Election Night in Times Square, New York City 2008

I arrived at Times Square 4 Nov, 2008 - The Hilton at Times Square

Times Square

Results coming in

Crowd on the island in Times Square and camera panning the crowd

Bright lights, signs and TV screens surrounding Times Square

Obama's victory just announced

Many rejoice...

...and others weary with stress and disappointment.

And this was the end of an emotional night.

I talked to an angel. She was an angel of love above all else. Her love for us, for each and every one of us, was just like the love a mother feels for her new-born child as she holds it in her arms, so I called her Angel Mother.

One day, as usual, I was on the subway going into the city center. The diversity in the people that come onto the subway train never ceases to captivate me. Often I spend my time on the train observing people as they get off or come on the train, or as they sit talking, reading or listening to music, and this particular morning was not an exception. On this particular morning, a very large, very round young woman stepped onto the train. Despite her size and shape, she was wearing a denim mini-skirt. I had never seen someone so overweight wearing a mini-skirt before and I was a little surprised by the sight.

I, being mired and moored too much in this world, felt the precursor to some critical and unkind thoughts about this young woman start to well up inside me. However, because I wanted to change myself, a question came to me instead and I asked Angel Mother “But what do you think? Isn’t she fat? And isn’t it then also in particularly bad taste to wear a mini-skirt?”

Angel Mother’s response was instantaneous, firm and blunt: “I do not concern myself with her external appearance. I only care about her inner being.”

What Angel Mother expressed felt so beautiful as I experienced it, that tears came to my eyes as I sat on the train. I tried to wipe my tears away quickly and suppress my emotions so no one would notice; unfortunately my stop was next and I could not linger in the experience.

“Angel Mother loves everyone without prejudice and without discrimination,” I thought, ”she will be my mentor and my role model.”

Most of the time, people discuss the subject of truth as if truth were a tool by which they manipulate another person or are manipulated by them. Human beings, as most of us can attest, do, indeed, predominantly use the truth to manipulate and control others’ actions, reactions or feelings, as we determine to tell the truth, to tell a lie, or to withhold some aspect of the truth, or certain information, with the sole intent of controlling the reaction of the other(s) in question. A classic justification for lying is “I don’t want to hurt her/him.” The obvious answer to not hurting the person in question is to not do what would hurt them in the first place. You already hurt the person in doing the act, which exists independently of the person’s knowledge of it. Having done it, however, and then aggravating the situation and the imminent pain by trying to control the person you hurt by lying is wronging them twice. In this situation, lying is all about protecting the liar. If you wrong somebody, take responsibility for your actions, come clean, sincerely apologize, admit your mistake, then let it go and sit back and accept the reactions of the one you hurt. In the process, you’ll get a clear conscience and a huge weight off of your chest.

For humans, truth has predominantly been made subservient to our various personal agendas. Truth is not supposed to be a tool for manipulation and control, or to be made subservient to our agendas. Truth is not a tool. Truth is a goal and a virtue in and of itself, to which all personal agendas should be made subservient and which we all should strive for. If you can’t achieve a personal agenda with truth, abandon it, or modify it. As humans of principles, truth is our North Star as we navigate our way through life.

Implement truth with wisdom and kindness

Some people pride themselves on always speaking what comes into their minds, uncensored and unfiltered, and they think that by doing so, they are doing everyone they interact with a great service with their “honesty.” For example, they think it is honest to tell someone they have a big nose, or that they are fat, or ugly, or that they look like an elephant in those pants. This is not truth. This is more akin to teasing and insulting. While it may be a true portrayal of that particular individual’s opinion and general ill-will, since there is clearly nothing the recipient can do with such degrading and subjective information, the intent behind saying such things is primarily hostile, or mocking, and self-serving and the true intent of the speaker is to make him or herself feel better, or to raise him or herself above the recipient by making the recipient feel bad or by humiliating the recipient. This is just another way of making truth subservient to a personal agenda and of manipulating the reactions of others.

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We should aspire to make truth our guiding light in life, and we should consciously and deliberately avoid situations and actions which would lead to situations in which we would be tempted to lie, or where telling the truth would be too hard for us to do. At the same time, in general, we should impart truth with wisdom and compassion and use judgment when being truthful with others and not “tell the truth” from a place of spite or ill-will, or personal insecurity.

This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

– Shakespeare

When you are invisible, you write and people don’t see your words. When you are invisible, you speak and people speak over you, you cry and no one hears you, you take your stand and people walk on you. When you are invisible, you can enter into a room of people, unobserved, and listen and watch. You can read other people without them knowing, you can know them and see inside them, through their words, through their behavior, into their heart, without them even knowing that they are laying themselves bare before you – they can’t see you, they can’t feel you, to them, you are not there.

When you are invisible, unperceived, you can feel a man from across the room, looking into his face, you can feel his pain – you can be moved to tears by his sorrow and yearn to comfort him, but you cannot move, you cannot even speak to him, because you don’t speak his language, because he is a stranger, because he has no idea what you know about him, things you should not know – and he cannot see you.

When you are invisible, you can see a small boy being tormented by the misguided comfort of an adult. You can hear in the boy’s cries, you can feel his tears, he wants to be left alone, but the adult relentlessly “comforts.” Inside, you cannot understand why the adult persists and all you want to do is shout at the adult to leave the little boy alone, to relieve his escalating stress and the overpowering frustration that gives rise to his wailing and tears, but you cannot, because you are no one, not to be believed, you are invisible.

When you are invisible, you can sit in a classroom as the sound of students’ chatter, the squeaking of chairs, the rustling of papers lulls your mind to sleep, until you sink completely into the depths of the sea of your mind, inside of you, where your thoughts carry you very far from your body, in complete serenity, in stark contrast to the loud chaos of the world around you; all of the voices and the noises become as a soft and distant drone. You sit and look around you – you can see the other students, the teacher – you can see from your depth what they are doing “on the surface.” Although they are sitting so close to you, you are looking upon them from so far inside, contemplating the phenomenon and silently asking yourself in your mind “Where am I?” They carry on chatting with one another as if you don’t exist and you are as a spirit hovering in the room.

When you are invisible, you can see all of the things that the visible people can’t see in one another; hidden evils, veiling façades, false pretenses, unperceived misunderstandings, intimate shames, secrets, sorrows…but you must keep it all inside, because since you are invisible, no one believes in you.

*Tunisia/Finland-090704/030505

Why do I fall apart when he stays away for days and days? More importantly, why does he stay away from me, why does he leave me…alone…wondering…writing…

“I sit alone here in my dark, silent room, writing to you by candlelight and staring out the window at the falling snow; each little snowflake living its brief moment in the light of the street lamp, lingering or hastened through this limelight at the whim of the wind, passing thus away, back into the dark space of night, becoming again invisible, forgotten.

Here I wait for you. I’ve waited for you all day. You said you would come. You did not come. I ask myself in my solitude ‘Did he forget me?’ I ask myself ‘Why does everyone forget me?’ like a small girl left waiting alone outside in the cold after her school has closed for the day and all her classmates have long since been picked up and taken back home to the warm embrace of a family. The small girl stands alone, shivering in the cold, unclaimed, abandoned, orphaned…scared. Nobody wants her, nobody remembers her – not even her own parents.

As I stare into the night, white with falling snow, deep inside me I feel this pain – my brief time in the light of your love is done.

I ask myself, ‘How many days will he desert me for this time? How many weeks?’

I ask myself, ‘Why did they forget me? Why did they leave me alone, waiting?’ Time after time, I only find one explanation – I am not worthy.”

*Finland-050505