Ljubljana: Letters from the Youth

Dragi –––– , 

pišem ti bolna, polna simptomov, ki jim ne ta ne oni ne zna pridati pojasnila, leČuvati se morate in Kaj pa kakšen sprehod, a, morda vam bo pa dobro del. Hočem reči: pišem ti iz kraja, v katerem sem se v zadnjem letu že dodobra udomačila – iz mesta negotovosti (tolikokrat, a ne vselej, s tem tudi mesta čakanja). Ne govorim o tisti mehki negotovosti, o Saj ne veš, kaj bo in Kaj pa, če ne bo več isto, pač pa o negotovosti, ki se zaje, ki grize, ki te zahteva celega, ki najprej hoče in nato doseže, da ležeš na sito in se pretresaš, prav do onemoglosti, da pretresaš svoja prepričanja in zmote, da skozi reže pada vse, kar si slabega storil ali pa hotel storiti – in kar si storil dobrega.

Takšnega pretresanja ne prinaša le bolezen, pač pa vsakršna izguba oporišča, zavetja. In takšnih izgub – takšne negotovosti – boš ti, sumim, videl več, a ne le videl, doživel, jih držal v rokah, pestoval. Hočem reči: se jih naučil pestovati. Kajti tvoj čas bo čas soočenja z izgubo – pokrajin, pripovedi, navad, idealov. Vsak je, seveda, a ta še posebej, saj bodo njegovi zamahi večji in močnejši kot kdajkoli prej. 

“Ideja napredka, ki je implicirala, da lahko potem razlagamo z onim prej, je nasedla na podvodnih čereh dvajsetega stoletja, ko so se razblinili upi in zablode, na katerih je mirno plula po prostranstvih devetnajstega stoletja. Do tega je pravzaprav prišlo zaradi več različnih ugotovitev: zgodile so se strahote svetovnih vojn, totalitarizmi in politike genocida, ki – najmanj, kar lahko rečemo – ne pričajo o človeškem moralnem napredku. Končale so se velike zgodbe, to se pravi, veliki interpretacijski sistemi, ki so hoteli pokazati celoten razvoj človeštva, pa pri tem niso uspeli; zbledeli ali spridili so se tudi politični sistemi, ki so uradno nastali na njihovih temeljih; vse skupaj je vzbudilo dvom v zgodovino kot nosilko smisla,”  v Nekrajih piše Marc Augé. In kar se tiče mene, ima prav. Zato ne znam pozivati k temu, da moramo napredovati od tega ali onega, kajti ne vem, kako je videti napredek, vem le, da smo mu nadeli napačen obraz, in ne vem, kako izboljšati čas, mojega in tvojega, ko pa se potem znova in znova seseda in obrača v prej. 

Vem le, da nam je dano le malo časa; in vem, da je Tomaž Šalamun v pesmi Utrga se luč zapisal, da moraš. “Utrga se luč / zdrobi se kamen / skoz tvojo senco steče reka / in tuja sonca vžigajo svetlobo / nihče ne ve kako si prišel tja / toda kjerkoli si / v karkoli so te vpeli / samo to veš / da moraš”. Toda ne le biti, ne le prenašati in vztrajati in vse, kar je še takšnega, temveč biti znotraj, biti v – v središču življenja, središču izgube, središču negotovosti, a s tem tudi središču radosti in milosti, v središču vsega, kar je vredno. 
Lezi, torej, na to sito. 

Dear –––– , 

I am writing to you ill, full of symptoms no one can supply with an explanation, save for You need to take care of yourself and Have you tried going on a walk, it might do you some good. I mean to say: I am writing to you from a place that in the past year I have made myself quite cozy in – the place of uncertainty (in this way often, not always, also a place of waiting). I am not talking about that soft uncertainty, about Oh, you don't know what will happen and What if it will no longer be the same, but about the uncertainty that eats into, bites, demands your whole self, that first wants you and then gets you to lay down on the sieve and sift yourself, until the point of exhaustion, sift through your convictions and faulty reasonings, so that everything you ever did or wanted to do wrong – and everything you did right – falls through the slits.

Such a sifting is brought on not only by an illness, but by any loss of firm ground or shelter. And you will, I suspect, see even more losses like these – uncertainty like this –, but not only see, also live through, hold in your hands, cradle. I want to say: you will learn to cradle them. Because your time will be the time of facing loss – the loss of landscapes, narratives, habits, ideals. Just as all times are, of course, but this one even more so, since its sweep will be larger and stronger than ever before. 

“The idea of progress, which implied an afterwards explainable in terms of what had gone before, has run aground, so to speak, on the shoals of the twentieth century, following the departure of the hopes or illusions that had accompanied the ocean crossing of the nineteenth. To tell the truth, this reassessment refers to several observations that are distinct from one another: the atrocities of the world wars, totalitarianisms and genocidal policies, which (to say the very least) do not indicate much moral progress on the part of humanity; the end of the grand narratives, the great systems of interpretation that aspired to map the evolution of the whole of humanity, but did not succeed, along with the deviation or obliteration of the political systems based on some of them; in sum, a doubt as to whether history carries any meaning,” writes Marc Augé in Non-places, translated by John Howe. And as far as I am concerned, he is right. So, I do not call for us to progress from something or other, since I do not know what progress looks like, I only know we made it wear a face that is not right, and I do not know how to make the times better, mine and yours, when after keeps succumbing and turning into before. 

I only know we are not given much time; and I know that Tomaž Šalamun in his poem Light snaps wrote that you must. “Light snaps / rock crumbles / a river runs through your shadow / and foreign suns ignite light / no one knows how you got there / but wherever you are / in whatever they have bound you / you know only / that you must”. But you must not only be, not only endure and persevere and other such things, but also be within, be inside – in the center of life, center of loss, center of uncertainty, and with this in the center of joy and grace, in the center of everything that holds value.

So lay down, then, on this sieve.   

Translated by Jasmin B. Frelih