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Life has its unpleasant side; that’s life

Oct 02, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There is a huge advantage growing up in poverty and having a street life. Once elevation and education are achieved, there is a hard part to your character that insulates you from danger and ignominy. It is called the street-wise dimension of life. People whom you interact with would then tell you that you have both a middle class and a street smart ontology.
No number of philosophical books, parental love and societal admiration can protect you from the unpleasant side of life like that once street smart existence.
When you grow up, become a public figure, are in the media, are in citizens’ conversations, you are not easily ruffled when you pick up the newspaper and read something caustic. You shouldn’t have become what you became. Life has its danger and you had to know that once you climb that political platform or pen a public commentary the danger will confront you, the insults will flow, the rumours will fly, the stares will follow you, the gossip will defy the law of gravity.
Usain Bolt must know that envious rivals will gossip about drug use. Obama must know that all-white Americans would not welcome him.
The point is to understand that life is not a bed of roses. When danger comes do not cry and remember at all times, when a face opens up a window and shouts down to you, another face will open another window and say, I love what you did yesterday. Please keep it up.
You will know when your time has come to ride away in the sunset when only insults are pelted your way when you walk down the street and at the end of each day, each week, each year, each decade, no one stops, smiles at you, hold your hand and tells you that you are needed and will always be needed. If you are on the receiving end of the roses, with an expansive smile and inviting eyes, then you know the gods have not notified you as yet that twilight time is near.
When I became a public intellectual many moons ago, I knew what I was walking into. And I knew that the hard days of despair in Wortmanville would always be a canopy over my mind and soul and it would be my sempiternal protector. I am not easily intimidated because on the streets of Wortmanville you had to be hard to survive. I am not easily swayed by criticism to abandon the path I am traveling on. I believe in me. I believe in what I do especially for my country and people. But there is a but that is so inspiring.
But when people cuss you down, you know that you can smile because the country and its people know that these people who gossip and rumour about you will never do for the country and people what you have done. It comes down to the realistic banality that the world has its jejune minds that seek an outlet and maybe in the scheme of things as Elton John sang in his famous song, “The Circle of Life” from the musical, “The Lion King,” you have to live and let live.
Who am I to object to the banality of mind even if such a soulless vocabulary seeks my attention? I am no saint. I doubt I want to be a street fighter. But this I know; philosophy aside, one has to fight back. But the pen must write and having written must write on because in seeking solace in silence, the mediocrity of charlatans wins and the superficiality of the dilettante is given a permit to the library of democracy that is too risky in a society as young as Guyana.
If I were to write a book on my journalistic sojourns, philosophy will be overshadowed by the lighter side of grammar. In a three-year period, the Chronicle published 537 letters on me; not one of which saw an ounce of positive value in me. There is a man who writes three weekly letters on me. I am accused of saying and doing things I haven’t the remotest clue about.
You may think this is a joke but this individual pens three letters in each week on me. For this week there are already four in this newspaper. I chose not to reply because if I do then three a week will become nine a week. Life does have its unpleasant funny sides. Try to live with both.

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