The Wizard of Oz, Chopsticks, Suicide, etc.

I was told by a person I met recently that for most things in life, I have ‘platforms and policies’. I think what he politely meant was that I’m highly, if not too opinionated. I’d probably have a black/white view on chopsticks. Come to think of it, I do think disposable chopsticks are wasteful. Does the damage caused onto trees to produce them outweigh the environmental damage from plastic utensils? I’ll check.

Moving on, my take on suicide has been ‘no’ for a while. And don’t worry, it still is, and it was never really about me anyway. I somewhat understand why people may attempt failed suicides (Apparently, to get attention. It would not at all have worked in my family, but hey. My mom would have dragged my ass to the ICU of Yekatit 12 Hospital to show me injured soldiers and ask, ‘ihis, hiwot aschegeresh …?’). I just don’t get the ones who succeed (unless it was an accidental success on a botched attempt, or under a sentence of life imprisonment.) Why not just walk to any country/place and restart a new life under a new identity? Just walk. No, this didn’t occur to me after I grew to be more resourceful. I used to think this when I was 15.

As I get older, I’m realizing that life can get you really down. If you’ve a somewhat normal life, you can pull all faculties and resources to a focus, you can turn it back around. At least that’s been the case in my life so far. At some point, the knowledge and belief in that I can always make things OK were, in themselves, a big comfort.

As I grow even more older, I’m beginning to feel that there’s something sad about this kind of comfort, in believing that I will always eventually be OK. If the Wizard of Oz had to be written over and over again, and Dorothy was always to land safe and to find a new set friends, again and again, how long would it have remained wondrous and fun?

In the honor of the approaching the end of my third decade, here’s a new platform/policy: paradoxically, it’s not all OK to be OK.

Not that there’s an alternative.

“When I get older, I will be stronger; they’ll call me freedom ….”

Oh, and I don’t rally like K’naan.