Chaos, Courage, and Commitment

My life has come to the age so chaotic that it’d be miraculous if I could ever focus anymore. The instinct response, a self safety guard, appears to be a stoic, indifferent, obstinate body that contains cosmic collision of images and thoughts mostly impossible to grasp and express. The ongoing process of self-awareness essentially raises the question of how far and deep I should engage in the accelerating world. One of the advice I get welcomes the mindset of facing the unknown, unfamiliarity, and uncomfortness, in the unblamed bloom of youth. Begrudgingly yet convinced, I put my life of inner peace at stake, the external boredom away, and take my first step by moving to Taipei, in the hope of learning in a fast-paced environment that could provide possibilities I’ve never thought of, eventually leading me to the place of ultimate happiness I always dream of. But the ungoing human suffering that flickers here and there on the world map in my mind, and the conceivable yet polarizing lives that are within finger’s swipe on streaming platforms, disturb me to the point that I doubt if I would ever feel happy again. It’s even more frustrating to me to be in a nation that has limited right of speech on international affairs, that has its own identity difficulties, that any efforts made in understanding foreign affairs on the faraway continents are somehow deemed futile and irrelevant of the prioritized struggling daily lives, except for the sake of gaining academic recognition, before throwing them behind as burdens of self-infliction. The reality and responsibilities faced by social freshmen in our society inevitably narrow our visions of the world, and what happens in Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Bangladesh, and Ukraine, has never been so close yet distant now.

An attempt to address this ongoing crisis is me watching debate videos for hours recently, a desperate eagerness to grasp any facts and truth behind all the drama on the world stage, something I always see my grandpa do in front of TV with an aged body that loses the advantages I have, and an action of my late-muturing mind unlucky enough to grow in a counterproductive environment, but lucky enough to hold the childlike innocence and courage along the way. Deep down my heart I always have this insecurity of not fully-equipped to start a conversation, let alone to be on one side of the table in a debate, resulting in me standing alone in a confusingly neutral position, peace more tham pain so far, deciding inertially which way to look. It has been decided and proved though, that by enhancing my abilities to debate controversial matters would help, testified by a list of questions I’ve written down on my diary while following the Israel-Palestine Debate: Finkelstein, Destiny, M. Rabbani & Benny Morris | Lex Fridman Podcast.

Of all the general and detailed controversy brought up in the podcast, one stands out and it still bothers me from now and then. Is Nakba the inevitable consequence of the Partition Plan(P.R.)? A design or war? That leads to me questioning: Facts can be designed. But is the action justified sometimes? We can see the facts clearly: the concept of a state of Israel being raised by early Zionists, the war initiated by Palestine after the Partion Resolution, and the expansion of Israel territory afterwards. From the Palestinian perspective, it is reasonable to refuse to cede their home land(at least for hundreds of years), confronted by the fact that they had sold some of it to Israelis before the P.R. It is understandable to abandon the idea of expulsion in Zionism, whether it actually existed or not, years after the P.R., which could be the held by the opposition as evidence of unjustified intent. The Palestinian side in the debate suggested that if the idea of expulsion always existed in Zionism, in one form or another, there might be a possibility that the acceptance of the P.R. by Israelis had been an unavoidable compromise to me made. The other side of the table indicated that Palestinians seek rejection and war as the first and last resort, which justified the Israelian counterattack in Nakba and Operation Swords of Iron Wars. To be honest I don’t know what to believe, since most of the claims they make might come from official documents, some of which from the speech by government officials, which was drafted based on assessments of situations at that time, which seeked the best interests for their own countries. All of these wavery information interpretation and subsequent actions can not be easlily explained, and the solutions determined, except by reading volumes of books and many debates. The maintained focus on one side would sometimes be misled by the other side, and that represents the society that I am about to enter.

Over the past few years, I’ve been spending most of my time trying not to forget the wonderful times I once had, fantisizing adventures I hope someday I could have, by writing down poems after poems, articles after articles, preparing myself to make the least sense of myself and the world. It is at this moment, sitting at the table listening to the rain, the unfaltering growl of traffic, and the exhausting breath of my five-year-old laptop, that I suddenly realize writing might be the only and last haven for me over the upcoming years. But let them be stormy and exhilarating.

River on Baltic Sea

River on Baltic Sea Website

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

發表留言