Subtitle: The impossibility of having normal human relations in this world of ours is making me anxiousIt's funny. All of our telephones, satellite links, internet connections, Lonely Planet books, and iThings, supposedly allow us to communicate with anyone, anywhere. The last five visitors to this blog, in fact, logged in from Kingston, Calgary, and Montreal, Canada; London, England; and an undisclosed location in the U.S. I can email a friend in China, ask him about the weather, and practice Putonghua; I can IM an ex in Ottawa, brush up on news, and send pictures across the great invisible expanse that separates us.
Yet at the same time "this world" (what a laden term!), with all of its opportunities and bag checks and technologically-created communities, forces us out and about in the pursuit of happiness, goals, careers, new connections, and a buck or two. We need the telephone because no one lives in the same place. We need the Internet because the simple voice-transfer of the telephone is, in this age, a woefully limited medium of communication. And we need each other because, without human interaction, we would indeed inhabit a "lonely" planet, live lonely lives, and die in lonely graves surrounded by anonymous corpses belonging to people we've never met and probably could never meet, that being just "the way it is."
The other day I spoke with a dear friend who I dated once. Our relationship was broken off mostly because she was moving elsewhere and the cross-oceanic commute would have been financially and emotionally impossible, taxes, heartbreak, and globalization included (our relationship hasn't restarted, despite mutual reservations, for the same reasons). Amidst reminiscing, laughing, getting drunk, taking shots at each other's self-esteem and wondering if things might have ever been different, I said something to the effect of: "you know, I was born in Halifax. It is home. But I have to move elsewhere because there really is nothing for me here. If I were born in London or New York, I wouldn't really have to move anywhere."
To which she replied: "if you were born in London or New York, you probably
wouldn't want to stay in London or New York."
I suppose that's just "the way it is." And I suppose graves in London and New York, regardless of where you're from, are pretty anonymous.
In two weeks I will become part of a regional 'brain drain.' The move, to Toronto, serves only my own interests — I'm on to bigger things, as they say — but I'm leaving a lot behind: friends (what's left of them), family (who will eventually move), and colleagues (to be brain-drained too, perhaps in a few years). The first 24 years of my life, 2006 included, all feels very unfinished, like a rough draft with promise that's been shuffled around a desk. I'm putting the draft in a drawer for keeping, but who knows if I will ever return to it. I certainly don't; other human beings certainly don't; and God, as far as I can tell, has been mute for the last 24 years.
Chances are, though, that I won't return, and if I do, it won't be for long. For want of a better term, there is little for me here, career-wise, curiosity-wise, experience-wise, you name it.
Except
everything, of course.
But that
everything is fleeting. My friends are filtering away to various corners of the country and the earth, and so am I. For better or worse, I am powerless to stop it. But do I want to? And is this a shame? And what about all those people that I want to chase, who have gone in different directions like the frayed end of a rope? What about "what ifs" — will I ever get any second chances? Will things between myself and so-and-so or such-and-such ever finally line up?
When it comes to emotions — goddamn them! — opportunity can be suffocating. The new "information age" (Gates age?) means that my scattered band of friends in London, Paris, Beijing, Tokyo, Ottawa, Halifax, B.C., and elsewhere are never more than an email away. I can keep up with them. But the content of these emails is the same: limited to 'keeping up.' The power of shared experience is in this age an old man in a rocking chair, a relic of the way 'things used to be' before geographic separation became the norm. I wonder how many "what are you up to these days?" head-above-water emails it will take for the old man to speak up. 'Dreams' aren't just career moves. They imply that at some point one finds the right person, at the right place, and in the right time. And that's becoming, in my mind, damned difficult.
I hope, for better or worse, that things eventually line up for me, or that I somehow find the courage to drop everything and make my own destiny, find that right place, and be content. I also hope that if any of this happens I have the courage to do something about it. I haven't found that courage yet, but I suppose, being young and all, that's just the way it is.
Onward and upward,
再见。
