Leonidas and His 2010

Twenty-ten. Two thousand ten. It’s been a slow year so far. Yet its first half is drifting down the drain. And so the beginning of the end of the first decade of the third millennium is slowly trickling down to history. And I’ve tipped over to the wrong side of the twenties last year already. Whoops! It appears that I’m getting there—history. Time to toss the kid into the bin? Now I’ve got to think where I’m going, what I’m doing.

We are defined by what we do. And now, be prepared for—no, not a barrage of philosophical gibberish—the movie quotes again. My apologies, I just can’t help it.

Again, we are defined by what we do. Max (Joe Anderson) in Across the Universe refuted this, and I’d like to agree with him. “No, Uncle Teddy, who you are defines what you do. Right, Jude?” But this only largely happens in the movies, or to those who are either incredibly lucky, brilliant, or stubborn. So lucky that they invented the clover and the horseshoe. So brilliant that they showed everybody in the cave that there is a sun out there. And so stubborn that they made the sun move across the sky, imposed that the earth is the center of the universe, and hanged-slash-burned the brilliant ones who said otherwise.

For the rest of us poor souls, we are defined by what we do. (I can’t believe I stated that thrice.) Think Frank Langella in his immaculately airy, cross-legged mien chastising the waitress who spilled ice all over his table in Sweet November. “You know, sweetie, we are what we do in this world.” No need to go on and quote his stoic coldness, I think. Hence, there are waitresses, clumsy or not. There are fishermen, with a boatful of catch or broken nets. Farmers breaking up the earth for sleeping seeds to sprout, or harvesting weeds. Bakers revealing the secrets of the grain and making bread, or burning them. Teachers guiding or ingraining—or whacking palms with those evil-looking rulers. Leaders and kings ruling or abusing. There are also keepers of stories, fact and fabricated, and they are storytellers and historians. I can go on and on, but Leonidas in 300 had it right through the bone, booming, “Spartaaans! What is your profession?!” His boys were the real thing as they were soldiers first before anything else, simply because soldiering was what they did.

Now, let us ask our little selves—our little Gollums or Smeagols lurking inside our souls—“What is your profession, my preciousssshh?!” After the initial roar of harrooo!s and oorah!s, you’ll know what you do and, consequently, who you are.

But perhaps you will not agree with me. I think that man is wired up in a certain way that his very first reaction to things is skepticism. What! No! Really now? Are you sure? If you still do not agree with me that we are all skeptics, you are being one now. And if you still refuse to believe, you can go and ask the one who is called the Messiah why he had nails and a spear pierce him to the point of despair.

Still, protests will ring the air most certainly:

“What then am I? Am I to be boxed in merely as a supporter since all I do is support?”

“What I do does not really define me since I do a lot of things besides this one! Call me Jack, if you will, since I am a jack of all trades!”

“I am an artist first before a sales agent! I cannot be just a sales agent!”

“I am a free spirit! You cannot box me in!”

“I am a dad—that is who I am!”

“I am mother to my kids and wife to my husband. I am a woman first and foremost!”

It is outrageous really, isn’t it? For you wake up each day, turn the shower on—or check on the kids first, if applicable—dress, eat, then off to work. You light up your PC, raise someone on the phone, and whoosh goes the day. Out of your focus, you see that the keyboard’s emitting a grayish tint, and your mouse is a little hot. So you raise yourself up amazed at how good you do your job. Yeah, ain’t I just good! you think. In between your narcissistic self-worship and your honest-to-goodness toil, you now put on your other beings—a friend, a food connoisseur, a smoker, or a Coke slurper. And at the end of the day, you become the dad or mom that you are again, or the boyfriend or girlfriend, or the movie buff, or the book devourer, or the sleeper if you may.

But the sun rises up again the next day. And so you become the many yous, the many selves that you personify, as the sun—or the moon for that matter—takes its predetermined course in the sky. You are this way for the rest of the week. Then the weekend comes. And then another week. A month. A year. Until one moment in the middle of all this great play we call life, you stop dead on your tracks, look into your own eyes, and ask in a voice as loud as thought and as silent as a whisper, “What am I? Who am I really?”

Whether your answer is an aggregate of all your beings or if just one stands out among the rest, it is yours to keep. Ooorahh to you!

As for me, I’d love to have the courage, even the temerity, to say, I am a wordsmith —following Orlando Bloom’s “I am a blacksmith” parting shot in Kingdom of Heaven. But with my sense of decency or honor or false modesty, if you will, I’d just say, I think I know what I do and who I am. John Rzeznik sang it. “I am a question to the world, not an answer to be heard.” First and foremost.

~ by ariseeker on June 4, 2010.