2020 is almost over. In a blink of an eye, that is. One might ask, what happened to this blog that I neglected or omitted to update for an entire year. It’s funny how long or short one year could seem, depending on one’s point of view. A year befitting for self-reflection, for soul searching (albeit minus the customary physical escape to a less familiar destination), for looking inwardly during quarantines, lockdowns, grey winter days, video conferences, temporary internet connection breakdowns, walks near the neighborhood or in suburban parks or mountains. During the silences after the night has fallen, the unprecedented has happened, the living has turned into the dead, gunshots have been fired, questions have been asked and answers have been attempted but not yet provided.
I remember the day I had lunch with three of my best friends from school time in a restaurant on the fifth floor of a shopping mall in Xi’an. One friend sent a dish back because it was too salty, and strangely I didn’t remember her as sensitive to salty food. They invited me to taste the milk tea from a popular tea chain shop, or was it a fruit tea that I tasted. I had to go to the airport to catch a flight to go back to Beijing and eventually back to Vienna. They dragged my big suitcase and accompanied me to the Didi taxi. The driver commented, you’re lucky to have so many people see you off. It was not a particularly clear day, I believe. The air quality in Xi’an is still suboptimal. I was indeed lucky to have been home in January, because after that, international travel, something to which we’ve grown entitled in the recent years, has become a luxury, and not only in the monetary terms. I’ve spent countless hours on airports and in planes leafing through newspapers that did not interest me much and reading books that couldn’t keep my very divided attention. Being amongst the tireless business travelers for long enough, I might have lost the curiosity I had when I was a mere traveler, maintaining a reasonable amount of excitement and looking forward to a destination that was actually chosen by me. The only travel outside of Austria I managed to have this year, of course apart from the one in January because that was to China and work-related, was to Italy. It also hardly counts as travel, because well, it’s Italy, if you know me. It was not my first time in Puglia, but we visited different towns and beautiful beaches. Italy never ceased to amaze me with its beauty. Just like Brazilians never ceased to amaze me with their positivity (the inconsiderable sample size should not overweigh the accuracy of the observation). Or maybe it’s just my cognitive filter that determines all these perceptions. Certain things reinforce themselves in our minds whereas others fade and disappear. Sometimes I’m shocked not only by how much I forget, but also by how much of that is what I once perceived as life-altering occurrences. You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. I guess as long as you can still remember a dot, you’re guaranteed to connect it someday somehow. Remembering it, however, can never be guaranteed. In Your Face Tomorrow Volume I: Fever and Spear, Wheeler talks lengthily about the campaign against “careless talk” supposedly in UK in the 1940s. “They were asked to give up the one thing they most love, that is most indispensable to them, the thing we all live for and which everyone, without exception, can enjoy and make use of, both poor and rich, uneducated and educated, old and young, the sick and the healthy, soldiers and civilians… Grammatical, syntactical and lexical skills matter little, oratorial gifts still less, and pronunciation, diction, accent, euphony, rhythm even less…” He was talking about talking. The thing we all live for. I took it out of the context and hence cannot assert its veracity. My intention might be rather to recommend this author, should anyone happen to be in need of a book recommendation. Or maybe I wanted to talk about something closely related to talking. Words. Written words. Another thing we all live for. We’ve already established that memory is unreliable, fickle. While I was on it, I discovered a nice quote. Memory is a fickle thing, a flickering light in a darkroom of possibilities. So what evidence do we have to corroborate our past, at least to convince ourselves, if not others, that it was not a mere invention, imagination, rendering? Nowadays we rely on photos and videos to remember facts: where I was in October 2015, what I had for dinner three weeks ago, who was present and wearing what on such and such occasions. Sometimes emotions can be recorded, though just peripherally and superficially. Who was smiling and who was not. There is a saying to this effect: I don’t remember you, but I remember how you made me feel. I think that’s when words come into play. Words transmit, convey, retain, preserve, precipitate and revitalize feelings. They do not waver. They do not wither. They can be a century old and suddenly bring tears to your eye. Without fading colors and without adapting diction. Maybe it has to do with the fact that, putting something in writing is in itself an act of commitment, even if the words state otherwise. An unconscious classification of importance. A determination for something not to disappear, even if the words say end, closure, farewell. That’s a contradiction between form and content. Who is to decide which one shall prevail. And the loss of written words is most devastating. A past without evidence. A memory without witnesses. Same as dancing without spectators. Then you’re free to remember whatever you want. How fortunate and unfortunately at the same time.
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