I grew tired of cynical people long ago, when I was around two years old in fact. By that meek and tender age, I had already discovered that cynicism is among one of the most horrible temperaments that a person can possess. Cynics sit on an unusual kind of seat which is wobbly with doubts, but unto which their backsides are firmly planted, never rising to venture into any of the wondrous places within the human heart. I do feel sorry for such people however, knowing that unless they change their ways, they will never be able to experience the joy of embracing anything in its entirety.
When I informed my school careers advisor that there were three things that I would like to do in this lifetime, she wasn’t impressed with my choices. I would like to travel to Mongolia, I told her, I would like to become a nun, and I would like to find God. “Do you believe in God?” I asked her.
“I’m not sure,” she said, “but I don’t think you should joke like that about your future.”
“I’m deadly serious,” I told her.
“Apologies if I sound somewhat cynical,” the careers advisor said sarcastically, “but travelling to Mongolia, becoming a nun and finding God are not concrete career paths. Becoming a nun is not economically viable these days. You are a smart girl, and It would be sad if you didn’t utilise your intelligence to find a real job.” She was also serious, but did not possess enough spirit within her wrinkled heart to be as deadly serious as I.
Ignoring her advice, I booked a flight to Mongolia, departing the day after I completed my exams. I found a placement working with children. The woman who ran the children’s home where I worked was a nun of her own style. I didn’t entertain much attraction towards most of the other nuns that I met; they seemed as cynical as my careers advisor. This nun, however, dressed in saffron robes and told me that she didn’t belong to any religion. She was a nun of spirituality, with scriptures that held no borders, like Mongolia’s fenceless countryside.
“Can I join your club?” I asked her, attracted to her style of renunciation.
“Sure,” she replied, “but unlike the other churches around here, we don’t give money or free opportunities, we make you work! This might explain why we don’t have many followers!”
So work I did: sleeping on the floor, feeding babies in the nights, disciplining wild, snotty-nosed children. The babies vomited on me, one of the children threw his full potty at me, another bit me until I bled. After the initial stage, we grew to like one another. We would walk to school together, hand in dirty hand, and then I would walk them home again, past mounds of rubbish that piled up under the great sky.
At the end of the winter, when it was no longer so cold that you would freeze to death if the car broke down, I drove out to the countryside with my nun friend.
She stopped the car, and we climbed out to scale the mountain, our faces exposed to the icy gusts of wind that lingered from winter. At the top of the mountain, looking out onto the valley below, lungs filled with the thin air, I thought of my careers advisor. Mentally, I composed a letter to her and wrote it onto the mountain side with my blood:
Dear careers advisor,
The wind is not a cynic, even if it is mighty cold. Mountains aren’t cynics either; they simply stand and watch as life passes by.
I’m standing atop a mountain now, with a vast blue sky above me, the vengeful wind tormenting my uncovered ears. Everything is silent and frozen and empty, and if I were lost here alone I would almost certainly die. The only thing that could possibly fill the space around me is God. Under such a sky as this it is impossible not to believe so, because human beings are nothing here.
Do you believe in God yet? I hope that you do, but I don’t expect so. Perhaps you need to climb this mountain in winter and freeze to death to wake up with a clearer mind. It would be a lonely death and no one would find your body. You wouldn’t even be able to breathe in the earthy scents of the countryside with your last breaths, because ice has no smell, and when the world is frozen, there are no worldly perfumes mingled with air.
Thank you for your considered advice, and for increasing my own determination to reach my career goals.
Sincerely,
Yours under a blue sky (in red ink).
