Disclaimer: I
just hope you will find charming when I spill over the limits of my English as
a second language.
“Writing is like talking to
your distant neighbor” used to say the philosopher Constantin Noica. And in our globally connected age “distant
neighbor” could literally mean a frightened Vietnamese girl who just learned English
and a middle-aged Peruvian who wants to alleviate the pains of his recent
divorce and the uncertainties of his unemployment during his/their CORONA
stay-home-in-isolation time. And due to the Internet both of them could read
the same words at the same time, despite the fact that it’s 10.34 a.m. in Ho
Chi Min (Vietnam) and 10.34 p.m. Lima (Peru). In other words, if CORONA defied
national borders, laughed at our visa restrictions and confronted us at a
global level, our response should also be borderless and quite bold, to match
and eventually surpass the enemy. And humor could probably be considered among
those highly powerful psychological weapons when it comes to fighting our
internal demons and achieving resilience. But for me, and I am not ashamed to
admit that, using humor and using English simultaneously is fun but also
dangerous. It feels like walking and sometimes running so close to the edge of
my English as a second language that the “When I will spill myself over?” and
“How often I already did that unknowingly?” pop up continuously. Out of this
fear the disclaimer I so conscientiously paste above all my posts was born. But
English seemed my only borderless passport in this planetary battlefield, so I
took the risk of being laughed at, knowing that in one way or another I might
increase your serotonin level. Anyhow, this introductory note was just meant to
give you a sense of why a poor Romanian guy, who still uses threasurus.com to
find the best synonyms for what produces his Romanian mind, decided to try his
luck with English.
But enough with this! Let me tell you in what context my writing fury was
triggered at the beginning of the COVID-19 crises. After abruptly deciding to
drive from my work city (Timișoara) to my home city (Brașov) upon
the national closing of all school and universities in Romania (March 11,
2020), I received a call from a distant friend requesting a short article about
COVID. As I wanted to help him and also to be nice I half-heartedly agreed
to do it among the other urgencies of the moment, so I commanded my brain to
start thinking about the task. Next day, during my morning reading routine, my
mind suddenly started to imagine an introductory passage for this article. So I
just gave it a chance, opened my computer and started writing. At the middle of
the first paragraph I played on some words and found it fun and stimulating, so
I continued. As the ideas convolutedly wrestled for supremacy, the text
accumulated some intensity and sometimes made me smile. I kept that pace for a
few hours just to realize the joviality of the essay made me dance with joy
even after closing the laptop. Somehow surprised by the intensity emanated by
that experience I emailed my friend the article and attended the other tasks at
hand.
Next day I received a
strongly edited version of the text, with 86.79% of metaphors chopped away and
replaced by an overall serious demeanor. In unbelief, I called my friend (who,
by the way, published a poetry volume not long ago) and asked what made him
butcher my essay. This time he half-heartedly agreed to keep the original
structure except a few parts that seem problematic for him. However, when he
sent me his second set of comments I realized that “a few” was the same 86.79%
of the text. So I told him: “If you see no reason to enjoy this and have no
attitude for a fun ride, go home and dance on church choir music.”
As I reflected upon this
whole situation I realized that, actually, I always enjoyed reading these
baroquely-intricate texts for their intrinsic capacity to stimulate my
intellect, to make me wonder about the complexities of the human mind, about
the convoluted lows of the universe and the unsolved paradoxes of, say, quantum
physics. I remembered how grateful and honored I felt when, mediated by written
words, I could hear the most intimate thoughts produced by some of my more
famous planetary neighbors. And I have plenty of memories from such distant
indiscretions in the minds of say Steven Pinker, Maxwell Gladwell, Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, Clifford Goldstein, Philip Yancey or Robert Farrar Capon. I
remembered that while I entered that state of deep connection with their
delicate way of approaching words that eloquently defended their ideas I
experienced multiple intellectual orgasms during the same afternoon. And these
experiences contributed to the person I am right now, minus of course my
stubborn weaknesses, and enriched me beyond the point of no return.
Apart from these
contextual factors, probably the real steam for these writings was fueled by my
intense emotional reactions to the CORONA-occasioned cacophonies and paradoxes
(as I already alluded to in the Mission Statement). When such
emotional dynamite went up and meet my rational thoughts, the resultant
explosion spilled out with an uncontrollable force. And all I wanted to do
was to help, to alleviate, to make people stronger, and to nurture their
resilience. But I was confined for a long term in my apartment and couldn’t use
my usual skills to reach that goal, so I had to be creative. And the result is
what you just see – a bunch of essays reverberating my concerns and fears and
hopes and sorrows.
In the end I am grateful to
my non-dancing friend because he handed me the drum sticks. As I started
hitting the meter again I was pretty convinced the composition looks right and
I let the music lead me to her own pleasure. And my fury has this unmistakable
hum that makes my whole body and mind and soul vibrate in a consumingly
wonderful dance every time I pour my thoughts on the keyboard.
But sometimes this
relentless fury is so intense and persistent that makes me wonder how long it
will take to fully burn me and leave me with no vital signs. When my brain
ceaselessly pours ideas into my consciousness with such a tempo that I barely
managed to reap its fruits and had to stop whatever I am doing to write them down
and off, and when at the end of the day I feel so exhaustedly happy and
exhaustedly exhausted, I just wish them to stop, to go away. And even pray
about it! But simultaneously I fear that my prayer will be answered someday,
and the stream will run dry, and then I will regret having said that prayer.
What I am actually trying to say is that I wish I’d have a good strategy to
slow this process down, to spread it on a longer time frame, to enjoy it for
another year. Unfortunately I don’t have it and I honestly don’t know how it is
going to evolve and where it will take me. In all this
hectic-incessantly-exhaustingly-joyful brainstorming that I simultaneously
savor and fear, the only reassuring, really reassuring perspective is that one
essential aspect of writing – as well as of life – is the attitude. This
simple and deep truth was recently revealed to my one morning when my mind was
searching something related to this subject. At the time I had to stop for a
moment to let it sink deep into my psyche. I couldn’t believe how simple and
universal this is, and how basically true. I just hope that the intensity of
this experience will leave an unforgettable trace in my memory for the rest of
my life. And as long as I was lucky enough to have been introduced to this
attitude and know it from the inside, I wish I’ll be honored with future
touristic visas that will allow me to explore other uncharted reach
territories and tell you all about them.
Note:
If you happen to be a journalist and think that every now and then I could
contribute to the success of your publication, be bold and came up with a good
offer. However, bear in mind that I only write about topics I deeply care, so
let me drive the roller-coaster.
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