Humainologie dialogue Amor Fati and A Song for Mother's Day

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” – Helen Keller The topic of amor fati has been suggested for dialogue next Wednesday: Whatever you have to put up with, learn to love it and use it to build your capacity and enhance your wisdom. I love it. Let’s do it. Here’s a short video presentation on amor fati as a part of Stoic philosophy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DmQlKcVcJc Stoicism's Formula For Human Greatness: Amor Fati | Ryan Holiday Amor Fati is Stoicism's formula for human greatness. The ability to love whatever comes at us and see it as an opportunity to practice excellence and virtue is what can keep you from crumbling in the face of the difficulties life throws at you. Learn more about Amor Fati here: https://dailystoic.com/freeguide Amor Fati: https://prints ... www.youtube.com Our writing partner project began as just an idea, then someone said “Let’s do it,” and away we flew. Odile and I did two short stories, mine based on her memory, as a child in Morocco, of an earthquake (“The Night the Bed Shook”) and hers based on a memory of mine from 1953 when I watched the coronation of the British queen on television. Gatwech and I have now finished “A Song for Mother’s Day,” based on his experience of losing his mother when he was eight years old. I have appended the story below. We welcome your feedback. I’ll be looking for another writing partner to begin a new short story, and I encourage each of you to continue this Calgary tradition – to my knowledge, a world first. Carpe diem, Arthur A Song for Mother’s Day Amid the rock and ice of circumstance The depth of dark, the speed of light, How brief our time on earth, our chance To light another’s candle in some way. We have today, and just today, When we must run one relay lap. One life we have, to bring to others The life our mothers brought to us. We bring this light in dark of night, We bring this gift to you, To pass to others, strangers, friends, for every day is mother’s day and through that deep ancestral grove we bring the light of love. 1. Darkness of the Tomb The grass hut was only just visible in the moonlight and the mist. “Don’t go in there!” whispered a voice. No one was in sight. As he approached, the interior of his home was far darker than the night outside. There was candlelight in the other huts, but his family’s home was as dark and as terrifying as a tomb. He walked toward it. Closer. Closer. The door opened. Gatwech awoke from his nightmare and sat up, pulled his knees up toward his chest and put his arms around his legs. He pressed his teeth hard against his knees, breathing rapidly. The night his mother had died two years ago was the end of his own true life and a recurring terror for him at night. He stood up from the cot on the floor of his uncle’s apartment and put on his trousers. The small room had one window. There was a footstool and a chair and table where he did his homework after school. He walked through the tiny kitchen and down the stairs to the street. Whenever he had this nightmare he would go outside and walk until he was tired enough to go back to sleep. At this hour, the streets of Khartoum were deserted and only dimly lit by a few streetlamps. The parapets of the apartments were dark and monotonous, silhouetted against the sky. His village home was far away. Returning to his cot he lay awake for a few minutes. He could hear a car passing outside, probably a police car he thought. He slept. He was in the village of his childhood again. There was an early morning light. His younger brother and sister were running toward him laughing and pointing toward the horizon of morning. They wanted him to look at something. The alarm clock rang, interrupting the dream. He reached up from his cot to the footstool where he had placed it and turned it off. He had to get up and get dressed. It was almost time to leave for school now, and he had to get breakfast. The dream would fade in his memory, and he did not want to lose it, so he thought about it for a few seconds. His younger brother and sister had been running toward him, happy about something. He had never had that dream before. “Gatwech!” his uncle called from the next room, “Are you up?” “Yes, Uncle,” and he pulled himself slowly to his feet, still half asleep. “Gatwech, you must hurry. You should set the alarm to give yourself more time.” Quickly he devoured the small loaf of bread his uncle had set out for him and drank his cup of tea. He listened as his uncle reminded him that if he did well in school, his aunt who lived in Canada would welcome a visit. Perhaps he would even live in Canada, his uncle said. “And Nyadoar would be proud of you,” he added, referring to his sister, Gatwech’s mother. Gatwech pulled his little red knapsack onto his shoulders. Canada was far, far away from his mother. He would never see her again, yet he could not bear the thought of being so far away from her. The walk would be close to an hour. The bus would have taken him there, but the fare was something his uncle said he could not afford right now, so Gatwech walked the distance to and from St Paul School. The teaching at the school was in English rather than Arabic, something his uncle insisted upon. “Hey, Stupid!” Gatluak shouted at him as Gatwech arrived at school and walked across the dirt playground toward the door. The other boys standing around Gatluak looked toward Gatwech and laughed. As they filed into the classroom and took their seats, Mr. Wani greeted them. Gatwech’s desk was halfway back and close to the windows. He put his knapsack on the back of the seat. He took out his schoolbooks and placed them on the little shelf under the seat, except for the one about the history of Sudan. Today they would start with history. The Arabs had come to Sudan before Islam, as merchants and traders, and their intrusion had commercialized the culture, disconnecting it from nature. Mr. Wani described how the very spirit of the Nuer people had been impoverished by the divorce of the tribe from the land. Gatwech’s thoughts returned to his dream. What had his brother and sister wanted to show him? He had to understand what the dream meant. There had been other people in the village looking in the same direction. It reminded him of a moment from childhood when a lioness had ventured near the village. Everyone was excited and pointed in the direction of the lioness. But his dream was different because in the dream his brother and sister were excited and happy. There was not a trace of fear in them. They were joyful. As he had been when his mother was still alive. When he himself was still alive. “Gatwech!” Mr Wani was looking sternly at him. Gatluak was looking at him too, and his other classmates. “Did you hear what I asked you?” Walking home, as he crossed Shaar 61, he thought about what he would say to his uncle. He wanted to tell him about the dream. His uncle would probably ask him why he was late coming home, and he would have to tell him Mr. Wani had kept him in after school. No, he couldn’t tell him about the dream today. Suddenly, as he approached Shaar 62, he noticed a girl about his age walking toward him. She was wearing a blue dress, the color of the sky above his village. He glanced at her as they passed. She was beautiful. He remembered a photograph of his mother as a child. Sitting beside his mother about a year before she died, he had looked at an album of pictures from her childhood and had seen that photograph. The girl looked exactly like his mother when she was that age. He turned and looked back at the little girl. As he did so, she turned and looked back, and she smiled at him. As he walked into the kitchen at the apartment, he heard his uncle say something about a candle and saw the woman who lived next door laughing and talking with his uncle. Then the neighbor noticed Gatwech and her smile faded to an expression of sympathy. Gatwech immediately went into his room. “Do your homework, Gatwech,” his uncle called after him. “You must get to bed earlier tonight.” 2. Voice in the Moonlight The moon was full that night. As he lay awake, he saw it through the window and began to think of one such night when he had walked back from the forest with his mother. They had been so happy, and the brightness of the moon made it better. His mother and his brother and sister were with him, and everyone was laughing. “Gatwech,” his mother had said, “you see how even when things seem very dark there is always joy not far away.” “Gatwech!” Someone had called him from close by, but there was no one in his room. Perhaps it was someone outside the window. He sat up. “Gatwech!” It was a woman’s voice. He thought of the little girl he had passed. He went to the window and looked out on the street but could see no one there. He put on his shoes and his trousers and went outside. He couldn’t see anyone, but something drew him onward, searching for the person who had called his name, and he knew he was searching for his mother and he knew that he would never find her. Yet that voice…. When he reached the park a few streets away and walked into it, he heard the voice again. “Gatwech!” It sounded distinctly like his mother’s voice. It seemed to come from nearby, but again there was no one in sight. It could not be his mother’s voice; he knew that was impossible. Yet the voice was real. He was not dreaming. At last he turned and began walking home. Just before he left the park, he heard the voice say, “I am not dead, Gatwech.” At first startled, he stopped and looked for her one last time. As he returned to the apartment, he felt joyful for the first time in years. He returned to his cot and soon fell into a peaceful sleep. The alarm clock rang. As he began to dress, he noticed a new candle on the table. He assumed his uncle had placed it there. On the way to school he looked for the girl he had seen the day before. He arrived earlier at school than usual and took his seat before the bell had sounded. His teacher smiled at him. “Gatwech, you seem very happy this morning.” He was alert throughout the classes, and Mr. Wani looked at him occasionally with an expression of approval and encouragement. As he left the school, Gatluak said “You must think you’re smart, but you’re not.” He looked directly at Gatluak and noticed a bruise on his cheek. “Are you okay?” he asked. The bully looked down. Gatwech asked again “Gatluak, did someone hurt you? Are you okay?” Gatluak turned abruptly and walked away. On the way home he was thinking about the voice he had heard the night before. Suddenly a girl’s voice said “Hello.” He looked up and it was the girl in the blue dress. “Hello,” he said. At home, his uncle asked “Gatwech, where is the candle from?” He was surprised at this. “I found it,” he said. He had experienced such a full day that he fell into a deeper sleep, more quickly than usual. “Gatwech!” The same voice awoke him again. Nyadoar was sitting on the chair at his table. Gatwech was startled and sat up and pulled his knees up and clutched his legs close to him, looking directly at his mother. She was smiling and seemed very happy. She was wearing a dress he remembered well. It was a beautiful green dress, as green as the fields near the village where she had borne him, but in the moonlight it seemed to have a different color. “Gatwech, I am alive,” She said. “Yes, Mama, I am so happy to see you.” “I live within you,” she said. Gatwech wiped the tears from his eyes with both hands. “If you love me,” his mother said, “then you must be a steadfast friend and a voice of wisdom to yourself. You must always keep the flame of your candle alive.” Her voice was so gentle, as he remembered it, and again he felt the happiness he had felt when he was a child and she would come to his bedside. “Yes, Mama,” he answered. “Come and walk with me,” his mother said. He stood up. “I’ll meet you outside,” she said and disappeared. When he had pulled on his trousers and walked down the stairs, she was waiting for him. In silence they walked to the park. She turned toward him and said, “As you develop that steadfast friendship and voice of wisdom for yourself you must then do the same for others: Light the candles of others.“ She walked beside him in the park for a while. Then she vanished. Walking home, he felt as if he could see and understand things he had never understood before. At home he fell asleep and woke so early that it was still not quite dawn. The candle on his table had been lit. As he rose and dressed, he felt happier than he had ever felt since his mother had died. 3. Rebirth When he arrived at school, Gatluak and his friends watched him in silence. Since his mother had left him, respect from others had been as rare as rainbows in Khartoum, but at that moment he felt it. He went inside and put his knapsack and books in place and sat down. Mr. Wani entered the room and greeted him with a smile. The bell rang. His classmates entered silently, expectantly, looking toward Gatwech as they came in. The Arabs had accomplished many things, Mr. Wani explained, yet for the Nuer so much was lost as the culture of Sudan had been transformed. “Why were the Nuer able to survive the Arab invasion?” his teacher asked. “Because they knew that even when the night seems very dark that there will be a candle when they find their way home, and they knew their way home.” The teacher and his classmates seemed startled into silence by his answer. They stared at Gatwech as if a voice from on high had passed through him to them. Mr. Wani said, “Gatwech,” that is better than any answer I have seen in any book.” On the way home, as he passed one of the houses near Shaar 62, he heard a voice call “Hello, Gatwech.” The little girl was sitting on the porch of one of the houses and waved at him. She was wearing a bright green dress, the color of the fields near his village. He stopped and turned toward her. “What is your name?” he asked. “I am Nyadoar,” the girl answered. . The End