"Don't kill yourself from the inside while others are butchering you from the outside." – Dragoslav Bokan
ALL IS IN THE ESSENCE
The essence of life, I’m convinced, is in whether you know who is who in your life. Who’ll be at your side when you’re in trouble and not just when he needs something. The entire essence of life lies there.
And when you enter some vortex of fate and a quicksand of some trouble, your eyes look for the reality of escaping that situation. Then, all the knowledge of this world and all the nice words and praises from your friends are useless alongside all that you’ve done and left behind you.
The only thing that pulls you out from disaster is the real support from a friend known or unknown, somebody’s decision to burden himself – in addition to his own troubles and problems – with what is troubling you. Such moments happen in the lives of each of us and you all know what I’m talking about.
Those moments are especially dangerous as they can insidiously lead you to disappointment, with real reasons – in all that’s most important in your life. All that has no connection with your troubles most often suffers in these situations. Faith in God and love for a country, hope that things will get better, all your benevolence and all that you’re doing for free and out of pure ideals – all of that, then, frequently suffers and vanishes, transforming you into what you have deeply despised and refused until that point.
Disappointed idealists become worse and more merciless than those that have always been choosing the road of improvisation and deceit because the former have lost the very essence of their existence. Because they have lost their soul.
The soul becomes lost and it becomes offered to the unsayable when it seems to you that the sky is empty and without a God and when you throw to the trash the phone directory with the written evidence of your stupidity and misjudgments and when you’re lonely like a wolf thrown out of the wolf pack, like a tree in a desert, like a misfortunate Job, like almost every citizen [of Serbia] in the midst of his indifferent compatriots (until the turn comes for their suffering, their insufferable loneliness and trouble that awaits us all).
Then, one should have the courage of Milos Obilic and the patience of Father Tadej, the strength of survival of the shepherds from Peshter, the wisdom of the first Christians and the romantic enthusiasm of the kids who volunteered for the first rows of the First World War leaving European universities for the muddy, bloody trenches of Cer and Suvobor.
Those are the opportunities to fulfill the [untranslatable] on the battlefield of your heart and hold on through that dangerous, fatal disappointment in all that’s most important and most valuable.
Abandon false friends, but not the belief in friendship. Accept the reality of all losses and misfortunes. Walk firmly through the thorny thicket of troubles. Look straight in the eyes of everyone who then oppresses you – calmly speak to him what you feel (what you really feel), and don’t be afraid of anyone and anything – except yourself and your disappointments.
Minimize and become more modest in everything, abandon futile chases of justice, do not wail and humiliate yourself in front of anyone, inhale deeply, move somewhere, press strongly your jaws, take a walk through wind and in rain, make your prayers more frequent and go to the nearest church which is emergency help for the hardest attacks of despair and hopelessness.
Do all you wish and can, but don’t sell your immortal soul abandoning that which is most beautiful and best in you.
Don’t kill yourself from the inside while others are butchering you from the outside.
Don’t be a participator in your own disaster and don’t transform yourself from a tragic hero to a sore miserable loser. Between those two, the difference is only in the choice of pose and position. The problem is frequently the same but the reactions to the problem’s presence are completely unlike and fundamentally different.
And that it’s difficult to live as a human being in the midst of ruins of a state and society – it really is. Really difficult.
I can only wish you good luck on that kind of journey (“through a dark tunnel”) and quote my son Vladislav – that the troubles are, perhaps, merely a sign that “God has different plans with us.”
And when you enter some vortex of fate and a quicksand of some trouble, your eyes look for the reality of escaping that situation. Then, all the knowledge of this world and all the nice words and praises from your friends are useless alongside all that you’ve done and left behind you.
The only thing that pulls you out from disaster is the real support from a friend known or unknown, somebody’s decision to burden himself – in addition to his own troubles and problems – with what is troubling you. Such moments happen in the lives of each of us and you all know what I’m talking about.
Those moments are especially dangerous as they can insidiously lead you to disappointment, with real reasons – in all that’s most important in your life. All that has no connection with your troubles most often suffers in these situations. Faith in God and love for a country, hope that things will get better, all your benevolence and all that you’re doing for free and out of pure ideals – all of that, then, frequently suffers and vanishes, transforming you into what you have deeply despised and refused until that point.
Disappointed idealists become worse and more merciless than those that have always been choosing the road of improvisation and deceit because the former have lost the very essence of their existence. Because they have lost their soul.
The soul becomes lost and it becomes offered to the unsayable when it seems to you that the sky is empty and without a God and when you throw to the trash the phone directory with the written evidence of your stupidity and misjudgments and when you’re lonely like a wolf thrown out of the wolf pack, like a tree in a desert, like a misfortunate Job, like almost every citizen [of Serbia] in the midst of his indifferent compatriots (until the turn comes for their suffering, their insufferable loneliness and trouble that awaits us all).
Then, one should have the courage of Milos Obilic and the patience of Father Tadej, the strength of survival of the shepherds from Peshter, the wisdom of the first Christians and the romantic enthusiasm of the kids who volunteered for the first rows of the First World War leaving European universities for the muddy, bloody trenches of Cer and Suvobor.
Those are the opportunities to fulfill the [untranslatable] on the battlefield of your heart and hold on through that dangerous, fatal disappointment in all that’s most important and most valuable.
Abandon false friends, but not the belief in friendship. Accept the reality of all losses and misfortunes. Walk firmly through the thorny thicket of troubles. Look straight in the eyes of everyone who then oppresses you – calmly speak to him what you feel (what you really feel), and don’t be afraid of anyone and anything – except yourself and your disappointments.
Minimize and become more modest in everything, abandon futile chases of justice, do not wail and humiliate yourself in front of anyone, inhale deeply, move somewhere, press strongly your jaws, take a walk through wind and in rain, make your prayers more frequent and go to the nearest church which is emergency help for the hardest attacks of despair and hopelessness.
Do all you wish and can, but don’t sell your immortal soul abandoning that which is most beautiful and best in you.
Don’t kill yourself from the inside while others are butchering you from the outside.
Don’t be a participator in your own disaster and don’t transform yourself from a tragic hero to a sore miserable loser. Between those two, the difference is only in the choice of pose and position. The problem is frequently the same but the reactions to the problem’s presence are completely unlike and fundamentally different.
And that it’s difficult to live as a human being in the midst of ruins of a state and society – it really is. Really difficult.
I can only wish you good luck on that kind of journey (“through a dark tunnel”) and quote my son Vladislav – that the troubles are, perhaps, merely a sign that “God has different plans with us.”
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Column & Photographs: Dragoslav Bokan
All rights reserved 2013. Copyright © Dragoslav Bokan
C O N T A C T
Published by Urban Book Circle on September 11, 2013
Urban Book Circle® (UBC)
All rights reserved 2013. Copyright © Dragoslav Bokan
C O N T A C T
Published by Urban Book Circle on September 11, 2013
Urban Book Circle® (UBC)
