Being looked after – in Cairo and everywhere, actually

The congress was great but I will write about it another time (there’s just too much to write right now). I also managed to find the “Tanzanian park” (very emotional moment for me), but did not find the priest – it’s been 26 years already, in the meantime Cairo got a metro and some new streets that replaced buildings… I was surprised by all this and did not have enough time or this unplanned thorough research. Which makes a perfect reason to go back to Cairo soon and give it another shot. Yupeeee!

But I did manage to walk around the town a lot, sitting down to drink a tea and smoke a shisha, enjoying the absence of tourists (I guess they sort of step, from their fancy hotels, straight into the a/c dark glassed luxury buses and head to Pyramids or whatever, avoiding to spoil their clean goretex heavy duty fancy walking shoes with the unclean surfaces of Cairo streets. Yes, I know, I am being cynical here. And I love it!). And I yet again experienced on several occasions how a community formed immediately, a little street community that instantaneously, if I was open and respectful of course, accepted me and tried to care of my needs. Not for money or anything else, but just for the joy of giving and providing, as it seemed.

Memories were flooding through my mind, tons of them, and the picture became clearer and clearer, until it hit me hard: I realized that I was being looked after so much in my life, so often and so lovingly, that I, upon this realization, felt utterly touched and humbled.

Yes, I have been looked after on so many occasions in my life, and by so open and eagerly giving and providing people, that I am not even going to try to write it all down since it would literally take hundreds of pages. But yes, while writing this, pictures just keep flashing somewhere inside my mind, from Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Sudan, I mean, from everywhere and from everytime.

Why did they do it? Why did they collect a glass of buffalo milk (not a small thing in that area)  in the nearby village to greet us somewhere in the dark night of Pakistan, us, who were the only people to have electricity (in our van) kilometres around? Why were guys waking me up each time I rolled, in my sleep, toward the edge on the roof of the train in Sudan? Why did my aunt spend hundreds of hours with me when I was a little boy – why did she play with me, take me on the long walks around the meadows and forests? Why did my dear friend from Belgrade, after reading about my accident, immediately call me and offered to sit in his car and drive over (a six-hour drive) to take care of me?

OK, folks, right now I am so overwhelmed with all these memories of being looked after in my life, by friends, family as well as by the total strangers, that I am sure this in not my story only. I believe this relates to all of us. I dare to say we are being taken care of and looked after all of the time, by people around us, through tiny little things. And sometimes through very big deeds. It must be Ubuntu alive somewhere within us. It must be that love is all around…

But I guess we just prefer to look the other way. It seems we prefer to look for and focus on the bad stuff. Rather than appreciate the good stuff and build on that. Perhaps we just like to be victims, perhaps we find this survivalistic discourse so darn entertaining. Or perhaps we were just never taught differently by our families, teachers, cultures…

Well, I will definitely, from now on, do my best to appreciate and cherish the good, the love, the attention and the appreciation. I will try to see it and enjoy it fully, with gratitude.

It would be such a waste to look the other way, wouldn’t it?

Racism immunity?

I have always thought that the fact that I was growing up in an all-white society really gave me a rather limited perspective on life and was sort of envious of people that were born in more culturally diverse societies. But about a month ago at the interculturalist congress and Granada, Spain, while sharing with a young American lady about various topics that had to do with racism, I have realized that perhaps not all was bad about my situation and that I have actually inherited something beautiful – the state of being colour blind. Let me explain.

You see, I grew up in the country that does not exist anymore: Yugoslavia. We were brought up in a discourse that the West, with it’s capitalist exploitation of people, was bad. And we were also taught that the East, with it’s communist dictatorship and ignorance to basic human rights, was also bad. We were taught that neither of the two extremes of the Cold War were of any good and that the world needed the third way. The opportunity for the third way was seen in the Non-Aligned movement that basically consisted of the Third World countries, and Yugoslavia, the only member from Europe. So the heroes that were presented to us were in general, along with Tito, of Asian and African origin, like Gandhi, Nehru, Naser, Kaunda, Mandela… We were taught to respect these people and race did not play any role AT ALL. In fact, white race was, in general, seen as aggressive and non-white as oppressed freedom fighters and a new hope for humanity.

Yet another fact was that we had no first-hand relations with non-white individuals at all. In fact NOBODY had any experience and there was no heritage in this regard whatsoever. Blank page. Nothing happened in the past. No stories, no biases, nothing. So, while talking to this young American lady, who had to, while growing up in the U.S., dig her way through all the cultural prejudices, personal and family stories, discourses of all sort of kinds, in order to build her own relationship (which will, no matter what she does, never be only her own, it will never be pure), I realized how lucky I really was. Whenever this white American lady sees an, say, African American on the street, so many associations automatically jump up, so many layers get stimulated, so many lenses pop up in her mind, blurring and biasing her image, on perhaps a very subtle and weak lever, but nevertheless it is there. This is at least how she has explained to me.

Listening to her I realized that actually my first contact with a non-white person was when I found myself, at age 17, in Africa on my escape from life. And there was no background to it, no pre-planted seeds, no attitudes, no preconceive ideas, just a simple and straight interaction with another human being. The colour of skin mattered just as much as the colour of hair. Nothing. On the conscious level at least.

And to this day I cannot find anything else in regard to my perception of diversity of the colour of the human skin. Seems like my relation to the question of “other races” started out of nothing and did not evolve in any weird ways. I feel like a happy colour blind person. So, as weird as this dead country of Yugoslavia was, I am actually really happy I was born here.

And, speaking of Yugoslavia, here’s a video of my ex-schoolmate with his artistic name Magnifico, about Yugoslavia – The Land of Champions. It is a nostalgic account of the times lost, with using the iconography of spaghetti western films (and some kung-fu movies too) that we all grew up watching and adoring, and with strictly sticking to the macho Balkan English accent. Enjoy!

Ubuntu – nobody is ever outside

My wife, an interculturalist, introduced me to the Ubuntu concept after she got home, entirely inspired and enthusiastic, from an international training that was led by two African interculturalists. I remember that immediately when hearing about the Ubuntu, I sensed an utter greatness in it and felt an immense respect and admiration for it.

But, on the other hand, I also felt rather distanced from it, almost completely unable to connect to it or to relate to it in any other way but rational, intellectual. I did not know why I felt this remoteness, but did not think about the matter all that much until I, a couple of days back, was awarded with the Ubuntu badge.

On the one hand I felt really honoured and happy about this award, but my confusion in regards to my perception of the Ubuntu concept came out again and got me thinking and observing. What is it that distances me, in my body and in my feelings, from this concept despite I admire it so much. Why am I having difficulties to connect with it, what is this gap made of?

I noticed that my respect for the Ubuntu spirit was mixed with feelings about my westernised mind being just too dirty and spoiled with the intoxicating ideas of the omnipotence of the individual identity, the importance of personal growth and development, all this individualistic discourses, that the abyss between me and the otherness was just too wide for me to feel the fundamental connectedness of us all. I felt I was so far away from even understanding the Ubuntu, let alone living it.

But I was still exploring this area within me and while watching Mandela’s short explanation of what the Ubuntu in life is (or used to be in the old times, at least), it finally dawned on me.

It was the deserve oriented language that made the gap, the canyon between the spirit of Ubuntu and my little self. This discourse of always operating with the idea that I have to deserve to be accepted, appreciated, loved, respected…, this cultural context of there being some universal rules I need to (and will always fail to) follow in order to deserve my needs to be met within a group of people, this paradigm was dominating the society and all my socializations throughout all my life. And I internalized it into the very fundaments of my own being and my beingness. Do I deserve to be accepted? Do I deserve to be a part of this beauty? Have I complied with all the requirement to be let in? Am I good enough? Will they find out that I am in fact not?

I see this deserve oriented language of conditioning as one of the most fundamental failures of the humanity. Resulting in being conditioned and conditioning others. If you do this and that then you may qualify to deserve my love. If you comply with this and that, then you may deserve to be let in. Distinctions. Hierarchy. Levels of importance. Inner and outer circles. Social climbing. Competing. Building up as much power over others as possible…

What I am trying to say here is that I feel, somewhere very deep and barely tangible within me, that the Ubuntu starts within us, with our perception of ourselves, our own worth and our own needs. And with the realization that it is not at all about deserving or not deserving. This language and these notions are completely irrelevant and meaningless.

Ubuntu, as I see it, is a complete absence of evaluation and deserve oriented perception of self and others. We do not have to deserve to be accepted, to be part of it all, to be taken care of. And the same is true for everybody else. Because we can not actually be separated, be not-connected. We are connected, ultimately and universally. We can not be if others are not. We are because others are. We are because we all are.

The only choice we have is to choose to continue denying it all or to choose to cease denying the obvious and fundamental. And to step in, fully.

To do what you’ve got to do

This is what I call fast: a couple of weeks back I have met him at the Warrior of the Heart training in Belgium, and a week later Steve, on his tour around Europe, already visited me in our home. Having him here for a few days and taking him around the country was really great, but what was the most meaningful thing for me was, as usual, the simple and sincere sharing of where we are at with our lives.

And the thing that touched me the most was when he was sharing with me his experiences and feelings of working voluntarily in the Kufunda Learning Village in Zimbabwe. Now, everything he shared with me was so damn inspiring that I immediately felt like joining in and contributing what I can to that beautiful project.

On the other hand, I have sensed the typical humanitarian sadness and frustration in his words. A general feeling of fighting an omnipotent and invincible dragon there. For every head that is cut off, hundred new fire-spitting heads pop up. For every problem solved, a thousand of new problems incarnate. For every child saved, there will be hundreds of children dying tomorrow.

We are not saving anything really. And it can be very depressing to face that.

I guess we are down to the question of ethics, the question on which basis do we choose, in our lives, what to do and how to do it. There are, generally speaking, three basic approaches, as far as I know.

The first one would be to just follow the rules and duties, imposed by the culture or authorities, the so-called deontological approach. They say I should be honest and not lie, therefore this must be the right thing to do and so I will stick to that. It is said that I should go out and help people and therefore this is the right thing for me to do and so I will do it.

The second one would be to think about the consequences of actions and go for the actions that will ensure me the consequences I want. If I lie, I might get caught and then I will be punished. This consequence I do not like and so I will not lie. If I will be honest people will like me, which I prefer much more than people not liking me, and so I will be honest. And if I will help people, than not only will people help me back, but the planet will be a better place and we will all be so happy, like in Hollywood happy-ending movies. Now, this is a very nice consequence, isn’t it?

But perhaps, if I choose to be honest and to not lie, people will, in some cases, be hurt and consequentially angry with me. Perhaps they will not like me anymore. So should I lie anyway? Just a little bit? Is there a good lie, the one that makes people happier than the bad truth? Hm, I am getting lost. And, why should I go saving the world if I know that I can not save it. If I know that everything is going downhill. If I know that the child I save today will die next week. Why should I do it and not somebody else (a classical excuse in consequentialist way of thinking)?

Frankly, the more I think of it the more I believe that the good old Aristotle was damn right in saying that thinking about consequences will not get us anywhere and with his suggestion that it is best to live by the ethics of virtues. When we are not concerned with the results of our actions, but rather with the question of how we want to proceed in our lives, what kind of people do we want to be. In this case I am choosing to be honest simply because this is what I want to be: a honest person. This is how I want to live my life. I do not even want to lie on a burning stake, for that matter. And I do want to be nonviolent and respectful towards others; not because some god was reported to have said so or because I believe I would get some sort of a reward for that, but just because this is how I want to live my life, even if it gets me in more troubles and even if this means I will not make all that shiny money.

So, back to humanitarian work and helping people: I believe the only thing that will get a humanitarian worker through all the ups and downs is this very approach of virtue ethics. Helping because this is you, this is what you want to do and what kind of person you want to be. Helping because this is how you want to spend and experience your own existence.

Now, the question for myself, of course, is: Do I dare to climb that horse or am I just trying to be smart here?

And I am back to the question of courage again.

Neighbours from a different culture

I am surrounded by neighbours who seem rather similar to me, but they are not. There are immense cultural differences separating us. We do say a polite hello when we see each others across our little fences, yet I sense their hostility. And their irritation. And lack of respect for my culture.

I feel they want to change me. They feel my way of living is a disgrace to this country and they want me to adapt to their culture, to their values and their ways of living. And I feel like resisting until there’s still some blood in my body.

This is their culture, their values, their ways.

And this is my culture, my values, my ways.

Freedom to the plants! Freedom to the people who do not want to mow their own lawn. Freedom to the people who find it OK to be eaten up by the vegetation on their own gardens! May they live long and prosper!

   

On individualistic oranges

Being a bit of an interculturalist I recently – last week on Crete to be precise – came up with a grand theory. I still need to develop it a bit further in order to present it in Granada in October, , however the main idea is here, for you to be the first people on the planet to read it. The more individualistic the culture is, the less individualism is allowed to plants and animals. And the more collectivistic the culture is, the more individualism plants and animals can retain.

Let me explain.

What kind of fruits and vegetables do you eat in individualistic countries, like the U.S. or the Northern Europe? Yes, it is all the same. Take carrots for example. Standardised colour, size, taste, no discrepancies. And apples, bananas, strawberries… All the same, no room for being different. A different vegetable is a suspicious vegetable. Possibly with terrorist intentions.

And how about dogs and cats, cows and pigs? All the same in the individualistic countries. The Barbie dogs – you pay ridiculous amount of money to have a 100% standardized dog. Or a cat. Hate to even think about the imposed collectivism in chicken farms in the glorious individualistic modern world.

Now, if you go to more collectivist cultures, towards the South and the East, suddenly there is a lot of room for animals and plants to be different. All colours, all shapes, all sizes. And within these differences you can see LIFE. Fruits are not all round and perfect, not yet genetically manipulated into the only correct shape. And the taste, the juice, mhmmmm.

Now please have a close look at those oranges I bought in a local store in Crete. This is the beauty of life.

The Die-Hard Role of a Victim

Through my 12 years of working as a psychotherapist the most common inner enemy I was trying to help people to cope with was a role of a victim. This role of a victim of circumstances, destiny, people and forces out there does not only seem to be a common favourite theme that connects us all (in the Western world at least), but also an unconscious mechanism that has roots stretching so deep down that it is almost impossible to cut out completely.

I knew about the dimensions and omnipresence of the role of a victim in human lives and personalities literally decades ago and used to make, in my lectures and trainings, lots of jokes about victim’s dramas and acts – until one day it finally dawned on my slow mind that my own self image and personality was actually built on the drama of a victim; of my childhood, parents, schooling system, society, individuals and groups, destiny and even God… I almost could not find anything in my life that was not coloured with this “victim” colour. This realization shut up my mouth for quite a while. It was such a cold shower to realize how much I actually loved self-pitying and provoking sympathy and pity within others. And this urge is still there, to be honest. In particular I love to be a victim of my wife and my kids, of course.

I guess the story of our love affair with the role of a victim starts with our conflict with the world and with other people which just don’t meet our expectations and needs. People behave out of their free choice and do not perform quite according to our standards, furthermore even gravitation, time and other physical constraints do not strictly follow our needs… And since we do not want to feel there is anything wrong with us, therefore it must be that there is something wrong with other people. So it is them who are doing it to us thus making our lives miserable! It must be them, who else could it be? And so we sit down with couple of like-minders and indulge in our favourite sport, which is whining over an enemy out there. With a cup of coffee or a bottle of bear, it does not really matter.

The way that Erich Fromm in his book The Fear of Freedom and Irwin Yalom in his capital work Existential Psychotherapy explained our urge to hide behind the role of victim may not have as much to do with our traumas from the past as it has with the difficult and yet unresolved existential question of freedom. It appears that we are scared to death of being free. Yes, we do pray and wait and fight for freedom, but once we start having it we are terrified of the fact that freedom brings along the responsibility. Now this is heavy. To be fully responsible for our lives and existence with nobody and nothing to blame anymore – this is almost unbearable and so we prefer to create our lives in a way that we are not really free, but can at least go on being victims.

I wouldn’t want to sound as suggesting that if other people are not guilty and wrong and to blame, than it must be us who are. I do not think an issue of guilt applies in this context at all. I believe it is really crucial to be constantly aware of our own limited perspective and conscious and unconscious interpretations of what we experience to be the reality around us. And within this very relative point of reference we are left with basically two choices: accept things as they appear to be, take a deep breath and make another responsible step into the unknown, or to rather choose to sit down, point our fingers out there and blame it all on everybody and everything around and indulge in self-pitying for the rest of our lives.

I know than we are not omnipotent and that we cannot absolutely freely create every bit of this reality, but what helps me in almost every possible circumstance is to ask myself: “Now, if Buddha or a perfect Zen Roshi was in my place here and now, would he complain and whine over other people, feel he/she is a victim of circumstances?” In the next fraction of a second I most often immediately become aware of an immense room for improvement in my world and choose to make another step into the unknown. With a smile.