Contrasting views...

I experienced quite a contrast today.  I am currently listening to the audio version of the book, Little Bee by Chris Cleave.  I've been listening to it about a week now and just this afternoon heard the story of Little Bee's (the main character's) escape from Nigeria to England.  It's one of those parts of a book or scenes in a movie when I feel that, though I am extremely uncomfortable listening or watching, I must in honor of those who have had no choice but to live through them.

Though the story is a fiction piece, it explores the all too real experiences of the many refugees searching the world- as I type- for a safe place.  This particular story is of a young girl, her village burned, her family murdered, who escapes only to be chased through the countryside by those who stole her home.  She runs away with her sister, but is caught days later.  She is forced to listen as her sister is brutally raped by several men and tortured, each bone individually broken, as her sister pleads for death to take her.  This is the nice version.

The thing that has struck me most about this story is Little Bee's discussion of horror.  She talks about how people go to see horror movies to enjoy the sense of security that encompasses them when they leave the theater.  For some people, however, the horror never ends.  In this girl's case, she is able to "get away" and hide aboard a ship sailing for England, where the horror follows her across the ocean via her constant fear of "the men".

                                     __________________

I step out of my car, having just heard this story, into the light of my reality, into the parking lot of BJ's.  I smile at the gentleman working at the door and head in to grab my few necessities, you know, Coke and toilet paper.  The essentials.  I guess I smiled a little too big because on my way out of the store, the gentleman stops me.

"You didn't get much today, huh?"  
"Oh, I'm not much of a shopper so I just pick up a little here, a little there."  
"There are some people who come in here- I'm not talking about people like you who pay for their food- but those people who come in here on food stamps, buying $700 dollars worth of groceries, with 3 kids and wearing expensive shoes.  Meanwhile, I'm a single guy, 37, no kids, and I can't afford any of it."

As I notice other customers backing up behind us, I start to step away toward the door.  Apparently this does not tip him off, because he keeps going.  And going.  Finally when I think I'm in the clear, he catches me with this clencher: "And then, they can't speak English."   (Bitch should know better than to come at a girl whose father came to this country and had to teach himself the language so he could put himself through medical school to save your white ass.)* 

If only this man could hear the story of Little Bee, of the millions of refugees, I would like to see his face then.  Americans and similar countries amaze me with their blatant conceit.  We think hard times include being stuck in traffic, our iPhone malfunctioning, getting a huge bill in the mail, getting yelled at by our boss.  We haven't the slightest clue of horror.  9/11 was the worst example of horror we've ever experienced, of man against man.  And that was nothing compared to what these people go through, not one day in one year, but every day for decades, even centuries.  Unspeakable torture and fear that makes one wish for death.  That, to me, is the definition of horror: when death becomes favorable.  Yet, people can smugly talk of money and language.  Fuck that.  As a privileged country, we should not be asking ourselves how to keep more money for ourselves but how we can use what we have to help more people.  Shame on anyone who asserts their language and their pain as better than someone else's.

I look at money as a means to an end.  It has no inherent value.  It is nothing more than the paper I wipe my ass with.  It comes.  It goes.  But look how it changes people.  If giving my money for the greater good means aiding a few freeloaders in the process, then that's just the way it is.  But I am not taking that for a reason to become subhuman.  Money is there for necessity, not for happiness.  Happiness is something we can only get from each other.  Before Little Bee's sister is murdered, they encounter an English couple on a beach and implore them for help.  The murderers come upon them and demand that the English man cut off his own finger to save the girls.  The man refuses.  His wife instead grabs the knife from her husband and immediately slashes her finger to save the girls.  Five years later, the man kills himself.  He had plenty of money.  But what he lacked was the knowledge that he had helped someone in spite of his own discomfort.

*No, I'm not a racist, I am white too.  But I happen to be thankful for the contributions that those from other countries provide us, whether they are in English or any other language. 

Little bee.

Choosing between one option...

***This is a continuation of my previous post.***

In thinking more about the meaning behind The Falling Man, I have come to believe that it lies much deeper than the simple fear of our own mortality.

I often think about pregnancy and am fearful about the process of giving birth.  Well, not so much the process as the pain it brings.  It seems unfair.  You get pregnant for the first time having no idea of what you're getting yourself into, yet once you are pregnant, there is no way out.  You can't change your mind.  You have to give birth.  This terrifies me.  Somehow reminding myself that millions upon billions of women have done this before me for centuries does not make the task any less daunting.  Life is the same.  Without even being asked (at least not that I can remember), we are thrown into this world with not a single clue as to what's in store.  And once we are here, we are dying.  There is no other option.

We live in such a transient world.  Things are constantly changing.  We go to school, we graduate.  We get together, we break up.  We get jobs, we lose jobs.  There is a way out of almost everything.  If we're not happy with some aspect of our lives, we change it.  If we're not happy with the direction we're traveling, we turn the car around.  If we're not happy with our surroundings, we move.  If we're not happy with our spouse, we get a divorce.

But, the one thing we cannot escape is death.  Each of us faces it everyday, just as The Falling Man faced it before our eyes.  The only difference is he knew his options.  Die of suffocation or of impact.  He was given a clear-cut choice.  In our day-to-day life, we are not so lucky.  We are left in the dark as to how we will pass.  Of course, we all hope to be the warm old elderly person who passes in his sleep.  But we can't all go so peacefully.  There are an infinite number of ways we might leave this earth.  But regardless, we are stuck with the exact same decision as The Falling Man- to allow circumstance to take us or to assume control and choose our own means.  Either way we're going.

I often blog about man's lack of control and the resulting fear.  I think this example is the ultimate feeling of helplessness.  No matter how hard we've worked, no matter how many people need us, no matter how much we want to stay, one day we will be gone.  Death stares over our shoulders as a constant reminder that we cannot attach ourselves too tightly to anything, for one day it will disappear.  We have no say.  This is the meaning of The Falling Man.  He represents the choice we hold.  He begs us to ask ourselves which is better- to take control of our final destiny or to passively wait for its eventual arrival, and he reminds us that either way, we have no real choice. 

Catching ourselves...

Last night I came across a documentary on youtube called The Falling Man.  It is the story of a photograph taken by an AP photographer the day the World Trade Center fell.  The photo is of a man plummeting 106 floors to his death.  It was printed the following day in several newspapers and became one of the most controversial pictures in history.  Soon after, it disappeared.  The film follows journalist Tom Junod on his mission to identify the man. 

This documentary is fascinating to me for three reasons.  The first is that the image was controversial at all.  There were other shots of people crying, people screaming, people covered in blood, people covered in ash, yet, this photo, which amazingly had a sense of calm about it, was the one people didn't want to see.  Some who had written letters to the editor purporting their anger read them on screen.  They were incensed upon opening their newspapers to the back page, where they had been faced with the man, yet they gave no reason for their anger, stating only that the photo was "in poor judgment".   

The second reason is that many were indignant about the fact that people had jumped.  One family of a man suspected to be The Falling Man heartily refused to believe it due to their Catholic faith.  They stated that their husband/father would never betray them like that, as, in their religion, committing suicide is the fast route to Hell.  They denied that it was him so strongly that when faced with the photo, the oldest daughter stated, "That piece of shit is not my father."  Once it was discovered that they were not the family of the man, they asked that his name be "cleared".  From this and the controversy, a stigma was created around those who did fall, as though they had done something bad or wrong.  This is what disturbs me, not the picture.  

The final reason is encompassed in the conclusion of the film.  After making an almost certain identification of the man, Junod comes to the realization that who it is doesn't matter after all.  As the narrator so aptly clues us in in the final scene: "The power of the image came not because the falling man could be identified, but because he couldn't." 

The dichotomy that is raised here is voyeurism vs. self-examination.  It is my belief that the people who were so deeply offended by this photograph felt that, like rubberneckers on a highway, anyone who looked at it was acting as a voyeur- using another's pain for their own entertainment.  But that is only scratching the surface.  Those of us who are able to get past our anger- I myself was appalled when I first saw the sculpture, Tumbling Woman by Eric Fischl, are able to then ask ourselves, why such curiosity?  Perhaps it is not so perverse after all.

We as a species hold onto life so stringently that we can't imagine anyone giving it up, giving into that fear, that unknown.  We ourselves are so overcome by fear of pain and death that it almost disgusts us to see someone giving into it.  The intriguing part is that we are faced with scenes and stories of murder all the time, of one person taking another person's life.  But when one chooses to take his own we are astonished, confused.  Not only that, but the people who perished inside the towers were faceless; we were not a direct part of their suffering.  In the book The Upside of Irrationality, Dan Ariely explains through his research that people are more apt to be charitable when they know the story and see the picture of the person that they are helping.  In this particular case, we are almost a part of this person's life.  Simply by witnessing his final seconds on Earth, we are drawn into his plight, and we don't want to face that.  We don't want to face it because it forces us to face our own mortality.    


Tom Junod's article for Esquire magazine- undoubtedly one of the finest pieces of writing I have ever encountered:

http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0903-SEP_FALLINGMAN

 The Falling Man documentary, Part 1 of 8 (you can access the successive parts from the menu on the right):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo6bIb_yiKs
















To commemorate the fear that leads to censorship, I have chosen not to post a photo, but instead blankness.