Musing...

I spent some time today working with the blogspot blog site which, I guess I have been using for quite a long time. Before I started the BEINGHAD website, I used blogger to wherehouse stories, essays and letters from my attorneys and other junk from my Polish situation. All of this eventually went into the book BEING HAD. At the time, I thought all of that stuff was pretty important. Now though, I am quite a distance away from Poland and of course, there were almost no results except for the poetic justice of that airline crash taking out the Polish government- which we all know was caused by the president of Poland’s own personal corruption and arrogance, so you know, no money back but in its way, it helped make the point.

When I was wandering around though, I decided that I needed a house cleaning and actually deleted a couple of the blogs which were just sitting there. At one time there were 30 separate blogs in there. I used to use blogge to store things before I made the BEING HAD site. But since the last time I checked, a lot of the pictures had disappeared and because of that, a lot of it had basically become junk so I dropped what was interesting onto my PC and deleted the rest.

The reason I was even in there in the first place though was because some guy or group of guys going under the name Jihad Boy hacked into my Skype account and as a result of that these clever guys found their way into my pay pal. It took them a couple of days to hack that but when they finally figured it out, my bank account got drained. The electronic world however is pretty good about these things and it was pretty quickly diagnosed that it wasn’t me spending all of my available cash for on-line goods to be shipped inside the continental US. It has now been about two weeks but everything has been put back together and the money got put back. However, aside from password changes, I did have to create a new pay pal account whose button needed to go onto the blogs and… well, you get the picture.

And by the way, you can help me see if the things actually works by clicking that pay pal and sending some money along, you know, just out of curiosity.

But while I was rooting around in the blogger I found a couple of plays from a while back that I had actually forgotten that I had written. Both of the plays were written while I was in Poland. One of them, a very introspective and difficult play called Ownership, was written when I was in Warsaw and the second, actually a musical song and dance farce, came a little bit later in my stay, after I got out of the capital and into a more loving situation.

That loving situation was rather remarkable actually. I think it is pretty true that if you add in a little romance to any situation and it can become rather magical. Seriously, you could be in Calcutta or Antarctica, but put some hugging and kissing into the mix and the place would become beautiful for you. And conversely, you could be in Paris if that is the opposite, and with a million bucks in your pocket but without anyone there, it would just me another crowded, rainy city. Well, if you actually had a million bucks to play with, I am sure you wouldn’t be so all alone for very long in Paris, but you get the point. And that brief moment of respite and happiness in Poland turned around my epic foul mood to such an extent that such a thing as writing a musical comedy even became possible. Humor in Poland? Such is my point.

That someone to me had turned out to be what you might call a muse, if that is a good word. According to Wiki, the definition is: A goddess who inspires the creation of literature and the arts and the source of knowledge. Probably to me, the idea of a muse is simply one, single but particularly trusted and respected listener. I have always felt in fact that writing to a mass audience actually only requires a single listener who is willing to give an ear, seriously and honestly. If you have at least that you can actually get something out.

So basically, right there amidst all of those lies, I did have a little happiness in my life for a short period and frankly, and especially now, I have always wondered about my decision regarding ending that situation. I think looking back that if you find someone who really makes a difference in your life and who has the ability to bring out the best in you or who at least gives you something that is really needed, I think that you do need to recognize that. It is not nothing, nor is it even a little thing. How could I have left her? How much hope did I actually let go of?

This year I had several students who progressed to the point where reading normal English literature wasn’t any kind of problem for them and so along with the normal scripts and novels I usually work with, at the end of the year I took the liberty and used two of my own writings for in class readings. One was the play Pod Kablukom and the other was a movie script I wrote called Paradise. Both I think are reasonably well written but more than just exercising my ego, what I think I really got out of the experience was a sense of pride. The students actually seemed to get something out of them. Emotionally, Pod Kablukom, a play which relates directly to the Belarusian economic and social situation- and especially as we are again in the midst of yet another collapse, got to the readers more directly. There were a lot of laughs in the beginning and many tears at the end, and most of the students seemed to be left a bit stunned and wanting to know if that was really how it all ended.

The Paradise screenplay wasn’t quite as inspirational but the general feeling was that the story moved along at an interesting enough pace and it did raise some good questions and inspire some thinking. Nobody went to sleep on me anyway like they do reading Horse Whisperer (the guys anyway) or The Prestige, which had everybody almost suicidal. So like I say, it was quite satisfying.

But I guess in the end what I am talking about is that though I do have some friends and people who respect me and come around with some energy and all, I do wonder about my actual inspiration. And I was just thinking that this piece that I am working on just now either does or doesn’t have a muse. I actually don’t know if I have one not. I mean, there seems to be someone- or maybe there are several people who care, but is this someone really special? Is this someone with whom hope has been inspired to such a point that the inspiration simply flows? I honestly just don’t know. And more to the point, my actual life situation is so difficult to understand at this very moment that I am not even sure creating such a situation is even possible. Could there be enough love to waylay the feelings of hopelessness? And in moments like the one I am in, are those feelings actually quashed or just temporarily tucked away? Or maybe even a better question would be: At my age and physical condition, is this even a question?

Yes, this is the real problem. Despite logical necessity to do some things, I find myself more and more letting them go. Is this just a byproduct age? Is it just a byproduct of my physical health? Or has the problem become a genuine lack of belief?

It was interesting that several people wrote to me saying that they felt the place I live in would be incredibly difficult for them. And you know, the whole world has its problems but it would seem that adding in a two month, 120% inflation index to what was already here would pretty much put Belarus into that Calcutta/Antarctica group insofar as hope killers go. But this is what I am talking about. When there is some love, and even if it is not really that gentle ear for all of your musings, even Pinsk, Belarus in the middle of yet another crash can seem like a little piece of Paradise.

In any case, I am writing so I guess that is the real point.

More soon...