When I read parts of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self Reliance, I did not predict how very life-altering some of his philosophies would prove to be within the frame of my existence. This is the story of consistency and public approval.

The book I had was a dreary, cheaply photocopied anthology that had the bleakest black to its letters, and some shadow as well. The words were wobbly and seemed uneven, although that was only an illusion and nothing more. The pages had not been photocopied by a man kind to his machine, and he was evidently in a hurry, too. The whites did not match the blacks, and the lines were not straight. It was as if that book had been crafted by the clumsiest devil in hell.

I mistreated the book, I must confess. In my frequent manifestations of exaggerated self-importance, and possibly narcissism, I scribbled Tololy on almost every page, in every corner, and on the cover in large, purple letters. When class was in session against my will, and that happened often, I sat in my chair and drew little intertwined curves and swirls and circles, and then again scribbled my name under the incoherent art.

Sometimes during class, I would be so absorbed in reading some unvisited parts of the book that I would almost hear the words talking to me. Sometimes I would imagine the writers talking to me or narrating their stories exclusively to me, and sometimes I would see the events played out in front of my mind’s eye. It was a good thing I was never a fecund participant in most class discussions (although I was famous for some strange opinions expressed rather aggressively when the situation demanded) and so I was never interrupted while my imagination was at play.

I had that special connection with Emerson’s attitudes. I was both stimulated and entertained by his ideas and stands on things, and particularly by his take on consistency. At the time, I was going through a formulative stage of character-building and yet I was held back by the want to be consistent and by the socially-influenced desire to be simpatico with everyone. So Emerson’s rhetoric was my “Why didn’t I think of that?” moment of enlightenment.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson’s argument on consistency is that it really isn’t necessary as it is just another unseen restraint to creativity and authenticity. If you want to be consistent, you will not change your opinions or grow up intellectually. If you want to be consistent for fear of being judged by people as having no true opinion, then you are doomed to live with your treasured “consistency” and social approval until your character completely erodes into a mold of everyone else, and you end up being another average nobody.

I have changed my mind frequently over the years on a number of major issues. These ranged from god to seafood, from the conflict in the region to creative writing, and from porn to shoes. It’s fascinating but I am not the same person today as I was yesterday, let alone the person I was a year ago.

Emerson also believed in experimentalism. He said “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” Now if you have been following this blog for a while you will know that anyone swearing by experimentalism is my idol. I deeply believe in, and outwardly practice the cult of experimentalism (except in food, I’m neophobic), and there is not another way I would choose to live.

So for at least two excellent points Emerson made, on consistency and experimentalism, he has my undying admiration. Of course, until I change my mind.

- Zero Or Prologue -

The following is not a poem or a play, it’s not a song or a prayer. It is my thoughts organized in short lines atop of each other, and grouped in knots of four.

- I -

Take off the judge robes, or keep them on
I am not excited that I’m going home
Perhaps it’s work, or school, maybe
Or a society that keeps a close eye on me

- III -

I am a traitor
Or too cocky and crooked
For not missing a place
And finding comfort elsewhere

- III -

Luckily, I don’t see things that way
Where I lay my head is home
What is left of Jordan,
Anyway?

From Act I of Waiting for Godot by Beckett; read and think of what the lines mean. Remember, we are not told who Godot is and why the two main characters Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for it/him/her:

Pozzo: You took me for Godot.
Estragon: Oh no, sir, not for an instant, sir.
Pozzo: Who is he?
Vladimir: Oh, he’s a . . . he’s a kind of acquaintence.
Estragon: Nothing of the kind, we hardly know him.
Vladimir: True. . . we don’t know him very well… but all the same
Estragon: Personally I wouldn’t even know him if I saw him.

I found the play quite revealing and deep. Evidently, people have different opinions on what it means and who the characters represent. It certainly helps to give it an existentialist reading; perhaps Godot is God, perhaps he will never show up, perhaps we humans so need to believe in a supernatural power that we create it, imagine it, and then wait for it to intervene in our lives while it simply cannot be bothered.

Let us rejoice, fellow citizens, for a new year is upon us. Today marks the start, only the beginning, of another year that will make each one of us that much older. Such impending doom!

What cause is there to celebrate?
What purpose for the smile?
A plot is in the works
To ensnare you and I

But certainly, I should shed my dismal melancholy and chant - cheer even, dance, sing, perhaps smoke to exhibit my joy. Yes, maybe that is precisely what I ought to do. I ought to join the mob in their common festivities, don’t you see? Become a sheep willingly blindfolded yet directed to the slaughter house unknowingly? Yes?

I think not.

I fail to impress when I contest a nemesis as potent as mine. It is most unfortunate that I will be in no such gay mood as long as time cheats.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to mull over the singnificance of the following poem by Thomas Gray, titled On the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes:

‘Twas on a lofty vase’s side,
Where China’s gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow,
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she gazed; but ‘midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The genii of the stream:
Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam.

The hapless nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first, and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretched, in vain, to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat’s averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretched, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between:
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the flood
She mewed to ev’ry wat’ry god
Some speedy aid to send.
No dolphin came, no nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A fav’rite has no friend!

From hence, ye beauties undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wand’ring eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters, gold.

It is that time of the year again - when calendars are sold at traffic lights in Amman. Two days ago I refused to buy a calendar from a man so intent on selling me one that I prepared two to three excuses to voice my rejection.

This December sun is a trick I tell you. This pleasant weather, moderately chilly around the evening and cool during the night, is a farce. The special bit about the trick is that we surrender to it and cannot protest because the Performer is not only masked, but also cunning. This leaves me quite unimpressed with us, human creatures.

The man at the traffic light did not seem to want to listen to me. I daresay he did not hear a word I said. He kept insisting that I buy one of his calendars and did not afford me enough room to explain why I do not buy calendars. I wanted to tell him, and in turn force myself to understand, that I do not understand the passage of time. I do not understand time, at all.

When I was still a little girl at school, there was this lesson where they taught us how to express time and the hours in English. It was all very British - quarter to two, half past eleven, five to ten. I could not grasp the concept no matter how diligent at studying it I was. Just say “to” if it’s before a certain hour, and “past” is it’s after it - my mother would tell me. It is possible that the operation was complicated because it was simplified so - time is not to’s and past’s.

In the exam about this lesson, the teacher tricked us by drawing digital clocks instead of the old-fashioned round-and-clear ones. That made me miss out on time even more.

The man at the traffic light started knocking on my window and pointing to the bulk of calendars he had with him, imploring me to purchase one. I thanked him time and again and motioned to him to go try his merchandise at another buyer’s window. The only use I have of the calendar hanging by the living room is reading the poetry lines printed on each day.

When you rip the pages off the calendar, you acknowledge the passage of your life. Each page is a day that you physically remove from your time on earth. The calendar printers take mercy on you, miserable person, and aid you to do it with style — they cleverly add a line of poetry to each day.

In my denial, I do not take pages out of the calendar by the living room. I find them later on lying about on some table somewhere and read their poetry, thinking that I had out-smarted almighty time. Secretly, I know this little game I play does not, cannot, see my triumph. I play it because I know of no other game that cheats both the digital clock and my naïveté.

Celebrate the approach of the new year thinking of your proximity to the end of all your years, miserable person.

He started to walk away, the man at the traffic light, finally submitting to my rejection. I bore my heart heavier with every step he took strolling to other potential customers. I realized that our calendar by the living room will be changed for a much younger one very soon and I envisioned the year, now dwindling into nothingness, thrown in the trash bin- what a sad reminder of the way we are compelled to discard our days.

I am slowly progressing in Forster’s A Passage to India, a book that I had bought some two years ago but never got the chance to explore properly. For one reason or the other, it always seemed to climb down on my reading list instead of climbing up.

Now at page 15, I think I understand why I prefer to read classical Greek dramas and epics instead of, well, anything a little younger. I enjoy the supernatural events, the Gods and Goddesses, the numerous intertwined plots and families, and the grandeur of mythology. I also appreciate the language (of the translations, naturally) immensely and there doesn’t pass a page without infusing me with linguistic inspiration.

Can a modern writer pull such fantasy off in the now and be considered anything but a hopeless sci-fi wannabe writer? Better yet, can a modern writer devise similar compelling plots and not borrow any from Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides? Do these stories engage the reader so, that he cannot escape them to creativity?

This sort of argument is really inseparable from the knowledge that, fiction or fact, these Greek stories made part of a people’s religion. Separate from their religious setting, there is neither cause nor purpose for these stories. Drama was born during festivals celebrating Dionysus, and they were born to do exactly that - celebrate the God of wine. To want to imitate these masterpieces merely for their dramatic or stylistic or even linguistic value would, in my opinion, be a feeble attempt at matching something quite unmatched - something that traveled beyond the common nature of literature to the heights of belief.

The story behind this story is somewhat entertaining. I wrote this following story, The party people, in half an hour for the final examination of my creative writing class. The task specified in the exam was to “describe a party scene in detail, going in and out of your characters’ minds” - or something to that effect (I do not have the exam paper on me at this moment, did I ever mention that I collect them papers? loads upon loads of them?).

Since I do not appreciate drafts, or use them for that matter, I wrote the story and submitted it as is. I usually write and submit/publish instantly, and I rarely if ever change anything in the “completed piece” because when I finish pouring my thoughts I would have had just enough of them and would not want to read them too soon. Question: Is that abnormal?

At any rate, the story had a nice ending, one that I cannot entirely remember. This story is about the party crowd, in all its “phoniness” and shallowness. You see Jill and Mike together, who are the main characters, portraying a “good couple” image while each is having private thoughts which are extremely contrastive to each other. She thinks he’s nice while he’s faking it. The “twist” at the end, that I cannot bring myself to write at this time, is when one of Mike’s friends tells Jill ” Don’t worry honey, we won’t judge you” - after, of course, having judged her already.

Enjoy…hopefully.

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The spacious hall is bustling with people; some standing, some sitting and others swaying to the music while trying to sip on a lime-green liquid. The feature almost dominant in the scene, and which everyone adores, is the large, silver disco ball hanging from the ceiling. It adds a unique retro taste to the place and definitely helps joy-fakers fake some more.

With walls painted soothing blue, the open bar in the far right corner seems like a long-lost island. A Mecca for the thirsty and the naughty alike.

What with the revealing outfits, the fits of hysterical laughter, and the crazy atmosphere of dancing mindlessly, someone was bound to drop their glass because, you know, it’s not a party until something gets broken.

- “Oh my god! I just dropped my glass in front of all these people. Now they’re going to really think I’m so drunk”, Jill thinks to herself. “I’m terribly sorry”, she announces aloud, “really, I am”.
Her companion, Mike, tries to calm her frenzy.
- “It’s O.K. Nobody saw that”. He says.
-” Oh! They all think I’m drunk, don’t they?”
He thinks “I’m one of them!”, but says “No, they don’t. You’re overreacting. It’s just a party, so what if you dropped your glass, relax.”

-” Mom would be so proud of me if she sees me now like this. Oh my god!”. Jill goes on. “He’s such a nice guy”, she says to herself.
-”This is not right. This is so not right. I’m stuck with- with this drunken psycho”, Mike almost whispers.
-” Come again?”
-”I was just saying we need to get you another refreshing drink, and the party over there. Hey guys!”. He waves at a group of guys and girls at some table.

Jill feels flattered that he wants to introduce her to his crowd, little does she know.
-” I’ll go get another drink. I’ll join you at the table,” she tells him.

Mike, now with his friends, proceeds to telling them about his absent partner: “She’s been drinking non-stop ever since we got here. I think she has a problem, she couldn’t even keep on to her glass! Impossible!… Oh here she comes.”

-”Jill, this is Martha, Allison, Pat, and Ed. Everyone, this is Jill”.
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You Fit Into Me

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye