Goodbye, Little Sister

I was away when you were born. I was away when our mother brought you home. I was away for so long, too long, but I am glad I got to meet you.

I remember our introduction, and the way your big, bright eyes watched me. I remember your radiant smile at the words “Lovely, this is your other big brother.” I think that was the moment you captured me.

You were a nexus of positivity. Nobody could remain in your presence and stay miserable. I remember many an evening returning from an exhausting workday, just plopping down next to you, and you’d turn towards me and smile, and my heart would soar. How readily you smiled. How heartily you laughed, even when you were the one being made fun of.

You’d get excited at the idea of wearing shoes and of going on car rides, to the extent that everybody did their best to keep up a constant supply of both. Your sheer delight at being put behind the wheel, albeit of a parked car, is one of those pure things the fondest memories are made of.

Oh, and what cheek you had. What spirit. Should anybody stare at you too long, you would laboriously articulate “Look elsewhere” (I suspect your other brother is to thank for that one).  I really enjoyed the way you’d snap at anybody who came too close to your food, or bothered you when you were feeling cranky.

All in all, you did not have the mentality of one who is a prisoner of her own body. Your affliction waxed and waned, waxed and waned, and through your ordeal you kept fighting. You bore it all. The medication that tasted foul and left you in a daze for hours, the scans where you had to stay still and found it really, really hard to, the painful physiotherapy… This past couple of years, I’ve seen you shoulder a burden most adults balk at, and you’d been at it a while already. You were bravery given human form.

This past Saturday was the last time I got to say to you “See you later, little girl.” Even as I write these words, I can’t help but desperately hope your occasional 3 a.m. mad laughter from one of your dreams would wake me up from this bleak reality from which you are removed.

You were in our mother’s arms, surrounded by many who loved you, when you went.

I hope you knew. I hope you were aware of our love for you. Despite the times when our words couldn’t reach you, I hope you knew from our actions how much affection and admiration we all had for you. I hope you knew that you were a paragon of beauty to us. You lit our lives like a second sun.

At ease, little soldier. You fought valiantly. Nothing can harm you now.

Hanging out with her big bro,
Lovely Sandra Mankono
August 5th, 2004 - February 1st, 2014

Sins of the Father

As an avid consumer of popular entertainment, I have noticed an interesting trend in the way stories are packaged. Ancestry plays a critical role in almost every narrative, in that incidents tend to “keep it in the family.” Fair warning: the very nature of this post means I will break one of my religion’s most sacred tenets. In other words, there are spoilers ahead.

Final Fantasy is one of my favourite game series. Its original plots and novel cast for each instalment mean that even after 15 games, the same-old-stuff effect is minimal (well, XIII was horrible, but never mind that one). Even in those games, though, the protagonist almost always has to deal with the failures of his or her forbears. In FFVIII, Squall’s world faces destruction because 17 years or so earlier, his father failed to properly seal the sorceress Adel.

This is Adel. Yes, the game does state "sorceress".

In FFX, Tidus is forcibly sent to the future after his father failed to stop the cycle that turned a Summoner’s Final Aeon into Sin (I promise this is the sentence that will make the least sense today).

This isn’t limited to video games. Cinema and television have shown the same tendencies. Anakin Skywalker’s failure to resist the Dark Side plunged an entire galaxy into chaos. If you have not guessed who eventually had to fix that (you mean you didn’t already know?), your reading comprehension leaves a lot to be desired. In 24, Jack Bauer discovers the events of Day 5 and Day 6 were masterminded by his own father, and has to stop him. We find out Pirate Lord Jack Sparrow’s father is Keeper of the Pirate Code. We find out Olivia Pope’s father is the Spy to End All Spies, and that her mother was is an informant a terrorist.

I could go on for pages, but let’s just say I am willing to bet that a bloodline storyline will crop up in any media franchise that goes on long enough.

I hear this one is all about genealogies now.

Engrossed though I get in those stories, that particular plot device strikes me as a misguided way to raise the stakes while at the same time making things “personal.” Luke is not merely facing an Empire led by a pair of Sith Lords; he’s going against his own father! [Gasp] Now it’s serious.

While you might argue that I show very little faith in humans, I don’t think people really can make the distinction between fiction and reality anymore, what with the way we all picture ourselves as the main characters in our own grand adventure. Maybe a part of us really believes the sins of our fathers are ours to atone for. Maybe society actually expects us to. It seems an uncomfortable burden to bear, but we do derive a large part of our identity from our ancestry, so it is possible that perceived blemishes in our family trees would weigh on us, and that those behind the stories wish to convey that aspect of things.

Or maybe I am reading too much into it and the creators simply want to make the protagonist easier to relate to. I mean, which one of us isn’t plagued by self-doubt because one ancestor failed to toss a ring into a volcano?

Looking Past the Pain

I remember the year my studies were interrupted as the worst year of my life. Beyond the family crisis and subsequent estrangement with my father, I was jealous of my peers’ continuing academic journeys. Mostly, though, I had lost something I believed was a key to progress: structure. I went on to learn a lot on my own, but that path was riddled with hurdles.

The first obstacle I faced was my own nature: I am the kind of person who would rather secure conquered ground – sometimes unnecessarily – than attempt to conquer new territory. In school, you are explicitly told what you need to learn, and there are ways of finding out whether you do. Not so when you are on your own. Nobody is going to tell you there will be a data management test in a fortnight. Other hurdles were the ever-evolving nature of software engineering, and the fact that I could not keep up financially. Picture this: in 2006, I had no idea what Ruby on Rails was. Hell, I was only peripherally aware of PHP, one thing the company I now work for can’t do without (well, we could; we won’t). By the time I finally felt comfortable with one tool, I’d learn it was fading into obsolescence. It was frustrating, to say the least.

Nevertheless, it was all I had. There was no other option. I stayed the course, and learned. I am not an expert yet; that is still years off. But I am confident enough now. More importantly, I learned the value of discipline for myself, by myself. Frustrating, painful, why-do-I-even-bother discipline. Whatever skill you are going to master, whatever vice you are going to give up, whatever healthy habit you are going to adopt will come at that price. Talent and enthusiasm are great, but they each come with a risk. Talent is especially dangerous, in that it robs you of the incentive to work hard and of any sense of achievement when you do. Enthusiasm fizzles out fast, no matter what those frozen smiles on workout infomercials would have you believe. Also, the law of diminishing returns means that the same line of pep talks will only take you so far.

You need something else to keep you on track, something that will help you not lessen the pain but remember its purpose. Vision. Obsessive determination. Those will keep you going through the sleepless nights, the friends that feel deserted and desert you in return, the miles walked, the pennies pinched, the aching muscles, the self-denial. Incoming understatement: it is difficult. It is painful. But the good news is, the more you do it, the better you become, both at the goal you set and at staying the course.

Discipline (n): the continuous choice to suffer by taking action, in order to avoid greater suffering through regret.

Perfect Anniversary

As I am typing these words, I am still reeling from having experienced one hour and sixteen minutes of awesomeness. I’m actually considering bumping this post to somewhere near the head of my expanding cue of unpublished posts.

I have just watched The Day of the Doctor. It was sad. It was funny. It was scary. It was epic.

Now, how do you suppose I could do a review of something without any spoilers? Spoilers are, as I frequently remind people who are never actually listening, against my religion. I can’t. But I can talk about my experience.

Doctor Who first aired on November 23^rd 1963. The Day of the Doctor is a commemoration of the show’s 50-year anniversary. Personally, I am relatively new to the series.

It was recommended to me by a friend from Nevada with whom I share another passion. Actually, “recommended” is a bit of a misnomer. She just never shut up about it, to the point where, just to know what she was going on about, I had to find out. Knowing the series was old, and that finding traces of the original episodes would be akin to re-forging the One Ring, I asked her if there was another starting point. “Begin with the ninth Doctor,” she said. Unsurprisingly, that is the same advice I give to people who are interested in taking up Doctor Who.

And so it was that I found myself watching a young British lady get attacked by plastic mannequins before her in-extremis rescue by a man whose only utterance was “Run!” I haven’t shut up about it since. Ask Cindy.

The Doctor is an amazing individual. A Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, he is an explorer who travels through space and time in his T.A.R.D.I.S. (Time And Relative Dimensions In space), a “ship” that looks like a blue telephone box (a Police Box, actually) and is bigger, way bigger, on the inside. The former is due to the fact that the ship’s chameleon circuit, which allows the T.A.R.D.I.S. to blend with its surroundings, was damaged when the Doctor visited 1963 London. The latter is a common feature of Time Lord technology.

 

No, seriously, that thing is huge.

As a Time Lord, he has the ability to Regenerate (12 times) when his body fails: every cell in his body changes. This influences his appearance and personality. This is the plot device that allows different actors to portray the character and bring their own interpretation of the role to bear.

He reacts to every new thing he encounters with a sense of wonder, with no hint of judgement, which was what set the series apart in my eyes. Even when confronted with something that is actively trying to kill him, he will seek first to understand, and then to reason, again and again. His favourite tool is a sonic screwdriver, precisely because it, in his words, “Doesn’t kill, doesn’t wound, doesn’t maim.” However, despite this Gandhi-like approach to problem solving, the Doctor has routed armies, faced down invaders, tricked pseudo-deities and saved the universe(s) countless times.

Don’t let his pacific nature make you believe it’s all philosophy and no thrills. Far from it. Oh, far, far from it. Just like thinking of Friday the 13^th will make you think twice about camping, Doctor Who will make you think twice about mannequins, shadows, boxes, Christmas trees (heck, Christmas altogether), cracks in your walls, Wi-Fi and stone statues (hint: they’re only statues when you’re looking).

The Day of the Doctor was no exception. The hype had been building since the end of season seven, and even a part of me worried that the anniversary episode might not live up to expectations. I need not have worried. It was every bit as unexpected as I expected. I seriously don’t know how they keep doing that. But I can’t talk about it (for… religious reasons; see above). I can’t tell you about the lead up the reunion between two of the most beloved Doctors. I can’t tell you about the riveting climax, the tear-inducing resolution, or the mind-blowing implications. You’ll just have to watch it, if you want to know (yes, that was my plan all along; start with the 9^th Doctor, please).

What I can tell you about was the sense of awe and gratitude I felt at the very end. Technology has finally managed what had so far been impossible. All the faces of the Doctor, living and departed, present in the same moving shot. In a semicircle, facing outward, stood eleven of them. Matt Smith, the latest, and David Tennant before him. Then Christopher Eccleston, John Hurt, Paul McGann, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Peter Davison, Tom Baker, Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton. And, standing at the center of the semicircle, the man who started it all, William Hartnell, the First Doctor.

Uncertainties

As one of Douglas Adams's characters once pointed out, we tend to congregate at boundaries. We like the beach because it is where land meets water. We like the sunrise and sunset because those are the moments day meets night. And, more to the point of this post, we want to remain at the cusp of maturity, because that is where the child meets the adult.

That is a scary place in which to find oneself, both because and in spite of the fact that it is also scary to leave it. The only way out of it is forwards. There is no going back to the carelessness of childhood. There is no having your outfit picked out for you (well, not always).

Back in the days when your last name was a reliable indication of your protection (a system under which Spiderman's alter ego would be Peter Photographer),  things were simpler, despite the lack of smartphones: you took up your parents' trade and that was that. You basically knew your life's path the moment you achieved social awareness. Nowadays, though, such certainties are the stuff of fiction. Which means that at the cusp of maturity, the way forward looks not unlike this.

Good luck.

 See if you can just replace mommy as an Air Force Captain these days. You truly are on your own. You're supposed to figure this life thing out, and unless you come with the right connections, genetic or otherwise, holy crap, is it hard!

So you stay put. Embracing all of the independence that comes with not being a child, and none of the responsibilities that come with being an adult. That attitude can best be summarised in phrases such as "I do what I want" or "I am the one in control." But my economist friends would likely call that an unsustainable business model (or something): society expects something of you, and it's only a matter of time until it finds a clever way to punish you for failing to deliver. Whether you believe it to be ordained from above or not, you have a part to play. Remaining an unchild (Trademarked) will only get in the way, and as nature can't abide a vacuum, someone else will step up to your plate.

Fortunately, on some level, most people understand this. Of course, it could just be that they finally realise they can't stand the embarrassment of watching their peers speed past them as they remain static in an ever-moving world. Competition is as efficient a motivator for humans as it is for bacteria. Regardless of incentive, though, most people eventually grow up.

Hugh will catch up in a bit.

It's still scary, and the uncertainty eats us up. Have I chosen the right career? Am I in the right place? What if I settled for the wrong person? The questions keep coming. The self-doubt is crippling. And THAT, friends, is the problem. Second-guessing everything you do will get you nowhere. Every choice you make will make some possibilities unavailable. I'm sure I don't need to repeat the forking roads analogy here. The only way to have infinite choices is not to make any.

But take heart. You're not alone treading the foggy streets of what is hopefully not Silent Hill. The uncertainty of adulthood is one of the things we share regardless of breed or creed. Think of the previous sentence as that "I'm scared too; let's do it" line that crops up in every other movie. If it works in movies, it works everywhere, right? Let's do this!

... And We're Back

Before you bite my head off, I would like to assure everybody that I am indeed aware of how long it has been since my last post. Also, I would like you to brush your teeth; if you insist of biting my head off, I would prefer the last thing I smell to be fresh.

It's been a difficult couple of months for me. Between a departed dear uncle and a young cousin whose already poor health took a turn for the worse, I feared posting anything without first getting my head straight would turn this blog into a depression inducer.

Have I got my head straight? No. I simply no longer fear dragging the lot of you into despair. There are other things to discuss than the vicissitudes of the Judge Magister's life. And so here I am, back online. I may even resume tweeting.

To those who missed me, I apologise. I can't promise this sort of things won't happen again. But I can promise you that I will get up again every time it does. Unless, y'know, it takes the form of one of the more virulent strains of death.

Anyhoo, what's everybody been up to?

Jekyll And Hyde

Sometimes, I can feel it coming. At other times, it takes me over without the slightest warning. It happens at seemingly random moments. I have, so far, failed to determine what the trigger is. Whatever the reason, whenever it happens, and though I could stamp it down, I embrace it. Because it turns me, for a few moments, into the person you (and I) secretly wish I were.

I have never done drugs - well, I love a sugar high - but I can imagine this is how drug users feel. The exhilaration, the escape, the abandon, the feeling - the knowledge - of invincibility. For a few moments, of course.

For a while, the quiet, cold, flawed, deeply insecure (if very clever) individual fades to black as an interesting, amicable creature of raw confidence and charm emerges. The transformation is complete. Jekyll and Hyde. Or, for people allergic to reading (there's something terribly wrong with you guys), Banner and the Hulk.

The intellect remains,but no longer as my main selling point. I become utterly mesmerising. Adventure? Count me in! Social taboos? What are those? Even the humour is spot-on. And the looks help too, especially now (thanks, HIIT).

People naturally gravitate toward those types. It makes perfect sense: everybody likes to be entertained. I, for one, rely heavily on entertainment in order to maintain my sanity (says the one blogging about what could possibly be a mental disorder). In my 'altered state', I become an avatar of entertainment.

There are drawbacks, of course. There always are drawbacks. Hyde murders, the Hulk makes no distinction between friend, foe or bystander... And I lose my sense of empathy, one of my core attributes. Fulfilment of my desires becomes my prime directive, and I simply stop caring much about other people's feelings. Oh, but I can still act like I care, so people  are none the wiser.

Eventually, though, my baseline persona reasserts itself. It begins with a thought, a shard of doubt, or of fear. Sometimes it is a memory of some kind, usually of an occasion when my current state failed to be triggered, or was triggered, to sad effect. The thought starts a chain reaction, robbing me of my smooth eloquence, of my daring, and so on. Before you know it, I'm back to bland as dough.

Then comes the remorse over any 'forward' thing I might have said, the worry over how I am now perceived, and the avoidance of people who call, expecting more entertainment, not knowing they're now dealing with an entirely different person.

I'm back to being an empath, though. And I get to keep the bod, so there's that.