Charms in A Hologram for the King

A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers – 352 Pages

This won't be the usual salient charms post because I just want to focus on two passages in this book and actually start with a review. 

I heard about this book from one of my friends and I though I'd give it a shot. I was looking for an easy read to get back into the reading scene, so it seemed like the perfect gateway. Was it helpful in that aspect? Yes. I finished this in three days, and I enjoyed the writing.

The prose was simple. Short and clean sentences with a few longer, philosophical thoughts thrown about to give it flavor. And, now it sounds like I am giving you a recipe for the type of novel you should write if you want it to be intriguing and minimalistic at the same time. I cannot guarantee it'll work, but if you try, tell me how it goes.

In any case, this book is about a middle aged man who goes to Saudi Arabia to strike a deal with the king for a huge IT company. He is close to being bankrupt, he is divorced, he needs money to pay off his daughter's college tuition, and he is depressed because he's been kicked out of his  area of expertise due to the changing tides in the business world.

As you can see from my short synopsis, the protagonist (?) of the book seems like he might have potential for a good story, but that is not at all the case. He is not interesting or attention-catching. In fact, he is extremely dull and miserable. He is bitter, lost in his own world, and gloomy, ALL THE TIME. I can remember only a few scenes where he wasn't contemplating his mortality, his uselessness, his family problems, his lack of money, etc. etc.

The ending is dissatisfying, similar to this man's life I suppose. I finished the book and realized I had not changed as a person one bit other than being someone who had read the book. I didn't learn anything. I didn't even see a new way of writing, telling a story, or setting a scene. Everything in my life kept going on as they were, and I am blogging about it now because otherwise this book and the time it took for me to read it will really have been a complete waste.

A girl of about seven, wearing a burqa, came to Salem's window. Immediately he pushed a button to lock the doors. She stayed before his window, tapping it, rubbing her fingers together.

Now Alan noticed there were dozens of women and children, mostly female, all in black burqas, floating form car to car, approaching windows, floating away. 

Alan began to roll down his window. Seeing a more sympathetic face, the girl hurried to his side, her hands outstretched.

– Don't, don't! Salem said. Roll it up.

Alan obeyed, and the rising glass almost caught the girl's tiny fingers. Now she tapped on the glass with increased urgency, her head titled in inquiry, her mouth moving feverishly. Alan smiled and showed his empty palms. She didn't seem to understand or care. She kept tapping.

Salem got her attention and pointed upward. Like that, she turned and left. It was like some kind of magic trick.

– What does that mean, Alan asked, when you point upward like that? He mimicked the gesture.

Salem's attention had returned to his phone.

– It means God will provide.

– And that works?

– It ends the discussion. (p. 240-41)

I hated this passage. Not the passage itself but the reality of it. It reminded me of how there are people out there who think this way. Who try to comfort others this way. Who run from responsibility this way. Who think God is this wild abstraction that is capable of providing and does so in a weird comical irony.

God will provide. I believe this. God is the sole provider for me. Anything in between is a means. Trees, animals, shopping centers. The original source, I know, is God. And He provides. He provides more than enough for all of us. But we have to go and get what we want. Things we need don't simply materialize into our lives. I don't sit down on the dinner table with my family and wait for our plates and bowls to integrate out of the thin air. And just as we get what we need through multiple chains (e.g. world > soil > trees > fruits > farmers > grocery story > me), and just as we can facilitate the movement of what God gives us, we can also obstruct it. Greed, over-consumption, wastefulness. 

God will provide? God does provide. There are enough resources for our species. We just concentrate  it on specific groups and prevent it from reaching others. And when those in need call out to us, we are like, God will give you some too. Don't worry, keep praying. Or, we deflect. We come up with phrases like the ever famous, IF there were a God, why are these people hungry and living in poverty? It's not our job to look after them! Why doesn't God give them food and shelter? See! No God! Ha! 

How distorted does the notion of God have to be in a society for this kind of thinking to exist? Can anyone, who has an inkling of logic and observational skill, actually come to this conclusion or ask this question? Do people seriously look around themselves and reach conclusions like these? Do they seek answers to their spiritual questions through oversimplified naïveté? Apparently and sadly, yes. Yes they do, yes they can. And the concept of God – I don't think I want to get into the need for a structure in that realm yet. 

The other passage that struck home:

They went back to watching the valley below, but Alan was shaken. Yousef had been lighthearted during his questions, but there was something very serious and very sad under his smile, and Alan knew what it was. It was the knowledge that there would be no fighting, and there would be no struggle, no stand taken, and that the two of them, because they were not lacking materially, because despite injustices in their countries they were the recipients of preposterous bounty, would likely do nothing. They were content, they had won. The fighting would be done by others, elsewhere. (p. 276)

Basically the root of the continuation of all our present problems. Most of the time, only people directly affected by a problem try to change it, because while others might know that there is a problem and they should probably help to fix it, why bother risking the comfort they have for a fight that won't directly help them? And even then, even if fighting against the problem helped them, if they are in a slightly better position that the people facing the problem, why give up the privileges and bonuses of their position? 

So fights are done by others, elsewhere, and we sit back and relax because we have the luxury to do so. And what hurts the most about this passage is that we are self-aware. We know that we should be helping fight for these things, fight against injustices, but we are incredibly selfish at the same time and can't be bothered.

Lots of quills,

Belle

Vacuus

(Content warning for discussions of rape, abuse, and violence.)

Recently I came across my music library from a few years ago. It was filled with top hits of the year I downloaded them in and in general, songs I heard on the radio or from other people. If I liked an artist, I would just download as many popular songs they had as possible to make sure I was up to date on my music knowledge and knew the cool lyrics to songs everyone listened to. Cool lyrics being the key phrase here, when I reopened that library, and tried listening to a few songs, I couldn't do it. 

This is of course, not because I am trying to be a snobby indie kid who hates on pop music and disses auto tune in the music industry with every breath she takes, but because I want to use this revelation I had as a gateway into a broader topic I have wanted to write about for a while. 

As I always try to reiterate on this blog, I value personal growth and independence highly and think that everyone should always be striving to be better and and kinder and more open-minded. We should always be moving towards bigger self-awareness and confidence, we should always be learning more about things we don't know, we should always try to better ourselves and our world. Trying to achieve these types of dreams obviously isn't as easy as it is to type them, but I believe that in the past few years I have grown as a person. 

And now, I realize it's going to sound like I grew out of pop music and the Top 40, but that's not it. The reason I couldn't listen to the majority of these songs was because of the content and the ways the lyrics made me feel. They were mostly very degrading towards women, violent and dehumanizing to a point where the mood stayed the same from song to song and I felt really uncomfortable. The kind of songs that hypersexualize women, that encourage rape and non-consensual sex, that reduce women to objects to be used and devoured, that focus entirely on a woman's physical attributes, that normalize stalking fantasies and infidelity etc. etc.

But, where am I going with this? 

I want to tie this in to the human psychology and how our thoughts and beliefs and desires take form and what role the outside environment plays on them. A disclaimer before I get into it: I am not certified to speak on the medical and scientific aspects of psychology. These are only my theories and observations based on personal experience. 

I have already said that I have grown as a person, and I know this will make it seem like I am a part of this generation that old white men in power fear, the part that has progressive thoughts, unlimited hope, and radical ideas about how we should run our governments and what we should do about injustices – you know, the crazy kids who declare themselves feminists and activists, and place themselves on the liberal side of political scales, those kids. I am okay with that. Because while people will use my labels to try and invalidate my experiences and thoughts, the reality of the situation will remain as it is. I will have lived these events, and I will have had these thoughts. So yes, this is coming from a self-loving, always learning, joke making but also joke ripping feminist, who thinks and fights for social rights and is proud to be a part of those movements that try to make this world a better, more livable place. 

(Side note on this whole post: I haven't written an opinion piece in such a long time, I think my brain is overcompensating, but bear with me.)

In any case, I was okay with listening to those kind of songs at the time because I didn't really feel affected by them. They were endorsing ideas that were engraved into my mind and I had a huge supply of internalized misogyny to make me agree with some of them while taking others lightly or deliberately misinterpreting them. Not that I thought too much about the lyrics I was listening to – I just listened to them on repeat, sang along, and didn't feel conflicted. (It was horrible). I was solidifying the expectations and unwritten rules society had placed about women and I was siding with people who created and furthered these expectations and rules. Obviously, my self-respect and awareness was very very very misplaced.

Which is why, after beginning to improve myself, and opening my eyes to the problems we have as women, I couldn't really listen to these songs. But songs are only one part of the media we consume. And even from them, we can see how effective they are and how big of an impact they have on our worldviews. 

The point is – these things, they are not consumed in a vacuum. And people who treat them like they are are either super naive or super ignorant. The music we listen to affects us. It makes a place for itself in our subconscious. We repeat words and phrases that we don't wholly agree with or that we would never produce ourselves. We don't listen to music in a vacuum, where it stays only as a catchy tempo and never influences the way we see things. We don't play games or chat with strangers or write stories and poetry in a vacuum. We make conscious decisions to do these things and they affect us. 

I got involved in several arguments on Twitter over the fairly recent Gamergate controversy because a lot of men were insistent that what happens in video games stays in video games. Which is not true. When a gamer makes the decision to kill a sex worker in a game, to violate another body, no matter its virtuality, he is making that decision. He is thinking, I will now rape this character on my screen and then brutally run her over with my car. This is coming from the same organ he decides what socks to wear and what greetings to say to a cashier. We can't put dividers in our brain that can separate our actions and thoughts so absolutely. It's a thought he had? Then it is a thought he had. He can't just say it was only a game and he would never do that in real life. Sure, for the big majority of gamers this is true. 

If we think about it, the big majority of music listeners won't go out and commit rape either. The big majority of readers of fiction that has themes like pedophilia aren't going to be pedophiles either. Yes, that is true. But we need to stop acting like these things we consume aren't affecting us. Violence in our movie and television sector has become so brutally common that I am no longer affected by intense torture scenes. This is not a normal reaction to have. When I see a man's throat being cut or someone's eyes scooped out, I should cringe despite knowing that it's film effects because there are people, real people, who are victims of violence and acts like those. I should be aware that these are not normal, they are not something anyone should be used to. Because once something is normalized, we become indifferent to it and indifference is the worst disease.   

A lot of my Gamergate arguments were with people who believed that having these kind of fantasies (rape, violence, murder etc.) was okay and that the gaming industry only provided a safe space for people to act these fantasies out. This was shocking to me as I had not realized mentally and emotionally healthy human beings were regularly overtaken by fantasies of brutal homicides and gang rapes. Because while we are, as people, capable of these sort of acts, in peaceful and safe environments, we should see no need for them whatsoever. So, no, the gaming industry isn't providing a safe space for people to act these out, it's furthering the normalization of these sort of thoughts and desires in people. 

Of course, this is not a simple issue. We can't just say, let's stop talking about these. Let's just censor books and games and music and only talk about all things sugar, spice, and everything nice. This is more complex. And it's because we have a culture set up that pushes people towards these kind of wants. We need to ask ourselves, why do men fantasize about rape? Why do women fantasize about being raped? Why is killing people in a video-game considered an anti-depressant? 

How do we reach a middle ground where we can talk about these problems while cutting them down at the same time and not romanticizing them? Because sure, Lolita is a psychology novel with great literary merit, and a novel that raises a lot of questions, but it is not a one dimensional book created to only make us question how we interact with people of different age groups and ask ourselves if we can sympathize with a pedophile. Books and media in general, they come in layers. There is what the author intended, there is what the story says, and there is what the reader interprets. How do we reconcile all these in having a healthy discussion and supporting research to find answers and in providing one more way for people to further their thoughts and wishes of these things?

We can't police people's thoughts. We aren't in 1984. We don't want to police people's thoughts. I think what we want, or at least, what I want, is to make sure that we don't have these thoughts, because they are not healthy thoughts and they shouldn't make up a big portion of our lives. We shouldn't be enjoying music that glamorizes rape. So the question is, why are we?

Lots of figs,

Belle

the busy griever

this is an extended update about the last few days in my life, my counselor and a few friends told me to write about what happened and i will most likely be babbling, but i know that it will help because writing usually helps me. 

i learned that i lost my grandfather this past thursday, and that he made my mom promise to not tell me until she returned from turkey and could tell me in person and be there when i learned, and that just shows how great and thoughtful he was, and how much he loved me.

i was very close to my grandfather, when i was born, my dad was doing his phd and my mom was still in university, and because we lived fairly close, my grandparents looked after me until i started elementary school. my grandfather would take me out every day, and we would walk and go to parks and mosques and little shops from morning till noon and when i got back i would be tired, happy, and full, and my grandmother would give me a bath and put me to sleep. we had a route that we would follow and certain things we had to do no matter what. for example, after all our walking, when we were finally returning back home, we would visit the mosque next to their house, and we would make a stop at all the water fountains and i would play with the water from each faucet. after i had soaked myself from head to toe playing with the water, we'd make a stop at the small grocery store. it wasn't actually a grocery store though, it only sold fruits and vegetables and from there my grandfather would buy a hand of bananas that i would finish before we reached their house.

when i was talking to my counselor she asked me about my happy memories with him and i realized that all my memories with him were happy. that i had no bad memories with him. none. the ones i have are all filled with love and fun. i always felt good when i was with my grandfather. i felt important and i felt real. i felt loved. i felt cared for. i felt respected. i was beautiful and fierce. i was strong and invincible. and i plan to treasure those feelings. i plan to continue striving towards being a stronger and fiercer person. to make sure i fulfill the potential he saw in me. to make sure that i deserved his faith in me. to make sure that his memory lives on with me.

my grandfather had a lot of plants and he was so in tune with them that they would grow and bloom with his moods and wither and turn away with his discomfort and illnesses. it was like he had put a piece of his soul in the soil of their roots. when my mom first delivered the news to me, i felt a part of me die. but i am not sad over losing the tree within me because the first thing my grandmother said when my mom asked her about me going to college was to not worry because i had deep roots. i have deep roots. deep deep roots enriched with the gift of having my grandfather as my grandfather. strong and grounded and unyielding.

i just really wish i had been there with him. i always thought i would be, because even though i often think about death and how not even a breath is guaranteed to us, i guess i never allowed that thought to touch the people i loved. but i know that he passed away peacefully. he wasn't in pain and suffering, he was at rest. he was doing okay. he welcomed the angel coming to free his soul from his body. he told my mom that he saw two soldiers waiting to escort him. and they told him that they had prepared a banquet for him. and him not having been able to eat for the past two months, hearing that was a good omen for us. he was beautiful my mom said, he looked really peaceful. and so many people came to the funeral and they all had good memories of him. so many people, so many people that he touched. he had done something for every single one of them. he had fixed someone's plumbing problem. he had helped someone with their electricity. he had fed someone. he had given a good piece of advice. that's the kind of person he was. he was very generous and he had a solid character. he did what was right and wasn't afraid of anyone and he had a very admirable moral compass.

i am just really thankful that my faith helps me and i know that God is with me. there are so many things i am grateful for. i am grateful for how my grandfather left us and how hopefully he'll go to heaven. i am grateful for the strength God has given us to bear the sadness. and the will to pray for my grandfather to make his afterlife easy and comfortable. i am grateful that when we die, we don't become nothing. we aren't lost into the void. we just make a transition from the limited to the limitless. we are rid of pain and hurt and are rewarded justly with good things. i am grateful that i have the opportunity to meet with my grandfather once again. to meet with him and be with him eternally. i am grateful that God made us one of the people who had knowledge of Him and who loved Him.

and i know that some people don't look too kindly upon the use of religion and faith when it comes to matters of death and mortality. and while everyone has their own opinions about what happens to us after we die, i am not interested in the pessimistic worldview that i will delve into nonexistence not only physically but also spiritually. not only do i think that this sort of thinking is toxic and unhelpful to a griever, i also think it's a bit absurd. but those thoughts are for another time.

in the end, i hope that i'll live a life that'll make my grandfather proud. please keep him in your prayers.

lots of pondering moments,
~belle