We Love Only What We Understand
Once upon a time in a small Dutch town
an young girl wanted to change her life
She met a stranger, an art dealer
who took her to Paris and opened the door for her
to new exciting life full of imagination and creativity
Theo patiently taught Jo how to recognise a masterpiece
in painting while supporting new artistic ideas and trends
She was wondering about his strange brother
he worshiped but she never met who cut his own ear
and send it to his brother with a short note full of frustration
of not being able to finish his painting to his own satisfaction
“He is a true genius, my brother Vincent,” Theo told her:
“The world just does not know it yet.”
And then one day Vincent stood in their doorway and Jo
lied her eyes on him for the first time.
Those fleeting serendipitous connections of ours…that allows us to feel the comfort of strangers…especially those who are profoundly different to us…
Not long after Vincent died destitute in poor French countryside
and Theo never forgave himself not to be on his side.
He died himself one year later and Jo with her newborn baby she named Vincent in her arms returned to her small Dutch town.
She opened a boarding house to support herself and her child
she adorned with paintings of Vincent van Gogh no one seemed to value at that time.
She became an art dealer in her own right.
For the rest of her life promoted Vincent van Gogh, a tragic
beautiful person and painter he was.
The reason any of us, now two hundreds years later
are so familiar with Vincent van Gogh, his life and his art
is because of Jo Van Gogh, his sister in law and her long life pursuit
to make him and his art accessible to anyone and everyone
as Vincent always wanted.
He was an artist of people and for people.
She knew it straight away
when she met him for that one time.
They were kindred spirits after all.
Those fleeting serendipitous connections of ours…that allows us to feel the comfort of strangers…especially those who are profoundly different to us…
In this profoundly different pandemic covid-19 times
Jo would never left for Paris with Theo. She would never meet Vincent and one big genius would be lost to us all
"Attitudes to strangers are changing more rapidly than ever before,"
a fellow hiker I met on 'Larapinga' trail winked at me when I got up
from my resting place before he managed to place his backpack
on a rock nearby and waved him goodbye.
I looked up at the elder man in surprise
I was long past the Jo's onset of adolescence
that bursting desire to interact
with all sorts of people,
particularly the strangers.
My escape from a city to a long desert hike
meant I was running away from interactions
intimate or social,
how he could not see that?
An elderly couple appeared on my path
descending from a hill
Their small backpacks indicated it was just an one day hike
And I looked back at an elder man who decided to follow me
with an unsaid question: "Where is your life partner?"
I saw him shrugged: "I am a widower,
the kids all grown up,
time is no more scarce,
just you have no one to share it with
any more."
"Sorry but I have no time
for unforeseen liaisons,
that my professional duties
require on daily basis
at work,
this is my only holiday
I need to be left alone."
He chuckled climbing the hill behind me
in even steady stride: "Wait for an old age,
when frailty seeps in
in your retirement
the joy of a random meeting
may mean more to you
to winning a Lotto."
I stopped to catch a breath
adjusting my big backpack with supplies
lasting me a week in the least
and shrugged: "I have another ten years in me
Recommended
to keep my managerial
position..."
But he was not listening just gazing down on the flat shrubs
bellow musing: "Just a smile, or a chance remark
that might lead to an unexpectedly
deep conversation ,
a mutual understanding
that is life worth living
even if the fellow hiker is never seen again."
"What was your profession before you retired?"
I asked suddenly and he smiled to himself:
"I was a science teacher, the best job you can ask for."
Today, in the age of covid-19 and Zoom
strangers haves assumed a role as a looming source of infection.
I often think of that retired science teacher I met on my pre-covid hike.
There is a scrap of an old serviette in my pocket
he wiped his mouth on after we shared our dinner
that evening on the highest point on 'Larapinga' trail
I used my little stub of pencil to dot down few notes
of his speech he gave to his last classroom of students
before retiring.
I look at it often when I feel stuck and lonely
in a long Melbourne lockdown,
two hundreds days and counting,
his words are just more imminent.
How to raise new scientists and future thinkers?
Many of our children are born natural dreamers
and quiet observers of life
sitting at the back of class noticed barely by anyone.
Concerned teachers and parents constantly
bug them with quizzical questions,
afraid that those quiet underachievers
will miss out on opportunities, jobs,
big money and comfortable life
we all envisage as the picture perfect life.
And yet they are observing us and the world
with their critical inquisitive eyes ready t
o make a difference when their time comes
and this is the speech we should give them.
We teach our children that their first duty
is to get enough money, place and fame to their name.
We forget to ask them: 'What is this truth you seek, what is this beauty?"
We should teach them to be neither criticised
nor flattered out of your position of constant exploration
and enquiry about the world.
Make yourself necessary to the world
and mankind gives you bread
and human perpetual affection in nature, art and hope.
If you feel in your deepest soul
you were called upon to seek the truth and beauty,
be bold, be firm, be true
for the hour of that choice
is the crisis of your history.
See that you hold yourself by the intellect,
so the domineering temple of the sensory world t
hat creates the extreme need
for the priests and science
never stops you
from exploring and questioning
everything and everyone.
Meet people face to face in every opportunity
that is the only way we can influence each other
break down the boundaries
grow and change
for better.
How our post pandemic world will look like?
Do we stumble back into a world of accidental collisions?
My own Australian government is asking the same question of its people right now.
"Do you want to open the borders and live with the Covid-19
and fear of being infected by strangers passing you on streets?"
Or
"Do you want to stay closed to outside world with continuous lock downs
until the world is free of the Covid-19?"
The people of Australia are united in their answer of their desire to meet
strangers on their streets once again despite the danger of an infection
because those fleeting serendipitous connections of ours…
that allows us to feel the comfort of strangers…
especially those who are profoundly different to us…
One of my dear Indigenous friend I met face to face in pre-covid times once told me...
In the end we will value only what we love, we love only what we understand, we will understand only what we are taught. Those teachers we need to meet face to face...
Love means respect we show in the Covid-19 times by vaccination and face mask wearing...
so we protect those we love and those strangers we do not know...
