The Opportunity for Happiness

My only clear memory of Christmas was when I was eight. I desperately wanted the Christmas tree experience. My parents had celebrated Christmas with my sisters before I was born. Naturally, they grew out of it, as did my siblings.

One late afternoon, I ventured into the garage and found the abandoned, rustic tree from almost a decade ago, with a small cardboard box of tattered decorations. I peered down at history: a paper fairy angel, with a halo made from a yellow pipe cleaner, wrapped delicately in electric gold tinsel; a mesh of dark green wires with some of the tiny bulbs missing; and the real treasure – glass baubles, and lots of them.

I blew off the dust from the loot, and excitedly carried it into the house. I found the perfect spot: just in the corner, by our small, bulky television, and the settee.

It felt like forever till I was done. I stood back and marveled at the Christmas tree. Thinking back, it couldn’t have been much bigger than I was but at that moment, I was overcome by a warm, tingling sensation that seemed so much greater than I was. It wasn’t, of course, the thought of the tree that filled me with such joy. It was the presents I had secretly bought for my parents and sisters, which I would now have the great joy of wrapping and placing under the tree. The excitement was intoxicating – I could not wait to see their reactions, to feel loved, thought of. To me, the gift itself meant very little. A “FRIENDS” ring binder would not scream ‘glamour’ to my 16-year-old sister. Neither would the mug bearing the words “World’s Best Mum” express my love and affection for my mother. But I did, indeed, love them – however broken we were – ‘they are my family,’ I thought, buying the little meaningless tokens with my pocket money. I just wanted to make them smile.

That Christmas, there were only four presents under the tree. I remember my parents looking quite embarrassed, and perhaps even a little sad that they hadn’t placed anything under the tree for me. But it didn’t matter. However silly, however unnecessary, the gesture had made them smile, and for a short while, everyone was happy.

Fast-forward fifteen years, and not much has changed. I get the same feeling when gifting someone something. Gift shopping is my favourite kind, and I think it’s because at the root of it, I still feel like I’m eight – attempting to find ways of making everyone, including myself, happy.

Things are indeed immaterial in this world. No one takes their worldly possessions with them. But my grandmother always pondered, “How can you be happy if the people you love aren’t?” And so giving became the opportunity to make someone happy. So, what’s wrong with that?

Well, I have learnt recently that the world isn’t that black and white – and neither is the perception of one’s intentions.

As the world got larger, and more complicated – with money taking an all-consuming, toxic form - words like ‘gluttony’, ‘excess’ and ‘grandeur’ quickly became associated to giving. It was no longer about the opportunity to create happiness, but instead, a display of over-indulgence.

There is great nobility in thinking of those who are less fortunate – those who suffer on a daily basis with the necessities, which we often take for granted. I fail to see why the concept of giving is blamed for this, however.

Holidays, like Christmas, they say, have become spectacles of consumerism. But why? For me, there is nothing wrong with a holiday which reminds us to be thoughtful, to be giving, to love and to create opportunities for happiness. Yes, that should be our objective as human beings on a daily basis. But we are not perfect. And days can be terrible – horrific, even. What’s wrong with an annual, global reminder to put those you love first?

Sadly, money has become imperative to life. So undoubtedly, it is sensible for one not to treat it with complete disregard. Yet my grandmother’s words have never proven wrong – ‘If you give the last five pounds in your pocket to someone else, I guarantee God will find a way of giving you more in return.’ And she was right. I have never thought twice about spending on someone else, because somehow, incredibly – when the intention is there, the money is too. So it becomes secondary – and in fact – irrelevant. For me, there is no concept of money when you choose to give.

An advert by John Lewis warmed my heart this year, and for me, illustrates not only the spirit of Christmas, but the spirit of giving altogether - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSLOnR1s74o

People choose to live their lives in different ways. Though I feel I should have to provide no justifications for how I choose to live mine, it hurts when people denounce giving to just money – what a horribly empty perspective on something so wonderful – the opportunity to create happiness.

The State of Others

An old lady steps out of a car and slowly waddles over to the driver's side. Her husband opens the door with great difficulty, lifting one leg at a time. When he is finally upright, she hands him his glasses, then his pen and then the shopping list. He carefully places each individual item in his inside blazer pocket, patting it down reassuringly.

He turns to get a trolley, she follows but he instructs her to stay. She reluctantly agrees. He returns, extends his arm, which her withered hands firmly take hold of and they begin to walk forward. He takes his steps quickly and surely - striding on - as if an inward desire of youth has leapt out to thwart the vision of age that he has become. He momentarily forgets that his wife, her back arched forward from carrying life's weighty and unexpected burdens, cannot mirror his projection of strength.

She can't keep up; out of breath, she slows down, her hand slips from his arm. He turns back and suddenly, his eyes soften. He has turned back to meet his reflection. The surprise in his eyes is painstakingly apparent: they are old. 'How did this happen?' his eyes ask, searching for the woman he fell in love with, in the face of a relic he cannot recognise. He lowers his head slightly, then clasps her hand in his before slowing his steps. As she catches up to stand beside him, they stand still for a moment before continuing their journey.

I am affected. By everything. There was a time in my life when I thought this a gift, necessary even. I was 'insightful', 'empathetic' - I was understanding and a 'considerate' human being, who took time to comprehend peoples' very complicated and obscure emotions and trains of thought. Actually, I have come to realise that I perhaps am not any of those things. In truth, I find this constant state of being 'affected', rather like a disease.

There is a story my mother loves to tell. "It was your second birthday. All the family was gathered around the dining table to see you cut the cake. Your cousin, who was five at the time, began to cry inconsolably. You watched him intently, with a curious yet concerned expression. When his sobbing finally subsided, we asked him what was wrong. 'I want to cut the cake!' he declared. Without any hesitation, you pushed the cake towards him. To this day, I wonder what went through your head but it is a behaviour that is unheard of from a two year old. You were so affected by his tears and his desire to cut the cake, you simply handed it over to him."

Every time someone recounts this story, a cousin of mine declares, "You've always been caring. It's just in your nature. You always put other people before you."

I am perhaps the only one who reads this episode entirely differently. First, it is important to note that I have little to no memory of said incident. What I do recall, however, is a feeling of dread overpowering me. I know this from years of experiencing that very same feeling. It is the feeling I had watching the old couple stepping out of their car. It is one that I find increasingly difficult to explain but it exists. And when it settles within me, it spreads like wildfire.

It begins with a tinge of sadness; that very early sinking sensation that one encounters when something is painful to watch or experience firsthand. It moves from a sinking sensation to a sting; a sharp, deliberately slow piercing of steel through flesh. It makes my ears ring and my pulse slow to a calculated, deep thumping that I can feel move through my being. I become the pain I see before me. I can feel it; pulsating through my very core.

I observed the old couple from afar. They had no knowledge of me watching them, writing their story in my head, imagining their pains and struggles; magnifying them in my head to colossal bounds, feeling each one as if it were a personal grief. "One of them will die," I told myself. "How will the other cope? If it is her, who will hand him his glasses and the shopping list and his pen? If it is him, whose arm will she hold to cross the street? Who will slow down for her?" My mind ran clear beyond the asphalt beneath it, the painful thudding in my chest keeping rhythm to the thoughts that sprinted well beyond the confines of my brain.

I convinced myself that the old couple was alone in this world. They had nobody but each other. I envisioned before me the old lady waking up one morning to find no life in the man she had loved for years. Her arched back not allowing her to move, she would lie there for hours beside him; feeling his cold, rough cheek with her trembling hand. She would sob quietly to herself and whisper to him over and over again how much she had loved him and how alone she was now.

The old couple, their truth and the story I had written for them on my lunch break, stayed with me the entire day. I returned to work in a different state of mind. Thoughts of the old couple tormented my mind the entire day, my body weighed down from grief and a deep, gripping sadness. But what was I sad about? The old lady had not lost her husband. For all I knew, they could have had great, great grandchildren and were surrounded by people every day. So, why did I convince myself of a tragic tale? Better yet, why did someone else's potential grief govern my being to such a degree?

This process continues in all respects of my life; work, friends, family. Peoples' burdens become my own; I make them my own. I physically feel the weight of the responsibility; the tormenting frustrations of not having overcome the obstacles, the emotional draining - all of which belongs to someone else and is attached to someone else's grief. And yet, somehow, I make it my own.

This is not empathy, or consideration. I am yet to find a name for it. But to me, whatever it is, it spells chaos. Existing in a constant state of mind which belongs to another is catastrophic for the soul. We are erratic beings by nature; troubled by the friction of opposite emotions and scarred by the consistent battle of ego and submission. So, how can your own being find the strength to absorb and indulge the conflicts of another, when it can barely withstand your own?

It is only a matter of time, then, before you lose yourself completely and rise one day to find that the person you once recognised and identified as you, has transformed before your very eyes into someone else.

To feel

People are very important to me - they always have been. I remember being as little as 7 and straying away from a clothes rack as my mother shopped to end up at the store window, mesmerised by the masses as they rushed around, each in their own separate world.

People and their stories always fascinated me. What is he/she thinking? What happened to them this morning? Is he/she happy? I was always enthralled by the inner workings of the human spirit - how and why we loved so easily, despite having encountered profound pain/injustice. What draws us so desperately to one another; what is this deep, instinctive need for companionship?

All my questions and wonderment with the human form led me to love people; ironically with the exact same ease my logic once so brutally questioned.

The truth is, people are complicated. I know this as I am complicated. If I sit and think of all the jagged hemispheres that are inherent in my singular core, it shocks me. Thus it should come as no surprise, then, that other people are the same.

We are complicated in our relationships. You love, often without reason or logic. But you pollute that love with complications; manipulating truth and honesty, replacing them with tact and diplomacy.

I sit now and I think, ‘which is better to observe?’ Should I adhere to the one, core rule of honesty that I was taught was a fundamental principal or should I mould honesty into tact and diplomacy, with the intention to lessen ‘complications’? But is that really what being diplomatic achieves?

Love itself is anything but tactful and/or diplomatic. Irrational, impulsive and illogical – there is little complication left to add to love, it seems.

But at what point (if any), is it feasible to let an emotion overcome you to the point that it becomes you (or rather, you become it)? Is that not what feeling is – is that not what the beauty of emotion is; the inescapable power it has to wind itself tightly around your core until you suffocate from its immense grip and are forced to recognise what lies before you?

To bite down so hard onto an emotion that you crack the prickly surface, penetrate through the agonizingly rigid core and in that state of passion, draw blood from the force you conjured from deep within you – is that not life?

Is feeling not living? I wonder...

Cleanliness

I sat down to write this evening. Not because I wanted to, but because I wanted to prove something to myself. And in the face of such obvious foolishness, my words laughed at me.

Very little on this earth operates on 'our terms' and words are no exception to that. They cannot be coaxed; the simplest attempt at doing so is deemed an insult. Yet in order to acquire the validation my brain is so desperately seeking, I must confront them.

I realise that I do a significant amount of confronting. In my painfully unappealing desire to maintain honesty, I refuse to be broken by confrontation. And yet I find myself wondering what all this confrontation has done for me. No otherworldly truth has been revealed to me; honesty has become a distant, unattainable phenomenon that appears to have never existed on this earth and my perception of this world has tilted, ever so slightly, towards the unrelatable.

I clean and clean and yet never quite understand what I am trying so desperately to shine. Is it me? The age-long metaphor suggests so, I guess. And yet after so much scrubbing, I don't feel 'clean' and neither do I feel tainted. So, we return. What am I trying so hard to clean? Perhaps I'm not trying to clean at all. Maybe I'm trying to 'maintain', instead. Hanging onto all that's familiar because change is so disastrously difficult to manage. And yet so much has changed over the past year. Life has been tugged at and moulded into all kinds of shapes to fit all the different dimensions that are necessary now. The question remains, however - if something is full, does it mean it fits? How can one ever really know what 'fits' and what doesn't? Surely we don't have the stamina or the time for trial and error in that department. Or perhaps some of us do. And the ones that don't, well, they settle.

Life Lessons

I had just sat down to have dinner this evening when there was a knock at our window. My sister answered the door to find our cleaning lady who had just left minutes before. “There’s a man on the pavement opposite, he’s bleeding really heavily. What shall we do?”

Concerned it was an elderly man [who may potentially be my 84 year old grandfather who likes to leave his house without notifying anyone to go on midnight strolls], I quickly slipped my boots on and ran onto the road.

There, slumped over a small brick wall, was a woman covered in blood. Drenched in the rain, on her knees, with one shoe a couple of feet away and appearing as though she were hiding from thugs [which was my first assumption], she blinked away the blood from one eye to look up at me as I approached. One side of her face was covered with blood; so much, in fact, that I could hardly work out where exactly she had been hurt.

“Are you okay?” I asked
She mumbled a “yes”, but appeared obviously disheveled. It was only until I peered through the darkness that I realised she had slipped in the rain and smashed her head against a plant pot, the shattered pieces of which were scattered over my neighbour’s driveway.

As I dialed for an ambulance, more people started to gather around the woman. I explained the situation to the emergency helpline guy and listened to his instructions of keeping her awake and trying not to move her.

By this point, she had started to tremble vigorously (either from the cold or the shock or both). As I lent in to reassure her that she would be okay, I managed to recognize the side of her face that wasn’t covered in thick blood.

“Mrs. Hooper?”

Mrs. Hooper was my primary school receptionist. I remember her, as being a mean, strict and difficult woman who didn’t like children and most certainly didn’t like me. In fact, she used to look at me with great disdain. I never understood why but it affected me then. Why did this woman not like me?

More than 10 years later, the same woman was lying helpless on my doorstep. And then I realised that for these past 10 years, I had seen Mrs. Hooper on many occasions. She walked down the same road, with her black shopping trolley [which had now been completely soaked in the rain and lay upside down on the pavement] looking as mean and unfriendly as ever. I had always seen her alone.
In the darkness of a freezing February evening, here she was again, completely vulnerable and alone.

“Mrs. Hooper?”
Trying hard to recognize me, she peered into my face.
“You probably don’t remember. My name is Ayman, I used to go to Christchurch?”
She mumbled something and began to slump over the brick wall.
“No, no. You must try and stay awake for me. Are you feeling dizzy at all?”
“I want to talk to you. Alone. Can we go inside? I need to talk to you,” she slurred.

“I’m afraid I can’t move you. You’ve had a fall. But it’s going to be okay, I’ve called an ambulance. You’re going to be fine.”
“No. No. No ambulance. I just want to speak to you.”
“I’m right here. What is it that you want to say?”
“No. You’re not here,” she answered clenching her teeth.

Thirty minutes later, no sign of a paramedic or the ambulance. After countless phone calls to find out why an ambulance hadn’t been dispatched, I was told that there ‘weren’t enough cars’. I yelled down the phone at the man, “since when is this a third world country?! What kind of excuse is ‘there are no cars’? What am I supposed to do if she falls unconsciousness or worse?!”
“Please don’t shout. I’m having difficulty understanding you, ma’am.”

By this time, a neighbour trained in first-aid came out to see what all the commotion was about. After doing a quick analysis, she informed me that Mrs. Hooper appeared to be heavily drunk – the stench of alcohol on her breath giving it away, I guess.

“I want to talk to you,” mumbled Mrs. Hooper.

"I’m right here,” I reassured her.

Now shaking uncontrollably, she tried to hold her head up. “Hold my hand.”

Having covered her in numerous blankets and coats, I noticed that she had lost a sufficient amount of blood. It was all over her face, her clothes, the driveway and my hands. At this point, the first aider made the decision to put her into the recovery position as the ambulance was still no where to be seen.
I paced up and down the road, my heart pounding relentlessly. Why was I so concerned? Yes, it was a horrific sight – I had never seen so much blood in my life. I could see now that she had split her forehead open just above the eyebrow. The blood was now clotting more than seeping and I didn’t know what to do. But there was a first aider and plenty of neighbours, why was I freezing in the cold for this woman who meant very little to me and at one point in my life, made sure to make me feel small?

When the ambulance finally arrived and got her strapped into a stretcher, the paramedic asked me to collect her belongings. I picked up the black trolley; her bag and blood soaked glasses and loaded them onto the ambulance. Mrs. Hooper caught my eye and slurred something. She hadn’t recognized me at all, I was sure of that. She was so intoxicated, she had trouble remembering where she lived and what she was doing out. But at that point, I couldn’t help but wonder the mystery of God’s lesson.

Was it for me or for her or maybe us both? This was the first time I was seeing a woman I disliked and who I believed to be cruel, completely vulnerable and weak. But was it the first time? Maybe it was just the first time that I recognized it because I have learnt now what this world is capable of; what people are capable of. I won’t make excuses for her but perhaps she had been vulnerable all her life.

And what did she learn? I’m certainly not falling for that ‘Good Samaritan’ spiel. There were plenty of people on the road ‘till the moment the ambulance came. But perhaps she wasn’t supposed to learn something about me, like I did about her. Instead, maybe she was supposed to learn something about herself.
I’ll never know what, but I’ll wonder.

I’ve come to realise now that in life, we are made examples of. We learn from each other; from each other’s misfortunes, sorrows and joys, trials and tribulations. What better example is there? Nothing can communicate pain like witnessing it in another being. Compassion is innate, we just choose whether to let it play or sit on the bench. Association is also innate. We are naturally inclined to put ourselves in other people’s shoes – to experience what they’re going through, to understand. But again, we have a choice. Which do you let play and which do you bench?

Signs

There are very few glaring stop signs in life – you know, the kind that make you stop dead in your tracks, force you to stand still and observe. Observe who you are, the people around you and the way in which you choose to live your life.

It is often said that the one reality that we can be absolutely certain of is death. But the more I encounter death; the death of those I love, the death of relationships, the death of habits – an ending of any sort – I am reminded that there are so many more realities in life than just death. It is true that ultimately, we will all die. But it is also true, that we will all be blessed with the opportunity to love; that we will at least once in our lifetimes laugh so hard that our stomachs will hurt and we’ll gasp desperately for air; that our hearts will melt with compassion at a soppy scene from the ultimate movie and tears will fall as if the pain is being inflicted on our own being; that somebody, somewhere will do or say something that to them is miniscule but will plaster an unmoving smile on your face for an entire day. All of these instances have already happened in my life and so has death – many a time, in fact. And I guess the saddest thing; what makes us weep for those we have lost is that they’ll never again get a chance to experience these wonderful opportunities that life gives us.

I choose to weep today for those I have lost. But tomorrow, I will stop dead in my tracks and be forced to stand still and observe. Observe the person I am proud to be, observe the wonderful people I am lucky to have around me and observe the honest life I have chosen to live. And maybe, just maybe – wherever those I have lost are, they’ll see that I am and will forever remain grateful for the opportunity to have known them, loved them and have them ingrained in my being.

Justice

It's a funny thing considering we make up all the rules. It is us, human beings, who decide what is just and unjust in the first place; what is right and what is wrong, what is ethical and what is unethical etc. What is considered humane and inhumane is perceived by us and us alone. Higher judgment, or God, will reveal all in a different life. But who decides whether or not we should stand trial now, in this lifetime?

I watched a fantastic film once called 'God on trial'. It was about the concentration camp prisoners putting God on trial to decide whether or not He was responsible for abandoning them in their time of desperate need. It was touching and poetic, sad and pathetic, helpless and hopeful. But most of all, it was distressing. The mammoth feeling of abandonment struck me. I wondered what it would feel like to wake up and realise God had just walked out of your life.

The BBC documentary I just watched achieved the exact same thing. A journalist decided to embark upon a journey to Germany, Hungary and Austria to find the world's most wanted Nazi war criminals. These men, all in their mid-90's, are (directly or indirectly) responsible for the massacre of 11 million people; jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled and many more. These men, frail and often disorientated, claimed they had no recollection of what had happened. Some admitted their past but refused to take any responsibility; claiming they were simply following orders as soldiers. Others were completely oblivious to the scale of devastation caused by the Nazis. They were convinced it was 'exaggerated' and felt betrayed that the plight of the German people who were also displaced and made to evacuate their homes was not represented in equal measure to the suffering of the Jews.

Drowning in alcohol in the early hours of the morning, unable to face the reality of their past, they sit determined to avoid the subject altogether. Looking at their wrinkled, pale faces; their withered eyes and their shaking hands, I wonder how anyone can put these men on trial now. Am I a fascist like them? Does this make me a Nazi? No. Does it make me compassionate? Am I fooled by the exterior, unable to recognise the men who once killed brutally without flinching? No. Instead, I am convinced that the only judgment which now matters, which will bring justice of unprecedented levels, is the one that awaits these men at the end of their lives.

Facing the end of their lives alone is a kind of justice in itself, I guess. But admittedly not enough.

I think of my own past. Have I done things I regret? Yes. I haven't killed anyone or intentionally harmed a soul but I'm sure in passing I must have. So, put me on trial. Whose to say the judgment of those on Earth, those equal to me, will affect me in any way at all? The thing that petrifies me the most, the thing I'm convinced petrifies all of us the most is death. I will enter an unknown terrain alone, stripped of any agenda or ego, grovelling undoubtedly and unsure of what awaits me. At that moment, every last remanent of guilt that lingers in the shadows of my conscience will unwillingly rise and stand trial. Just like those men, at the end of their lives, I will have to be held accountable for everything I've done and everything I haven't. Every single one of us will. So, why do we deny it so adamantly?

For some reason, the human mechanism is designed to deny anything which jeopardises its interests. Deny the holocaust, by all means. Just know that one catastrophe isn't greater than another. And the suffering of one person or one race isn't more or less colossal than another. The real injustice is done when you deny the suffering of another for the sake of saving your own skin; skin that was never yours to save in the first place. Skin that isn't mine, either. It is only the choices that belong to us, that are owned by us. And upon those, we await judgment.