I want to start by explaining the reason i chose this title.
I named this article thus, out of conceit, proclaiming from the get-go that it is 1.5 times better than the movie America America and because the content of this article bears many similarities with the theme of that movie: A young Greek tries to make it to America and to the promises it holds for him. If you are not familiar with it, by all means check it out whenever possible.
My story is similar to the extent that i am trying to make something of myself in America and i did come from Greece. I fear that the similarities end there but it makes little difference. The purpose of this article if indeed it has one, is to talk about that rudimentary truth that connects all the people that strive to make a new beginning in a foreign land.
We want to live.
So we leave.
One could argue that a film cannot possibly be compared with an article or a written text of any kind. They are two completely different forms of... art. And he/she would be right. Furthermore even if that was possible, the said film is considered a staple in movie-history, so how can it be then that some unknown author manages to write something even half as good? All these are legit objections and i am the first to admit it. Still i am not inclined to reconsider my claim. First because it is a funny claim and secondly because i don't give a fuck.
Or i do?
I do, or i don't? This is a coming of age story too. I remember as if it was yesterday, being scold at for not giving a fuck. I mean for being indifferent to my grades and my future. For not trying hard enough at school and in my social relations. Not doing my best. For not being good enough. For being lazy etc...
I will own up to this criticism but i honestly believe that it doesn't paint an accurate picture of the truth. At least not a 100%. Cause i do/did give a fuck... in fact i remember the anguish i felt for letting them down (my parents), and i do remember making promises to myself to change, when i was left to contemplate on my transgressions, in my dark room, till the small hours of the night. I promised to myself back then to break the pattern, man up and excel at whatever it was needed of me (like my siblings did). And in the morning i used to wake up feeling refreshed and hopeful. Yet i never really did change my ways.
*I'd like to note at this point the immense impression that the book ''the basement'' had on me.
Even as a young boy i was extremely shy and fearful of even the most basic of human interactions. (Even animals were apprehensive of me... had lots of run ins with them at my grandparents farm) . In my childish mind even the simplest of tasks took on an insurmountable level of difficulty. I was terrified of the fact that i would always eventually fail or be ridiculed or both. And even if i did manage to deliver, it wasn't a triumph of sorts. Nothing to write home about. It didn't bring me any joy because if you look at it objectively it was all basic stuff i had trouble doing.
That belief followed me in my later years. Whenever i achieve something it brings me no joy cause i think it to be easy afterwards. If it was difficult or of importance, i would have surely failed at it. So it must be easy, thus inconsequential. (I have very high standards which usually i am more than happy to ignore)
I had trouble making friends. Other people seemed quite happy and that made me fear them. Couldn't understand the reason. Was i missing something? Wasn't life just a bitter sequence of let downs? Also i started disliking them (for various reasons... if you browse through this blog you will understand most of them but i am in a hurry to get to the America part so i won't analyse them again here). Soon I realised that most of them were stupid and I was not. So it couldn't work anyway (at least that's what i say now. Back then I was more shy than smug). I started reading, which was a rather difficult thing for me to do, due to my inherent aversion for doing things, but eventually boredom got the better of me, so i read.
I figured a good way to start was to read authors whose name i couldn't pronounce. In retrospective i think that was a good call. I started liking myself. The self that read. Just that part. I didn't have friends and nobody liked me, but i read and that was something.
Anyway, apart from that... i didn't change much over the next years till puberty. Books sharpened my fantasy and i think they made me smarter, but everything else remained the same, I was shy as fuck...
I got into my teens oblivious to the practicalities of complex human interactions. Couldn't be bothered with it. I was busy doing nothing and reading.
The basement made it worse, my low self-esteem, my fear of acting, my laziness, my cynical world-view, my loneliness became the traits of a famous literary character. One written by the greatest author that ever lived.
My repugnant character was thus solidified. A romantic notion came through the books of the existentials to his aid and made it more easy for me to accept him, or endure him. Off course i maintained and do maintain that deep down i have a heart of gold... but it's a process. Maybe its hard to accept that i am just like any other person. Then all the drama would be for nothing.
Fast forward 10 years.
Experience, excruciating experience, the living world out there, a few lovers and wanting to be in love and loved, some friends, and some good company... forced me to become a little more normal. A little more sociable. Or pretend to be. My beastly anti-social past, still beared upon me though. I had lost so much time brooding. And that brought about a sort of guilt that i couldn't and can't seem to shake off, even now. The knowledge that in some way i am not completely normal or whole, ergo it's bound to be my fault whenever things go south. I am bound to fail, to be excluded, to be sad... And that all is said and done, can't possibly change now, even if i wanted to. The end.
Trying still requires huge efforts on my part. Lots of sheer will. I have always believed that the most important/valuable stuff are the things that are given to us. Without asking for them or earning them. If i earn them wouldn't that be like i was forcing your hand? If i ask you for it, isn't that similar? Now where is the value in that?
Being illogical is to be free??
At that time i had already managed to have accomplished nothing substantial. Like Blanche Dubois I came to rely on the kindness of strangers. Well, my family. Pitty, I was nowhere near as seductive as Blance. I had a fairly good engineering education but i never thought of myself as being an adequate engineer. I had left my previous job during a maelstrom of existential crisis. I often had one of those back then. Keeps you from getting bored. I thought i should focus on writing, Off course i gave up on the idea soon enough. For a guy that felt that doing nothing was his greatest talent, trying to write a book was an oxymoron to say the least. Anyway i worked a little bit as a farmer to help my family and at some point i started writing a screen play with a friend etc... Still there was nothing solid. I couldn't see a future for myself in any field, Reality came hitting hard.
The crisis had obliterated any dream of resuming my engineering career and off-course art isn't something you do to make a living, in most cases at least.
Depression. They name the economic crisis using a psychological expression. Makes sense. People started to lose their way of life, started to protest, started to give up. It makes us cruel. Cruel to each other and to ourselves. There must be an explanation for this torture and it's always easy to blame yourself. Even if you say otherwise, people prefer to be cruel to themselves than acknowledge that they don't have control over their lives. Deep down we carry a guilt. Maybe we should. More much so for a guy (me) who was born blaming himself.
I could feel the judgement of the world. Relatives and friends. "You are wasting your life. Do something." So i did, if only to quiet these voices. Also the idea of spending my life as a farmer in my parents village seemed revolting to say the least. Off course in true V.K. (the initials of my name) fashion it was a semi-try. The bare minimum and maybe even less, just enough to justify even the use of the word try.
Unfortunately or fortunately, only time will tell, it was a success.
And i am here, finishing up my Masters degree, almost two years since the semi-try and my crooked dishonest leap of faith into the future.
Imagine that... a man with my character in the United States. Doesn't seem like a correct fit does it? Yet here we are.
*******************(Consider this as the prologue)*************************************
I started thinking of that movie, America America, Of the drive of that hero. Overcoming all those great difficulties to achieve his goals, He even has goals. So amazingly precise goals, that can even be put into words. One goal to be exact. He wants to be in America. Everything else will follow from there. And that's enough to motivate him to be so gloriously human. I really envy that. I am ashamed to admit it. In comparison I live a life of luxury. It's been easy so far (well... i always say that about my achievements but it has) I had lots of help and encouragement. Was given money. I flew here. I had someone waiting for me. A brother, a friend. I am spoiled to the gut. Yet i envy this man. This is infuriating... i shouldn't be allowed to say that. How woefully sad... and sorrowfully wrong.
Makes me feel even more quilty. Makes me feel sick to my stomach. In comparison to him, to them i am nothing. Nip picking and whining and complaining,.. with all my bullshit existential sensitivities and worries... and they die, they literary die for a new hope. Their children die horrible deaths and get washed ashore on our beautiful beaches. Or more correctly: their beautiful children die and get washed ashore on our horrible beaches... cause every beach that has had a single drowned child on it is horrible and cursed forever. And they flock to our grey cities... running away from the hell the western world created for them. To get to the western world... to reach our towns and roads and banks and eventually be consumed by our incapability to be humaine. Do be like them. And they still carry on, striving to get to the states, to england, and germany... Like a flowing river clenching the whole of humanity's dignity on their teeth, trying to reach the sea.
There is talk of building walls, of closing borders, raising fences... instead of rushing to the sandy beaches, and the borders, and their camps and get on our knees to kiss their sacred feet... that walk the only walk that ever mattered.
and i feel so much envy and pity and guilt... all at the same time. Cause they are alive and beautiful and full of life. And they suffer for their need to live a life with dignity... and they die. And they have a purpose and i fear that when they get there we will turn them into us. And the worst part in me is resentful and is glad about it and the best part sheds tears of sadness for the fate that awaits them in our criminal hands.
Words, words...
Even as martyrs we exploit them. They have to die on our doorstep to get our attention... and even then it's a lie.
I see no way out.
The pain of others turns into the words we use to comfort ourselves. Thinking that we are considerate and kind... and that we have shed enough tears. Are 123 tears enough? Or $123 for that charity/ngo/smthing. Off course they are enough. 123 is a quite respectable number. And then we forget about them, cause tomorrow i need to go to the dentist... or because she is gone and i am all alone all over again...
Can we really understand others? Is language just a misunderstanding that has been going on for thousands of years?
Maybe the best way to answer these questions is to avoid asking in the first place.
So... you are in America... now what?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw-HeX0djfg
The movie ends... shortly after. It's just the journey that matters...?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Oh1G6ti0G8
i know nothing... but i am still alive... there is only forward, for me, my brothers and my sisters...
from let down to let down.
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