“Its” all about sharing lives with other lives like fingers interlocking. Letting souls of people comingle and explore one another through the words you share. Divulging your secrets to those you barely know, with an innate trust. This allows your words to melt together without judgment and evaluation.“Its” about making someone understand the things that you have experienced; the fires that warmed you when you were erupting goose bumps in countries where you had nothing in common with the soil; nothing that could be conveyed in a spoken language or a classroom. Introductions without physical meetings-the people who share your life with you to the people who became your family, and in turn, you became theirs. How many brothers, mothers, grandfathers, uncles and sisters I have had? I would say far too many to count, but not far too many.
Having lived on the same earth and having heard the same sound echo-the convergence of one pinpoint moment in time where two, three or thousands of lives have all had this experience with different backgrounds and soundtracks…In many parts of the world amidst bombings, tears, ice, and storms.
Some share “it” through art--each brushstroke bringing the viewer into an emotion, a time, a memory- where colors converged to express that moment. Words have their limitations-confined and construed by grammar and semantics; but color seizes no rules-No beats and no rhythms. Only a person who has experienced the same quandary or emotion in some form or another can understand the meaning of the mixing colors, shading of the values, contrasting and comparing.
Then, there are those who measure....for the entirety of their lives. The timekeepers that count down the seconds. The scientists are inquisitive- in search of theories and explanations to that which will remain unknown. They seek to understand the amount in which "it" varies from the next.
The “measurers” are not to be confused with the "do"ers; Who keep themselves busy, like the bees in a hive. They are keeping pace with the pony at the local county fair; going around and around in circles till they are fed and given a furlough. Are they able to comprehend the esteemed thirst for magic they satisfy for the irreproachable hearts that enjoy them? Can they see they are a component in life like a wheel that keeps life moving, some more lubricated than others
The “sharers”, “artists”, “measurers” and “do”ers all combine efforts to deepen our understanding of life because each of us embody a part of them. When the sun sets and the stars shine, the people in your life that take the time to listen and understand the unspoken ideas and the complex portrait of emotions that come with these ideas….those are the people that make the sunshine in ways you could have only dreamed of, no matter how dark your world may seem. Those are the friends you keep, the people you miss, the only stories that are worth telling; if not to share them with these people-the experience was barely worth having. That’s what “its” all about.
22 September 2008
27 July 2008
World Insect Museum and my New Best Friend Manop
On the recommendation of dear Ramesh, I ended up spending a few hours today in an eccentric little museum of a man who dedicated his life to mosquitoes,nature, and the power of art and beauty that keeps the world in balance.
I pulled up to the house-turned museum in a tuk-tuk and was swiftly greeted by a little old man with a smiling soul. He asked where I came from and happily escorted me into his quirky little museum. Housed inside is a collection of insects (with a specific interest on mosquitoes), artwork, natural wonders, Manop's random thoughts, scientific and historical data and artifacts, and relics of 80 some odd years of a man and his wife dedicating themselves to classifying mosquitoes in Thailand.
I can't begin to describe the wonderous things inside--so I'll just name a few.. There is a collection of termite art where wood modified by termite holes would be titled "dog and bird"--(one really had to reach to the cobwebbed realms of your imagination to see what Manop saw). The walls inside housed his artwork influenced heavily by Thailand's Buddhism, awesome use of color and shape, mosquitoes, balance with the world and of course the power of nature. There was a room dedicated to Malaria, Dengue, and Filariasis which was a random smattering of diagrams from text books, Manop's typed thoughts on the subject, and labelled field notes and scientific specimens along with the story of when he almost died of malaria as a young boy after forced relocation due to political instability caused by the Japanese Army.
After the tour, I spent a few hours picking Manoj's brain about what he thought were the major barriers of taming the malaria epidemic. He spoke of the appropriate uses of DDT and how we needed to be using it inside the home and not diluting it and spreading it outside the home. He thinks that ecosystems harmonize themselves and if we truly understood the disease from a larger standpoint of not just host, we would be able to figure out exactly where to do an effective intervention that was not based on chemicals. He cited the lack of confidence in the mind body connection as a barrier to cure and the medical establishment and drug companies pushing medicines. He also talking about the political barriers to malaria and how governments sensationalize the problem into being bigger than it is.
We talked about the force of nature and how modern medicine is trying to change things like creation (cloning) and aging. I helped him edit a story he was working on for the museum. He told me to come back anytime and please stay at the museum next time. It was one of my favorite experiences in Thailand so far to meet a man so gently fusing nature, science and his passion of mosquitoes and sharing it with the world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)