Wednesday, April 27, 2005

A shout out to my boys in Jaffna

To all the down-ass motherfuckers who I ain't with no more, keep your heads up and your dinners tasty. James Paul and his two compatriots, alleged knife fighters, alleged virgins, these boys formed an impenetrable posse keeping Sri Lankan danger at bay and Sri Lankan weed in supply. Ever since getting home all I can think of is how much fun those three would have in the US. The Muslim fellow, a quite culinary artiste' had suffered for his love in a teen-angsty burning fashion not too unlike my own. His family would not approve of his marriage to his destined love so he actuallized the pain physically. It's amazing what doesn't have to be said between two people. Sri Lanka had pillboxes full of Sri Lankan soldiers, all of whom weren't paying atttention to shit and just smiled and waved as two of the baddest white terrorists this side of Kashmir rolled through security checkpoint after security checkpoint.
What has been truly striking is not realizing how rich we all are, I could conceptualize that before although not accurately. REally it's been about realizing how far beyond their understanding of rich we are. The poorest person in america still has (albeit limited) access to one of the greatest systems of infrastructure of all time. The quality of our home construction is rediculous by their standards. That we have large paved roads that go directly to a destination. Even that we view ourselves as a distinct and single nation. All of these are just pre-requisites for being an American but not apparently for being a human being. I couldn't get over how naive I had been.
Another interesting shift was similar to what took place in Slovakia, visa vie realizing that we need so much less than we have to survive. But in Sri Lanka it was driven home how little control over the world humans have without our little toys. A cell phone, debit card, and car can prevent me from feeling vulnerable in the least. However, all the way over there, if any number of situations had gone wrong (highly unlikely due to the awesome nature of Sri Lankans) I would have had little to no recourse.
Another shout out if you will. To the mildly retarded beach bum of Nogumbo (spelling is probably off) who taught me again that the definition of fulfilling is entirely subjective. He ate and swam and played ball and that was fucking it man. He knew what he liked, he hooted hey at you until you did it, and he seemed genuinely enthused. With all of my priveledge and higher cognitive functions I had my hands full trying to stay out of my own way psychologically, "And if I say that I'm a wise man, it surely means that I don't know."
I had a ludicrous amount of dreams. Most of them involved outlandish travel scenarios with an assortment. Anna (my ex, for those of you who just happen to read this) made a few appearances. Dave Wald (Julia's dad) made a seriously fucking intense appearance (I will still swear it was Dave's spirit in my dream) wherein he told me how little time we have with the people we love and to treat them as if that moment is all they will remember "after". After was a very cryptic tone. Ryan Gantz showed up in a dream. An assortment of teachers showed up. But most entertaining was the dream in which Jeremy's dad was drunk as all fuck (I mean mad shithoused), he got us booted from this hotel and I had to find a way back to the airport in like 6 hours which involved stealing a motor scooter and sexually pleasing a too large woman. Every now and again Julia would pop into my dream, mostly to provide a dry color commentary.
I got a much greater sense of what it means to be me, the weight of my subjective reality. It is impossible to shed. You carry past experiences and memes with you forever. I think that might be a bit of Dave Wald's (note: this is just my fictionalization of him, I acknowledge that according to standard definitions this did not actually happen)after has to do with that weight. I don't want to harp on the ruined-by-hollywood idea of 32 grams, but that those who have passed on or that we leave behind may think ill of our earnest efforts at fellowship, that's a scary and tragic thought. So to all my boys both the Lions and Tigers keep your heads up and love your family group like today was yesterday, cause both your family and today are likely all you're going to get. To my american compatriots give to the tsunami victims cause they really did get fucked, thank god you live here, and the same thing about love and end times and the like. Also give me a call cause we should totally hang. yall know the cellie #. Sarong's are the most comfortable things ever too. I missed this weblog shit. (And you've got to promise never to tell the nascar fans, but I really missed america. Sri Lanka also definitely qualifies as the land of the weird, but it loses something in the translation). Oh and everybody read Generation Kill there's a lot of good humor on the part of the marines but there are good tear jerking moments for anyone who loves their country, fears their government and feels pain because of the process.
Cheers,
Well me of course