Friday, November 15, 2024

Wait and Hope / The Gospel According to Alexandre Dumas

Wednesday, I found myself with time to do nothing and I spent the morning watching The Count of Monte Cristo. I recall watching another adaption of this in English when I was a student in my uni days so that's like over 20 years ago. I couldn't remember much of the details but I remember it's about revenge and at the end of it I was maybe feeling like wow it's quite a story. This new adaptation that I watched is a French one. Side note: my French is so bad, it's embarrassing :( Anyways, this French film's running time is pretty long, at almost 3 hours. To be fair there's a lot of stories to be told. Some parts of it were familiar, but there were also parts which I didn't remember and then towards the end one tragic thing happened and I was quite broken-hearted about it. The Count, cold as he thought he was, was broken-hearted too I'm sure. The movie ended with the Count reciting a line from the novel, a line that I didn't know existed before this. It goes, "l'humaine sagesse était tout entière dans ces deux mots: attendre et espérer!" which translates to the whole human wisdom is in these 2 words: wait and hope. I'm not sure how the Count came to that conclusion watching this film. He did wait alright, waiting all those years, preparing to exact his revenge, but this "waiting" is not what that line means. Then hope, where did that come about? Is it because one of his ward chose love instead of revenge. So if you let time passes, all your pain may go away or not carry that much weight and good things could happen? The line talks about wisdom and I do believe wisdom needs time. I've never read the novel so I don't know how I would feel about that line after reading the whole story.

Anyways, wait and hope appeared to me after some news was delivered to me telling me of a time limit that I now have which caused me to freak out and so I can't help feeling like it's the universe saying to me, wait and hope. Wait and hope. The usual anxiety-ridden me is still spiralling though. Even though this was also what my mom said, wait. She added that I should enjoy the time that I have now. I can't because all I see is the clock ticking down. Added to this was also the stupidity that I felt feeling anxious about this same thing last year when it's way too early to be worried and it doesn't lessen the worry that I have now. I am like forever filled with worry. The universe wants me to wait and hope and I am filled with fear. It's not a nice place to be in my head.

Wait and hope is perhaps what many Americans need to also do right now. By the way, another example I don't know shit - I was confident that Kamala Harris would win the popular vote and I was dead wrong. It's all so depressing. Why do I care right? I'm not even an American. I think I care for 2 reasons. One, we gotta admit that the world is shitty and though there are countries and borders, we as human actually need to work and progress together. Shitty leaders will take us back. Climate change cannot be solved by individual countries, we need the whole world to work together. Two, I'm just forever naive, wanting to see bad people getting their comeuppance and good things come to good people. The world is unfair though and that's exactly what happened here. How on earth a person who's incompetent and morally corrupt get rewarded like this? It's just insane. I could try to discount all the bad things that Trump did and point to the line where he loudly said, "I don't have a plan, I have a concept of a plan". How on earth that after that people be like okay you get my vote when we in real life, if it's us saying those words when we're looking for a job - bye, we will be shown the exit. It's very strange to me that people voted for a guy when if the voters did the same things as Trump, those voters wouldn't get the same leeway or pardon. So it's like they're allowing special treatment for this guy knowing they themselves wouldn't ever get that special treatment, they're okay with this injustice and unfairness :| Almost like they're okay you be king and we peasants. It's mind-boggling. I already went through this state of despair with how we got our current Indonesian President and Vice President (I couldn't even bring myself to say their names), trying to process why people chose wrong. It's still depressing. One thing maybe to take comfort in is perhaps knowing that there are people who come to the same conclusion as you. For example, when my mom said how come that guy became the president, I thought the lady was going to win - I was glad that my mom is still sane to know what the good choice was. I thought about it further; my mom definitely did not follow US politics as closely and deeply as me, so she wouldn't know all the shitty and crazy things Trump did. Things like what he did with a mic, those kinda news wouldn't make news in Indonesia (thank God, how to explain it to mom?), but the news about his supporters rioting when he lost and he not conceding defeat and not attending Biden's swearing in and just leaving like that definitely made news and this would be unacceptable for her. Again looking at Indonesia, even that kinda behaviour, not conceding defeat and riot, somehow get forgotten and the guy could get elected. How do you still look up at these people? It is depressing. I usually start my day with CNN and these days I found myself spending less time than usual because reading all the crazy things that Trump did just ... well I don't have the energy for it. The same with Indonesian news, I'm spending less time reading about this new government.

Anyways, back to me - I wish I could just be happy and relax and enjoy December, but I'm in a deep state of panic and anxiety and I have a whole other side of paranoia that I haven't even talked about. I'm so stressed out to the point that I don't have much appetite, like not so hungry even though I need to eat. One night I realized all this make me want to cry but I haven't been crying because I just don't have the time. It's like I need to schedule a time to sit down and cry about all of these things that are bothering me, but I couldn't squeeze in a time and also I don't have the energy to cry :( I don't know how God's feeling and thinking hearing me asking Him to help me all times of the day. A friend said it is the point to tell God all these, because God's the only one who would listen. I pray He has mercy on me.

:) eKa @ 8:28:00 PM •