Poornima Manco

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Guest blog month

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I find people endlessly fascinating. Perhaps, that is why my stories centre around people, their motivations and compulsions. However, one does not always need fiction to experience alternate realities. Another person’s life: his journey, her passion, his hobbies, her escape, are all equally intriguing and provide enough fodder for the imagination.

In the spirit of that sentiment, I once again give my blog over to some very engaging people and their stories. The next few weeks will hopefully bring you some interesting insights into what constitutes an alternate lifestyle, being true to oneself and one’s passions, and how sometimes, the only journey one needs to undertake is the one that reconnects you to yourself.

As a blogger, I am always happy to be approached to showcase another person’s work. If you are a blogger who would like a slightly different audience for a change, or if you just like penning random musings, or if you feel strongly about something and need a platform to voice those thoughts, feel free to reach out to me with a sample of your writing, and maybe I could include you in future guest blog months. Comment below with your details and I will get back to you.

I truly believe that the writing community needs to be supportive and nurturing of one another. Our stories may be universal, but our experiences are deeply personal. In sharing them with our readers we attempt to create a bridge of understanding. However, in sharing them amongst ourselves and on our multiple and varied platforms, we start to understand the nuances and subtleties of that which is removed from our own actuality. In our myriad life realities, there is above all, a desire to understand and be understood.

I hope that the stories and articles that follow will take you on their unique journeys and you will come away with a renewed understanding and empathy for your fellow being.

 

Friendship and Politics

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I have two female friends, who will remain nameless for the purposes of this article, that hold diametrically opposite views from me, politically. They are both feisty, outspoken, bolshy and fearless. Qualities that I admire immensely. However, our politics differ and how!

How have I circumvented this divide and still stayed friends with them? And why do I bring it up here and now?

Well, firstly, I knew them much before I knew their allegiances. So, our friendship was untainted by politics. As I got to know them better, I realised that I liked them very much as people. I liked the fact that they were gutsy, I liked that they stood up for themselves and that they didn’t mince their words. I liked that they were always honest with me, even if it meant not sparing my feelings. I also realised that women like these are rare finds, and I wanted to have them in my life, regardless of how they felt about which political party governed their countries or whether Britain should stay in or out of Europe.

Now, lately, there has been much chatter here and across the pond. Politically everything is in a stage of upheaval. It is but natural that people will be vociferous about their own standpoints. Sometimes that takes the shape of defending the indefensible. Cruel laws that bypass humanity, turning a blind eye to the economics of a situation, or siding with a well known hate mongerer are all symptoms of these standpoints.

I have reasoned and combatted all of this, to the best of my ability. But the question stands, can I still call these people my friends?

I had an interesting conversation with a colleague once. She told me, in no uncertain terms, that if a friend or a partner had a different political stance to hers, there was no way she would associate with them. It meant, that at the very heart of it, they had contrary fundamental values. How could one align oneself with someone who saw the world so differently?

How can I?

Yet, political landscapes change all the time. Parties come and go, Presidents and Prime Ministers lose elections on a regular basis, and allegiances shift. Can I sacrifice two perfectly good friendships at the altar of politics? Should I?

The short answer is NO. Human connections are far more valuable than outside forces. If I, who preach tolerance and understanding through this blog, cannot practice it in my own life, what good is all the wisdom in the world? It is not by surrounding ourselves with like minded individuals that we grow. It is by opening our minds to differences, debates and discussions. It is by realising that someone else’s passionately held views have just as much validity as our own. If their politics are abhorrent then initiate a dialogue with them. Cutting them off or insulating yourself against contradictory ideas is hardly the way forward.

As for my friends and I, we talk politics in jest. They know I don’t agree with them. I know they are not going to change their minds. Nevertheless, we stay friends. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

 

Schadenfreude

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The German language has some interesting words, none more so (IMHO) than schadenfreude. There is no English equivalent for it, as far as I am aware. Loosely translated, schadenfreude means deriving joy from another’s misfortune. Something, I’m fairly certain, we have all been guilty of in our lives.

Now, whether this comes from a place of spite or meanness, or whether it’s just the human need for seeing people cut down to size, I think we would all agree, it’s not a pleasant emotion. I struggle with it and often admonish myself when I find myself revelling in someone else’s (deserved or undeserved) misery.

So, imagine my surprise, when I came across people who consciously practiced schadenfreude with impunity.

Long story short- a group of us were participating in a much anticipated reunion. We had a Whatsapp group for planning the details, and as much of these things are wont to do, it also became a place to exchange pleasantries, jokes, random comments, wardrobe planning and other sundries. There was excitement in the build up, and as the date approached and newer members were added, a lot of good natured bonhomie and a genuine pleasure to be reconnecting with old friends.

In the midst of all of this, were a couple of individuals who insisted on not just lowering the tone, but also, consciously, even cruelly, denigrating others and their motives. Every comment was suspect, every emotion fraudulent and everyone the butt of their tasteless jokes. Time and again, they were warned off but they persisted in the belief that they were stripping back the fripperies to reveal the naked truth (that being, that at the heart of it all, we really despised each other and all this love we were displaying was just a show). All they ended up revealing was their own inability to partake in joy.

So, why did they insist on attributing ulterior motives to everything? And why did they derive such joy from our often justified anger and impatience with their pessimistic outlook?

Schadenfreude.

At the very core of this word lie our own insecurities. When we are pleased at someone else’s failure, when we enjoy raining on someone else’s parade, when we can only extract pleasure out of someone else’s displeasure, what does that say about us?

Perhaps there is a lesson in this for everyone. Schadenfreude may be an emotion that arises unwittingly, even unconsciously, within us. But maybe, the nicer, the more humane thing to do, would be to consciously replace it with empathy.

After all, no one heals themselves by wounding another (St. Ambrose).

 

 

 

 

Who am I?

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The most rudimentary of questions. Yet the answer escapes most of us. Try and define yourself. Not describe, define. Who are you? Stripped down to the most elemental level. Are you brave? Are you a coward? Are you brutish or sophisticated? Are you conservative or liberal? Are you religious or an atheist? Who are you?

The answer is a complex one. And I’ll wager, not one you are expecting. The answer is: I do not know. I do not know how brave I am, till I am in a situation that requires courage. At that point, will I choose to save my skin or save another’s? I think I am sophisticated, till you put me in an unfamiliar milieu, and the social shorthand fails me. Then I appear brutish, unrefined and uncouth. I think I am liberal till my daughter brings home a boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks, and all at once, every bit of my socialism flies out of the window. I think I am religious, yet I laugh at the barbaric rituals and stone gods of the ostensibly primitive.

Any of this sound familiar?

We are all complex, multi layered, multi dimensional wonders of evolution. We are all a work in progress. What I am in this moment, I will not be in the next. Nor will you. Our experiences, our joys, our sorrows contribute to our own unique signatures.

Fundamentally though, we all believe that we are good people. From the terrorist who bombs a hundred people in a square, giving up his life for a cause, to the politician who bombs a country, in pursuit of a higher good. We believe we are good. But are we?

These moral complexities are the shifting sands that govern human nature.

Who am I? The song from Les Misérables where Jean Valjean questions his moral core is perhaps the best way to end this rambling, philosophical blog post. Who am I? I am me.

 

Anniversaries

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When I last logged into WordPress, it informed me that I had completed a year of blogging, and wished me on my anniversary. An entire year gone by? A year of blogging- putting my stories, my thoughts and sometimes, my innards, out for consumption. Traditionally, anniversaries are celebrated. Wedding anniversaries, birthdays, new years….all roughly fall into that category of having completed something, with an anticipation of the future unfolding in a similar manner.

Sometimes though, they give rise to a need for reflection. What does completing a year signify? Is it merely a passage of time, or has one grown in that time; learnt something, gained an insight, perhaps acquired some wisdom? At what point does one sit down and evaluate the merits of where one stands today, as opposed to where one stood five or even ten years ago?

For me, personally, it has been a turbulent year. I have been shaken up in more ways than one. What I have learnt is, that I am incapable of writing stories, when my mind is troubled. I need to be in a safe place metaphorically, even if it isn’t necessarily a happy one. Yet, I am able to blog with impunity, for it requires no great powers of plotting, characterisation, or an end product meeting my own exacting standards, let alone anyone else’s.

I am trying to inch towards this safe zone. Blogging is my therapy. And that is something worth celebrating.

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