A Boxing tournament Episode #11
One year after another passes us by. We think that our
daily battles change while all what has changed is that we moved to a more
advanced level of the game; the same game.
A few weeks ago, I learned that no matter how hard others
try to understand the boxing tournament, only those who “chose” to
take part in it would understand the game. The rules, the maneuvers and of
course the injuries. Only those who “Chose” would understand how a photograph,
an accumulated series of past event and a long long long heritage of a culture
of silence would make of a girl who “Chose” to question, reject and accept find
sleep a major challenge after a small in depth thought that pre-occupied her
very –old for her body- mind. A few weeks ago, I was on the phone
with a friend who happens to be two decades older and still plays in the same
league of the very tournament we both “Chose” to be part in. She literally
stated in her calm tone: “If you manage to put your brains in a freezer and
forget how mutilated for its surroundings it has become then go for it. It
would save you a lot! But we both know it’s too late for you so
choose your battles to minimize the damage that comes along with the process of
the life that makes its beholder in a fight club character”
Don’t get me wrong this is not a sympathy request nor a
claim of bravery. People like me are fortunate enough to make things happen. We
can find jobs easily, make friends and travel the world. And when we are done
claiming and pretending that we are heroes? We can easily use one of many
articles used to attack us or even make one up and apply for asylum somewhere
where this quote from the Turkish novel “Snow” by Orhan Pamuk applies: “In
a brutal country like ours, where human life is 'cheap', it's stupid to destroy
yourself for the sake of your beliefs. Beliefs? High ideas? Only people in rich
countries can enjoy such luxuries.”
But do you know the hardest part? It is simply getting
something like this piece published : -) It is a piece that says the reality
behind us “Activists”, how full of shit we are and how we keep on counting
so-called victories one after another while the only victory we should seek is
enough bravery to admit that we never CHOSE.
Two years ago, I wrote about September 18th.
2011. I portrayed the details of my day; that day. Two years later, all I can
write about is everything I have NOT become since then as everything I have
become being a “Fruit of the misery” of a day like that one among many is clear
in a small strike on an internet search engine stating how a girl from the
country of “Oppression” has been active as an “Activist” but on the ground only
me, myself and I know very well that personal battles say a lot when 3 meals a
day and 8 hours of sleep become a way more of a philosophical
dilemma than all the politics and the package that comes with.
Yes, we may have been able to participate in a protest,
survive a bullet, write an article, speak in a conference and of course start a
blog, but how many of us have actually protested against the skeletons in the
closet, survived alienation from a family member, written an article about the
truth of how difficult it is to keep one’s emotional and physical health in the
world of western materialism vs. eastern social schizophrenia, spoken about how
challenging it is to communicate fears to a partner or started a blog on how it
is not a girl’s fault that she cannot be everything she has put on her list to
prove that she can meet all standards? Oh yes! I forgot –Luxuries- come first.
After personal content and happiness do not make glory.
