When I first saw Dr. Brucker, my German immigrant asthma doctor, back in 2000 or so she was astonished at how comfortable I was living with untreated, severe asthma. “There’s a saying we have in German that you don’t have in English,” she told me, “The rough translation is ‘hell is a place you make for yourself.’ You can’t breathe. You’re living in hell but you’re comfortable because you made this hell for yourself.” I was offended and stormed out of her office. Just kidding, I was surprised to hear my asthma was so bad.
Thanks to my yearly visits to Dr. Brucker it’s been a long time since I felt the effects of asthma. Until I got to Bangkok. I mentioned a while back that having asthma here sucks but a funny thing happened over the last couple weeks, I stopped noticing. Or rather I only notice now and again. Typically either when I stand up quickly and have a moment where it seems like I might faint or when I hustle and then slow down and think, “what the hell is wrong with me… oh, yeah, I can’t breathe.”
That is to say I’ve adjusted, I guess. Keep this anecdote in mind.
On three different occasions today someone inquired about “how I’m doing” in a fashion that clearly indicated she didn’t think I was doing very well. The first time I chuckled, the second time I found it odd, the third time I accepted that it appears like I’m not in tiptop psychological shape. I accept that this true, I’m not, but I can assure anyone concerned that I’m fine.
This funk isn’t out of the norm. It’s pretty much one of my typical “why are human being so frustrating and disappointing for how illuminating and fulfilling they can be” episodes. [Note to Youngsters: you won’t necessarily grow out of this.] It’s true that Bangkok is exacerbating this feeling but only because that dichotomy is more obvious here than it is in America even though it’s WORSE AT HOME. A fact that should stagger any American who’s been here. We just do a better job of zoning and regulating our crushing, vile and damning socioeconomic divide so that you can’t see one side from the other. In Bangkok the equivalents of North Minneapolis and the Lake of the Isles are in the same neighborhood. Back home they may as well be in different states.
I go through this from time to time. It probably seems more extreme this time because I’m yammering on in this blog about it. I’m happier than I seem. I swear. I started tutoring and that will help me find my equilibrium again for a couple reasons.
I’ll learn things I likely would never have known if it weren’t for idle conversation. Such as, kids here go to Buddhist summer camp. Who knew? I mean, it’s obvious in retrospect but you can’t see what you don’t look for.
I learned that because one of the kids I tutor, 14-year-old Girl (a fictional but entirely plausible name), knows there are two things she doesn’t want to be when she grows up: an advertising creative and a doctor. An amazing combination, right? It gets better because she had reasons.
She doesn’t want to be an advertising creative because, I’m paraphrasing here, she doesn’t see the point in coming up with an idea only to have clients pick away at it in meeting after meeting until in the end your idea is either dead or not your idea. And for all for what? A 30-second ad or a stupid billboard? I swear I did not coach her through this answer. Her mom is an account executive and this was Girl’s take on what she sees. At 14 all I would have seen was free popcorn and soda.
But wait, it gets better.
The reason she doesn’t want to be a doctor is she learned in Buddhist summer camp that even the spirits of creatures you kill accidentally hold it against you and then work against your spirit. “I’m not that religious or anything,” Girl said, “but if the spirit of a bug you stepped on by accident holds it against you, just think how the spirit of a person you kill accidentally would take it? No way I want to deal with that.”
I know what some of you are thinking, “Who knew Sawyer had a 14-year-old full-blooded Thai daughter? And he never mentioned it. So weird.” That’s kind of what I thought too. And herein lies the true path to my return to contentment: talking to people.
Perhaps some of you harbor the impression that I like talking to people. I can confirm that I do and I further confirm that living in a place full of people I can’t talk to is weighing heavily on my soul. I hadn’t factored this into my notions about what it would be like to live somewhere I don’t speak the language. Even my quotidian interactions like getting a coffee are stripped down to a purely functional transactions that no amount of smiling, gesturing and fractured Thai/English can turn into a meaningful two way personal interaction and it’s killing me.
Mercifully I’ll have regular appointments with a batch of young people who want to improve their English or are being forced to by their parents. For those keeping score, this will be the third time in the last 10 years that I’ve been saved by a random assortment of people who haven’t yet graduated from high school. What is Buddha trying to tell me? I have no idea but I’ll ask Girl next time I see her because I can guarantee there are boatloads of Thai sayings I don't know.
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