Three tales on obsession
There used to be a little boy who got annoyed by a fly. The insect made a terrible buzzing noise on his ears. He started waving his arms to shoo it away. The fly disappeared, but he kept waving his arms. In fact, as he woke up the next day, he was still doing so. From that day on, the little boy spent all his waking time waving his arms to shoo away an imaginary fly. After a while, his parents started to get worried and annoyed. They wondered what was wrong with the child. It was unbearable living with a kid that kept waving his arms in the air. They took the boy to many different doctors, to therapists. Nothing seemed to work.
One day, the father was sitting in the living room, reading his newspaper when the boy came doing his strange routine. All of sudden, the man could not concentrate on his reading. He was deeply disturbed. Here was his child and they had been unable to help him. And it was annoying, irritating. He lost his temper and exclaimed.
"Stop that. There is no fly there for you to shoo away. There is nothing".
The boy looked at his father attentively. He stopped immediately. And he never tried to shoo away the imaginary fly ever again.
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That is a true story.
I have been thinking a lot about imaginary flies and how much time we spend trying to send them away. How much energy do we spend on defending ourselves from threats and dangers that once were real but are not there anymore? Why do we keep waving wildly at things that brought pain but are not there to hurt us anymore?
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Another tale on obsession
Paulo Coelho is a very popular Brazilian writer, and maybe some of you have already heard of him, since his work has been selling like hotcakes in many countries. He has published here recently a new book called "The Zahir". Now, I don't like this author at all. He writes bad Portuguese, in my opinion, and might be a better read translated. But there was something in the concept of the book that caught my eye. The Zahir is a person or an goal that becomes something one cannot escape, a thought that never leaves one's mind. It is an idea that consumes your heart and imagination. You might think it is the love of your life, your mission, your biggest dream, and that by achieving it you will be fulfilled. But the reason for you not becoming fulfilled is not being unable to reach the Zahir. What you really need, says the author, is not outside. It is not a person or a thing. The important thing would be to understand why you want this so much.
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The book's Zahir is a journalist named Esther, who is the focus of the obsession of the narrator. She leaves him to search her own happiness and his sole quest become recovering Esther. I read a story about that book that interested me more than reading it. The writer, Coelho, was inspired by a British war correspondent. It all started as an interview. The lady sent him an e-mail asking for an interview and got her wish. They exchanged more e-mails, till she fulfilled her assignment and he started making questions to her about being a war correspondent. "Suddenly, I was not an interviewer anymore", she said, "I was being interviewed".
They started an innocent friendship (both are married, by the way). He would write her telling about his story ideas, asking about her life, and she would answer and make questions too, though he didn't seem to be very open to answer them. They became quite close (he confirms it all), e-mailing each other or chatting from the most exhotic corners of the world. When the book was about to be printed, he sent her a copy and warned that she had inspired Esther. "When I read it, I felt naked. Things I had told him came out from the mouth of his character, as if he had stolen my soul", she said in an interview. Her husband and family were not exactly happy when the writer told the world where his inspiration came from. She says she doesn't think remotely on suing the author. She just misses their special relationship.
1 Comments:
This is sad. :(
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