Politics and Nostalgia (for old friends)

(Note: The previous post was a concession to dear friends who observed that my posts were too political for my own good. With their biding, I wallowed in nostalgia and wrote that piece that ended up as an early midlife crisis indicator. So I owe them my thanks for their concern as well as the enjoyment of writing that blog. Here is an explanatory essay for those who are bored, bothered, concerned, etc. over my political posts.)

We all find our own space in this world. That is what I say to myself when I come across friends who do not understand my political convictions. This after I sense their veiled incredulity over ideas that to their minds seem so divorced from the possible and the passion with which I hold them. I guess passion sometimes begets apathy (since this is the age of irony) and I have been dismissively pigeon-holed as the “messianic one” or worse as a “bigot,” of having certain beliefs about our world and its faults and inflicting them against anyone unfortunate enough to be within hearing distance. Some friends once predicted that I would either become a politician or worse a cult leader of a self-made religion indicating the negative reputation I have earned for myself over the years. I ended up as a teacher perhaps to their consternation since I would still have an audience for my “dangerous” ideas. Thus, every drinking session would end with the obligatory return to the good ‘ol times, to nostalgia in order to placate the ruffled feathers of my middle class friends after I challenge the implications of the lives we “chose” to lead. And I would take a swig off my stale beer and mutter to myself that “we all find our space in this world.” After all, who am I to shatter their illusions?

This is a cop-out of course, an admission that ideas, no matter how promising they may be, cannot bridge the contingent paths that our lives have taken. It’s the same as saying that although we share so many beginnings, over time, we have become different people where the only thing common is our past. We have met new people along the way, new loves, new beliefs, new responsibilities that now define the boundaries of our reality. And sometimes, other realities just don’t fit in our careers, lifestyles, family life and other trappings that have come to define our middle class lives. Yet, if only for a moment, for that once a year reunion when I am quizzed about my involvements, there I was pricking their safe cocoons and violating the things that they hold dear by the ideas that I hold. For all I know, these ideas barely registered amidst the din of laughter and at best its effect is an unwelcome headache. Crazy me with my politics and all like a broken record.

But conviction is precisely predicated on the principle that it may be correct, and sharing it with others is in fact a test of validity instead of a belief in certainty. In other words, when one speaks about convictions it is not to pledge to a single bigoted standard of truth, but at the very least, an assertion that certain realities are shared, since we still inhabit “a common space” where it is possible for us to agree and achieve common convictions.

And so “we all find our place in the world” but this does not mean an individual autonomous space disassociated from everyone else. I would like to believe that there is more that binds us beyond the nostalgia for the good ‘ol times. Though we have been thrown together by the contingent circumstances of our childhood, and then thrown apart by fate, we still face the same social realities wherever we may physically be, no matter how rich or poor we are. I am therefore assuming that my truths could be yours. This is the premise of my (and perhaps all) politics.