Dostoevsky

Half an hour from Nicaragua’s capital, Managua, sits Masaya Volcano National Park.  The vultures love it here, catching the warm sulfur-scented air that billows out of its crater.  A sixteenth-century Spanish friar once called the place "La Boca del Infierno” (The Mouth of Hell).  The birds, however, if they spoke Spanish or English, would probably just call it a fun ride.

Or, if the birds knew Russian, they would perhaps sit in trees and read Dostoyevsky, conversing with one another about the wisdom latent in passages such as the following, from The Brothers Karamazov:

My brother, a dying youth, asked the birds to forgive him.  That may sound absurd, but when you think of it, it makes sense.  For everything is like the ocean, all things flow and are indirectly linked together, and if you push here, something will move at the other end of the world.  It may be madness to beg the birds for forgiveness, but things would be easier for the birds, for the child, and for every animal if you were nobler than you are—yes, they would be easier, even if only by a little.  Understand that everything is like the ocean.  Then, consumed by eternal love, you will pray to the birds, too.  In a state of fervor you will pray them to forgive you your sins.  And you must treasure that fervor, absurd though it may seem to others.

There are at least a couple things about this photograph that would suggest it is not taken in, say, Miami.  First, the woman is wearing her clothes into the sea.  Second, she is playing with water in much the same way a three-year-old would.

I mean neither of these observations in a negative way.  Like many other Vietnamese women, she wants to protect her skin from the sun.   As for the playful splashing, I silently cheered her ability to delight in such a simple thing.  What beauty!

The woman and her husband, both from the port city of Haiphong, were on a daytrip to Cat Ba Island to celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary.  Her love, I couldn’t help but notice, was directed not only toward her husband but also toward life itself—part of what her husband found attractive about her, I suspect.

In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, there is a dialogue between two characters about the “meaning of life.”  In it, the one character offers this astute observation:

“I’ve always thought that, before anything else, people should learn to love life in this world.”

”To love life more than the meaning of life?”

”Yes, that’s right. That’s the way it should be—love should come before logic, just as you said.  Only then will man be able to understand the meaning of life.”

Perhaps it is because I so often travel alone. Actually, I’m certain it is because I so often travel alone: as I wander around a city my eye turns toward couples in love, and they are everywhere. I find myself wondering how they met. What word was said or look exchanged that brought them together? I wonder what lust or need, what mutual respect, keeps them together still. I wonder where they will be five or fifty years from now. And often I wonder why on earth I’m traveling alone, watching others love while having no one beside me with whom I can love and be loved.

This photograph was taken along the Saigon River, where two things stood out to me. First was the ship’s port of registration, Haiphong, which brought to mind the bombings of the Vietnam War. Second was the couple. The woman is cleaning out the man’s ear—a most mundane yet intimate act of love if ever there was one. 

One of my favorite writer’s on love—and many other topics—is Fyodor Dostoevsky. While not directly related to ear cleaning, here’s a quote from one of his characters in The Brothers Karamazov:

A true act of love, unlike imaginary love, is hard and forbidding. Imaginary love yearns for an immediate heroic act that is achieved quickly and seen by everyone. People may even reach a point where they are willing to sacrifice their lives, as long as the ordeal doesn’t last too long, is quickly over—just like on the stage, with the public watching and admiring.