A couple of days ago I watched one of Michael Palin’s travel series again. I really enjoy his series and who has not dreamed about travelling the world like Michael Palin. However, apart from the travel bit of the series there is this person Michael Palin which fascinates me. And while I was watching I wondered why I feel so close and engaged with this person that I have never met in real life. Especially in his travel series. And I suppose there must be more to that than just travelling the world. Perhaps, it is in his attitude towards people he meets. He does not label them, he is not preoccupied with any ideas about national identity. And I have the impression he does not think to much about his relationship to the others in a context of labels and ideas.
I had that thought, that it is about him “doing” and therefore presenting something, rather than “being” something. Whereas in daily life it appears that “being” is more important than “doing”. The mere act can only be fully experienced when you, as a being, are fully there in this moment. The complete context is needed to grasp the moment, to take it in. An act can be experienced in the relationship to its time. It has a synchronous aspect about it which cannot be imitated or transferred out of its context easily. And Michael Palin presents so much of a moment in which he takes actions.
“Being” is something that might appear to be constant. Being German, being black, being female, being left-wing, whatever you are, it appears it be a constant and can be understood and fully comprehended by the opposite. If anyone is labelled as something in a conversation he comes fully into being as an entity which can be understood. And to be honest we long for such labels since it helps us to understand ourselves in a relationship to someone else and their ideas of the world. We can find coordinates in the opposite that helps us to locate ourselves in a vast ocean of uncertainty. However, that might be an illusion because we try to locate in ourselves in an ocean which is not two-dimensional, but rather three-, four-dimensional in the least.
Being male or female seems to be easily labelled, but acting is something else and is more often than not the source of confusion for our fellow humans. We are labelled as male, coming from that culture, speaking this language, and so on and forth. At this moment we are a reliable factor in a world of stereotypes and ideas shaped by media and the laziness of the minds around. But lets act outside of theses stereotypes, let a man cry, let a woman repair a car, let a child act adult or let a granny act childish, why does that confuse us so much?
Every action you take can be seen in a relation to an aspect of your being. You act as a woman or as a teenager. But doesn’t that reduce your identity to just one aspect? And it appears that
Every time you do something it can be related to a different aspect. All of Trump’s actions can be interpreted in relation to all of the aspects of his being like being a man, a septuagenerian, a white, an American, a descendant of immigrants, a heterosexual (I assume…), a rich guy, a former student of a military academy, a blonde, a politician, a Republican, a divorcee, a father, a son, etc. etc… And to be honest, it is rather tempting to do so, to build up relations between his being and actions in order to help us to understand his actions. Perhaps understanding (or the sheer belief in doing so) makes us feel more comfortable, since understanding is the first step in mastering the world of things or so it appears.
A question that arises is whether my being male is the same as yours? Or is it congruent to your beliefs what a male should be? Moreover, I cannot tell what your view on myself is. You might see me as a man, or as a writer, or as a white European, or whatever. You determine the position from which my actions are related to and I have absolutely no clue where that position is. And it is even more complicated since we locate that position according to our personal ideas, perhaps shaped by our experiences. We all use different maps of ideas and locate the world around according to it. But no one can fully understand our ideas and their location.
Sometimes I wonder whether we should see ourselves and the other beings as floating and not as static as they sometime appear. We all want to be seen as multilayered individuals and to reduce others only on some aspects and judge their actions in relation to that is belittling the human world. Should we interpret Picasso as communist art? Should we relate Obama to being a single-child? Should we think of Mother Therese as a woman? I guess we could and there are many good reasons in doing so, but I would think that make it too easy to ourselves if we would not look further or closer and try to be open for a network of relationships between being and doing that we will never fully understand. So we should stand in amazement and enjoy a humble silence. And maybe just let the people be whatever they want, not whatever we can accept or tolerate. Michael Palin could be an inspiration when it comes to this.
Dirk Wittmann 