everybody is somebody, sometimes
The glare of perverse celebrity has worn off, or more accurately tailed off with the cessation of the hate-mail (see comments below). I'm back to an ordinary sense that no one is really paying attention to me, which is good.
One of the major themes of thought I've been having about leaving is that it will be hard to go from being Someone to being no-one. That sounds a whole lot more arrogant than I mean: I don't feel that I'm especially important to/in Sri Lanka, at all, but I am certainly more novel. Additionally, because it's a small place and because I'm correspondingly more part of the elite here, I have friends who edit major publications and direct major plays and are generally Known. Aside from my power-pals, I am more of an enigma and a local oddity to many, many ordinary people (mostly in Kandy although the Colombo 'hood cops are starting to smile waggishly).
In any case, this all adds up to a sense that I am going not just from a small pond to a large one, but from a delicate and complex web of social situation and responsibility and outsider license to, well, who knows? Have more thoughts on this but must go meet some folks for to see a play. I am proud to have the friends I do. Is that snobby or loving? It feels warm and kind.
3 comments:
wow, you really got thumped down there. i'm sorry internetpeople can be such shits. seems to me that you said approximately nothing out of line -- maybe some day (though this i suppose would incur the risk of more dipshit-wrath) you can contemplate what gave rise to such vitriol. i'd be interested.
my yoga teacher doesn't think anybody can be "no-one."
philly's pretty small too.
ha, amelia, you should see some of the worse stuff that comes out of (or, i suppose, onto) sri lankan politics blogs. i practically feel honored that i got noticed.
the only funny thing is that all the vitriol came on a post that had almost nothing to do with SLan politics and the LTTE. that was an earlier one... the cause of course is having an opinion. i am an outsider and therefore blame-able; if i was an insider i'd be getting called a Sinhala nationalist or dirty Tamil or something like that. the fine hairsplitting of identity politics... expat SLans vs. ones living here, NGO-worker expats here vs. business expats, blah blah.
dex, thanks mate. like yr blog too. where can i get a kottu recipe? will be craving it shortly after i leave, no doubt.
ross, i look forward to studying with this teacher. and you, luv.
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