Dream and hope

Have you ever throw yourself upon a moment, feeling and believing that all in the world belong to you? Perhaps it’s like the moment when you are in love for the first time, or when you have full confidence in your future.

I have had this at least once, like when I fell head-over-heels in love some years ago. Even he said, “You truly live here and now!” (benar-benar hidup di kini dan di sini) since I just opened my heart without any fear, without any reservation. Ignoring the impossible future, I would “bravely” cited Kahlil Gibran: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. [And] …The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. :-D Well, no wonder it was certainly very painful then, afterwards. :-D

Nevertheless, when everything has been over and I look back, I still can recognize how precious the moment was - that I could get courage and endurance from the confidence in what I believed, that I was enabled to come out of myself and did things that I normally would not do.

Once my friend and I was talking about and enjoying our comfort of living in a developed country (we’re both temporary immigrants, a.k.a. foreign students). Then suddenly he said, “Someday, our country will be like this.” I was struck by the confidence in his words. He even didn’t bother to explain further or to back up his statement with many theories. It was like a plain and simple truth for him. I know he and other people are working toward it. For many others, this is a dream that might come true in 50 (or 100?) years. For him, this is a dream that is already happening.

The word dream has an implication of something happening in the (very) long future, hopefully still in our life time. There are people who are said as having no dream anymore. There are also people who are still able to talk about their wishes, or at least about betterness. I have been proud with myself before, thinking that I am a better person when I can say that I am still able to dream. But is that enough?

The sermon last Sunday was about faith and hope. Although the preacher meant it for faith to Christ, for me his lesson is true for mortal affairs also. Faith is believing in a promise. Hope is the confidence that the promise will actually come true. It is, perhaps, easy to just blindly believe in something. It is more difficult to actually hope, having confidence in what I believe. When I believe in my dream, would I be able to sacrifice my comfort to reach it? Would I calculate the effort-reward ratio for my dream? When do I actually expect my dream to come true: in the long (undefined) future, never (not in my life time), or just now?

There were moments in my past when I felt and behave like a little child, holding on what she believed and actually truly lived in it - so, also having no questions or calculations. There were moments also when I felt old, not so much because I was trying to sound knowing, but because at the same time I was bitter. For the moment, I am an old woman learning again to become a little bit like that little girl from my past, having faith and hope in what I believe. A dream is happening along our ways when it is embedded in our day-to-day works toward it. It is part of here and now, and time doesn’t matter anymore.

Responsibility

“It’s okay. I am a grown up, I can’t always blame other people”. This sentence has made me smile yesterday. It gave me a pleasant and calming effect also. I don’t know why. Perhaps because of a purely selfish reason, meaning I was relieved to be freed from being responsible for other people. Perhaps because I have been blamed too many times by somebody else just shortly before, that it gave me a warm feeling when another person was then able to say the opposite. Or perhaps because it reminded me of myself, long time ago, when I have said the very same words.

How far actually is our responsibility for other people’s life? I don’t know. I know that we can have influence on other people, that we could be catalyst for other people’s process. But catalyst, by definition, is just a small portion of an agent to increase the rate of a process. It is not even a part of the products. Then how much actually we can be blamed for when other people’s life cannot go smoothly at the moment when our paths cross? How much actually we can be blamed for other people misfortunes and unhappiness?

I don’t know. Perhaps guilty feeling arises from a habit, not from conscience. But one thing I know for sure. That when somebody takes matter in his own hand, then you know everything will be okay for him. Because only when you take responsibility for yourself, when you are willing to help yourself, then you can make a lot of things better.

Being Alone and Adaptation

I guess my supervisor is quite worried about me. Last Wednesday after our meeting, again she asked if I feel okay. And if I really feel okay :) I said yes and kidded her by saying this is perhaps what you call adaption - I need to survive :) I was a bit surprised when she answered seriously that yes, when you cannot change it, then you have to adapt.

Of course, I agree with her spirit, that we always have to look for a way to move forward, even though the situation seems impossible to get through. By both dreaming and working to get closer to the dreams that we could actually bear any difficulties without losing our hope, or ourselves. But I am wondering if anybody ever fully adapt to being alone.

Just a few months ago, when I had severe problems with my ex, none of my good friends were physically truly present besides me. We could have contacts via emails and chats, but there were many times when I felt that I had to struggle alone, that nobody could help and I felt very lonely. At that moment, one of my friend answered my complaint: "the stronger you are, the lonelier you will be, but the more you can live with it". I survived. I know I will always survive. Being a foreigner for some - more than 5 years - now and constantly meeting and separating with different people, it was also not the first time, nor the last, that simply there was nobody around sometimes. And since people develop and change, meeting even old good friends sometimes also does not give the same bound-feeling anymore. Everybody will eventually be alone. But is it true that I can really live with it? Or even just get used to it?

Life is like a roller coaster - who was saying that? For me, life is like water stream of a long river. Despite missing people, during the last few years I have been meeting special friends, who have inspired and contributed to shape me like this, whom I always count most as blessing. For the moment I am glad, that life always brings me this blessing, often in unexpected ways. But I am always wondering now: how long this will last. Perhaps now I am too used to seeing things as temporary. Even I am is temporary. Myself changes. I don't have a home. I can go anywhere and I can decide to pursue anything that I wish, which implies again: changing.

This morning I was accidentaly listening to a song that brought some old memories back. It was a song that was touching me during some months in summer and autum 2005, before I got this position in Zurich. It was when I had been looking for a phd position and more certainty in my life for more than a year, when the clock was ticking for me to be kicked out by the immigration while I couldn't have any control on my own path, when my "fate" was depending on people who should try and had promised to find a phd grant for me but found themselves having no time, or hurry, to spend lots of energy in helping me. It was also when I was separating with some of my best friends. I truly felt like that another suitcase in another hall, again and again.

This song is sung much better by Sarah Brightman, but I couldn't find the tag of hers. So, here it is re-sung by Madonna in the film Evita.

Looking back, I think I should be grateful to finally arrive in Zurich, to have a contract for 4 years, which is can be viewed as "almost permanent" compared to my life previously. But people never get satisfied, or perhaps it is just me, who has started to dream again for other things while still having a temporary transit on this path.



And I think I will never get used to being alone ;) not to mention living and being content with it.

Just remember an old question

H : Why, in spite of his disability, do you love him? Are you blind? Or is it a pity?

M : Once there is a story about a grasshopper inside a covered glass. All his life, the grasshopper only knew to jump as high as the top of the glass. One day, somebody removed the cover. But the grassphopper could not make himself jump out of his cage. He didn't know how to jump higher anymore.

I love him, because he can make himself jump out of his limitation.
I love him, not for how high he has jumped up, but for the length of journey he has been through.