, and from the petty diaries about our diurnal ritual through the elaborate speculations of human thought, the word has imminently intervened, wrapped in the entirety of a language, vociferously venting every sentiment, every passion, every ideal that could have been lashed out to anyone willing to listen.
From polysyllables to monosyllabic grunts, our tongue has slithered its way through the mouth and lips of generations and cultures, from the annals of one era to another, from the podium of a preacher to the quips of a jester. And hence, a journey -like a milestone and a crossroad, a junction woven into a patch work of compunction, a calloused step caressing the bruises of an exhausted foot. As we reach a destination, cross a bridge and arrive at a new one, we either read maps or we make them. Journals are born, not as a boring chronology of rituals. Unlike a diary, journals are annotated – simmered with innate thoughts and then expounded into explosions of an insatiable restlessness. Journals are the seeds of biographic novels, of epic adventures and of authentic history. As a kid, I wrote journals, because my mother told me to write letters. I did not know how to write letters. I did not want to relate how I spent my day because it was boring. I did nothing different yesterday to what I would be doing tomorrow. I was bored. I was only eight years old. I wrote journals and started them with “Dear….” and end with “Respectfully yours….” From that time on, I grew up writing on different medium and kept remnants of old devices. I was initiated into a barb’s life because of typing, second only to analysis and third to creative composition.
After shedding off baby bulges, straightened my incisors and added inches to my height, I was all set and ready to go for my new adolescent life. Alas, I did not go far. My words were bereft of experience, quotes in an empty shell. Books clamored for my time. The next phase was a literal sprint of global dimensions. My words gained weight while experience extended some sense into the folds of my scribbles. I still delighted in the foreplay of embellished phrases. I swayed within the ambits of poetic verses and circuitous prose. I learned from the sages and pranced through their shadows.
I became a perennial student. From a single soul to a communal being, I spilled my prose and offered it as a catalyst for change. With due respect to all the journalists who opened our eyes to facts, I never wanted to be one. Bad news was disgusting, simple information was boring, and plain reporting was not fun. Still, I perked my ears on people’s stories until I came up with an open proposal – journal-ism. It is nothing new. It has been done before and done so many times. One of them found its way through Hollywood and the Oprah Winfrey show. And some were brewed into a verbal soup served in cauldrons with the same ingredient. I wonder where the “Chicken Soup” series is right now. Journal-ism is when we share the nuggets of privacy as seeds for a communal legacy.
We take the risk of wallowing between the glories of vain recognition and the magnificence as an anonymous inspiration. Journal-ism is when we convert the dates of a diary into the packaged stories of a journal and then repackage it once more as a poetic manual for human life. So when life talks about life and offered for the improvement of life, the end effect would be that of a virtuous cycle, a diamond honing the edges of a blade that sharpens the angles of a stone that captures light.
Indeed, the “best we can do for one another is when we exchange our thoughts freely”. Froude did that through the polemics of history. We can do it too. Journal-ism is the dynamic effort to write the history of those who will probably never be studied in history yet whose lives could feed into the silent greatness of the subtle majority, the grass roots sector of a hierarchical community. When writers and story tellers join hands through pen and paper, that which is concealed can be revealed, that which seems forgotten could be remembered and that which was unrecognized could finally gain the laurels of a hero. And it all begins here, this space, this word, this time. There are so many people wanting to tell their stories as there are so many people wanting to hear something similar to theirs. As there are readers waiting for something worthwhile to read, there are writers in search of future readers and buyers of their work. Between all of them are spaces fragmented into miniscule doors and portals that have not yet been connected into a seamless web of efficient story telling. This is the last series of my reflective thoughts for now. It will not be easy to respond or to pose a query.
My discussions extend through other platforms. The least yet the best we can do with our spare time is when we exchange our thoughts freely, when we take the risk of allowing people to enter our minds and have a preview of how we think and what we think. With that risk comes the benefits of being able to extend our useful self to those who might even need it. I have a reader who always sends me back a clipping of my own article with his annotated remarks. In as much as he liked what he read, he also inspired me to write more to be read.
The simple gesture of freely letting me know what I oftentimes already know creates sparks, not only of friendship between a writer and a reader, but also between the different levels of experience.
Through those sparks, the mutual emulation of virtues radiate through a wider circle, the aftermath of which is nothing else but pure empowerment.