an image of dust
I've been through the death of dreams, expectations and illusions before. I've even been through it here in Mongolia before. The two first weeks always seem to be riddled with some form or another of doubt and disappointment that then give way to a serene process of letting go and falling into the moment, allowing the self to simply be in the present.
However, I wonder what is it exactly that I am chasing here in Mongolia.
The quiet peace of uninhabited lands has given way to a youthful spring of noises and consumption. The ways of the past have given way to cultural globalisation bringing with it an obsessive dose of national pride coupled with a dilution of cultural identity. And none of this should surprise me, and all of this I should have expected - really.
When I returned in 2009 I knew it had been a mistake right from the word go. Like a bad sequel, nothing quite fit into what the first episode had promised. But back then I knew that I had returned to avoid falling into the cliché of the one who had travelled once and then got stuck holding onto memories of something that had passed and gone. I turned my initial despair into an exercise in accepting and letting go of the illusion I had come to associate with Mongolia. I let myself grow as a person and discover new facets to myself and those I had come to learn to love and respect.
Yet now, as I sit here with successful studies of this country's people behind me and a dream of a massive project up ahead, I truly wonder what is it that I am trying to make out of Mongolia.
When I came here for the first time, I found genuine hospitality and friendship - or so it felt.
It was as if I had discovered a country that had forgotten to grow cold and greedy like those I am accustomed to living in. It was as if that dream from my childhood found its shape in the form of an Asian country and its beautiful people. But time has moved on since, four years have passed and much has changed. Mongolian people have chosen consumerism and capitalism instead of the values that have shaped them for longer than most like to remember.
I dreamt of a documentary for Mongolian people by Mongolian people about the rest of the world.
But now I realise that the roads are filled with pot-holes and the government fails to have its own way in the face of international recommendations because that is the way things are and the way things are going to be. Who am I to help anyone with my obsessive maternal instincts and my eternal quest to protect those who I deem unable to know any better?
Each bit of the puzzle fits together neatly, sitting the excluded poor with the immorally rich. This is who we are, as a species. We rejoice in the suffering that comes from the extreme polarity we are able to generate through our personal greed and applied ignorance.
I am not special and possess no skills anyone else is unable to do better than me.
It is high time I learn to accept that I will pass through this Earth as yet another leaf on a yellow autumn tree.
Perhaps this is what I have come to learn here this time around.
Let go and let live.
People do as they please, no matter what.
… let us see what the week ahead brings.
However, I wonder what is it exactly that I am chasing here in Mongolia.
The quiet peace of uninhabited lands has given way to a youthful spring of noises and consumption. The ways of the past have given way to cultural globalisation bringing with it an obsessive dose of national pride coupled with a dilution of cultural identity. And none of this should surprise me, and all of this I should have expected - really.
When I returned in 2009 I knew it had been a mistake right from the word go. Like a bad sequel, nothing quite fit into what the first episode had promised. But back then I knew that I had returned to avoid falling into the cliché of the one who had travelled once and then got stuck holding onto memories of something that had passed and gone. I turned my initial despair into an exercise in accepting and letting go of the illusion I had come to associate with Mongolia. I let myself grow as a person and discover new facets to myself and those I had come to learn to love and respect.
Yet now, as I sit here with successful studies of this country's people behind me and a dream of a massive project up ahead, I truly wonder what is it that I am trying to make out of Mongolia.
When I came here for the first time, I found genuine hospitality and friendship - or so it felt.
It was as if I had discovered a country that had forgotten to grow cold and greedy like those I am accustomed to living in. It was as if that dream from my childhood found its shape in the form of an Asian country and its beautiful people. But time has moved on since, four years have passed and much has changed. Mongolian people have chosen consumerism and capitalism instead of the values that have shaped them for longer than most like to remember.
I dreamt of a documentary for Mongolian people by Mongolian people about the rest of the world.
But now I realise that the roads are filled with pot-holes and the government fails to have its own way in the face of international recommendations because that is the way things are and the way things are going to be. Who am I to help anyone with my obsessive maternal instincts and my eternal quest to protect those who I deem unable to know any better?
Each bit of the puzzle fits together neatly, sitting the excluded poor with the immorally rich. This is who we are, as a species. We rejoice in the suffering that comes from the extreme polarity we are able to generate through our personal greed and applied ignorance.
I am not special and possess no skills anyone else is unable to do better than me.
It is high time I learn to accept that I will pass through this Earth as yet another leaf on a yellow autumn tree.
Perhaps this is what I have come to learn here this time around.
Let go and let live.
People do as they please, no matter what.
… let us see what the week ahead brings.