Death Constant Beyond Love

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez vividly portrays the loneliness and carelessness that some people experience due to unfortunate circumstances, in his story, Death Constant Beyond Love. I found the title of this story most interesting because the meaning is so direct; I interpret it as regardless of love, or for that matter emotions or feelings, we all expire, we all die. This is the very image that Marquez elucidates through his character, the Senator.

          The Senator has approximately six months to live; he keeps this a secret and goes on with his duty as Senator. His duty, at least as I interpret it, is to continue to deceive the people of Rosal del Virrey to believe that things will be getting better, while all along the whole intent is to keep things the way they are in order for the town to make money by allowing illegal imports at night in the port.

          Before the Senator knew of his impending death, he used to feel bad for people less fortunate. However, after learning of his unfortunate fate his emotions reverse, he no longer feels bad for the barefooted Indians, who are rented as crowd fillers during the Senator’s speeches, and it annoys him that people want to shake his hand. He seems a miserable person, but who’s to say how we would feel in the same situation. He was completely alone, no friends, no family, and no one knew of his situation.

           The Senator’s fake persona is exactly what causes this lonely, careless feeling. The more he tries not to think of his death, it’s constantly hitting him in the head. He’s married, has six children, and has money; however, none of it matters, he is still alone. He falls in love with a young girl named Laura Farina, who’s father killed his first wife and lost his second wife, her mother, to natural causes. Laura’s father begged the Senator for years to get him a fake ID in order for him to be free, but he refused.

          Later, her father notices the Senator’s interest in her and uses her to get what he always begged for—it works, he gets his papers. However, the Senator never gets Laura in the way he wishes, he doesn’t get to be with her intimately, he just sleeps on her shoulder and that’s it. This later turns into a scandal, and once again the Senator is alone.

          Marquez is careful to show that the Senator ill-fated outcome is just as lonely as he felt through his last six months living. I’m not sure if he meant to show this as a lesson, or if he’s trying to imply that this is reality, and what is perceived by others may just be imagination, like the Senator’s pictorial account of the paper birds that turn into real birds. We know this is impossible, but this is how people see others, this is how the world is shown to us, and we believe what we want to believe. It doesn’t mean that we are wrong for imagining, it just means that we are wrong for trusting and believing in everything that shown to us. We need to be skeptics in order to get the truth, and the truth is what sets us free.

Kirilgan

Kırılgan bir çocuğum ben
Yüreğim cam kırığı
Bütün duygulardan önce
Öğrendim ayrılığı
Saldırgan diyorlar bana
Oysa kırılganım ben
Gözyaşlarım mücevher
Saklıyorum herkesten
Ürküyorlar gözümdeki ateşten
Ürküyorlar dilimdeki zehirden
Ürküyorlar o dur durak bilmeyen
gözükara cesaretimden
Diyorlar: Bir yanı sarp bir uçurum,
Bir yanı çılgın dağ doruğu.
Oysa böyle yapmasam ben
Nasıl korurum içimdeki çocuğu?
Bir yanım çılgın nar ağacı
Bir yanım buz sarayı.  



MURATHAN MUNGAN

Life is Like a Snowball

Ever feel we are our decisions? If we decide to be an angry person, we'll become an angry person. If we decide to be hardworking, we'll more likely end up being a hardworking person. 

Why a snowball of decisions? I think cause maybe the starting part is the awkward, the more difficult one. It's the one nobody notices because it's too small. But we realize as we've made decisions in the past, our future decisions seem to be affected by them. If we've decided to be hardworking, we tend to decide not to spend out time doing nothing - and we eliminate activities in our life that our counter-productive. And so it snowballs...it gets bigger...BIGGER....BIGGER...

Hmm..maybe that's why there's the saying "Old dogs can't learn new tricks."


I think our decisions ultimately shape us and make us who we are. The longer we live, the more decisions we make based on our previous decisions....it snowballs. We end becoming who we are. And we become more difficult to change (this is my personal opinion). try unrolling a giant snowball. We become so settled.

Interesting quote on love

“I have stressed the fact that the beloved person is a substitute for the ideal ego. Two people who love each other are interchanging their ego ideals. That they love each other means they love the ideal of themselves in the other one. There would be no love on earth if this phantom were not there. We fall in love because we cannot attain the image that is our better self and the best of our self. From this concept it is obvious that love itself is only possible on a certain cultural level or after a certain phase in the development of the personality has been reached. The creation of an ego ideal itself marks human progress. When people are entirely satisfied with their actual selves, love is impossible. The transfer of the ego ideal to a person is the most characteristic trait of love.” – Theodor Reik “Of love and lust”

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

Rudyard Kipling

Moments

If I could live again my life,
In the next – I’ll try,
- to make more mistakes,
I won’t try to be so perfect,
I’ll be more relaxed,
I’ll be more full – than I am now,
In fact, I’ll take fewer things seriously,
I’ll be less hygienic,
I’ll take more risks,
I’ll take more trips,
I’ll watch more sunsets,
I’ll climb more mountains,
I’ll swim more rivers,
I’ll go to more places – I’ve never been,
I’ll eat more ice creams and less (lime) beans,
I’ll have more real problems – and less imaginary ones,
I was one of those people who live
prudent and prolific lives -
each minute of his life,
Of course that I had moments of joy – but,
if I could go back I’ll try to have only good moments,

If you don’t know – that’s what life is made of,
Don’t lose the now!

I was one of those who never goes anywhere
without a thermometer,
without a hot-water bottle,
and without an umbrella and without a parachute,

If I could live again – I will travel light,
If I could live again – I’ll try to work bare feet
at the beginning of spring till the end of autumn,
I’ll ride more carts,
I’ll watch more sunrises and play with more children,
If I have the life to live – but now I am 85,
- and I know that I am dying …

by Jorge Luis Borges

Do Your Best And Don't Worry

Compare the best of their days
with the worst of your days:
you won't win
With your standards so high
and your spirits so low
at least remember:
this is you on a bad day
you on a pale day

Just do your best and don't worry
the way you hang yourself is oh so unfair

See the best of how they look
against the worst of how you are:
and, again, you won't win
With your standards so high
and your spirits so low
at least remember:
this is you on a drab day
you in a drab dress

Just do your best and don't worry
the way you hang yourself is oh so unfair
Just do your best and don't worry
the way you watch yourself is oh so unfair

Just do your best and don't worry
the way you hang yourself is oh so unfair
Just do your best and don't worry
do your best and don't...

All I have...

“It’s the most important thing I have”, she said softly.

“Really, it is all I have, it is the only thing  that separates me from everybody else, that is truly my own, the only thing that is -

me.”

There wasn’t anybody listening to her. She was talking to herself, wandering through the winter day, her face cold from the wind, her soul warmed by this surprising, intimate moment.  The desperation she had felt building within herself over the last few weeks started to crumble and the impact released tears she hadn’t been able to shed before.

Her thoughts continued.

“It has been with me all my life. No matter what the conditions around me nor what roads I took, it has never left me, it has been constant. Through the years, I

heard it

took it for granted,

cherished it,

despised it,

ignored it,

fought it,

questioned it,

thought I lost it,

called for it,

lived it.

It has the strength to rob me of my sleep and appetite, the power to send light into the darkest places. It is relentless, even when my mind and my heart falter. It is the last thing that can be heard when all else is silenced.”

She felt a smile form on her face. There was no mistake. She was listening to it now

The things I like about rainy days

The things I like about rainy days:

-         opening my colorful umbrella in the dark

-         how every street, car, traffic, and neon light is doubled by it’s reflection on the wet street, resembling Christmas any time of the year

-         the feeling of rain on my face, my hair getting drenched – life, nature washing the stale dust of lost opportunities from my soul 

-         the soft empathy people show for those who are caught without protection under the sky’s down pour; an sympathetic look, an invitation for a spot under their umbrella, or a bonding line like ‘hope my rain coat is having a good time in the closet’

-         the intensity of nature’s colours; greens, reds, yellows, browns touched up by a brush stroke of clear

-         rain drop races on window panes

-         puddles sharing a different angle of view

-         how the sidewalks and hiking paths empty out leaving me to stand alone on the world’s stage – enjoying the spot light without a human audience at least for a little while. 

-         The circles drawn by hundreds of invisible , tiny ballet dancers’s toes on clear water surfaces