Mariana Drok

“Beloveds, we do not know how to live our lives with any agency outside our bed.”

– Juliana Spahr

This week our ASTU class has been reading poems by American poet Juliana Spahr. Her book This connection of everyone with lungs was written as a reply to the events of 9/11. However, it doesn’t exclusively focus on this trauma, otherwise it touches more than just one specific event. In this manner Spahr introduces a reader to a question: ‘where my experience ends and your begins?’ In this post I would like to write about a comfort zone everyone has and the way people choose to stay there because of the fear of vulnerability.

Everyone has their own place where the world stays out of their side and the only focus they have is their private, personal, individual. Spahr uses the analogy with bed, as a place where people recover their energy, feel secure and isolated from the troubles of the day. For some people their bed is a place they live in all the time. There are thousands of them all over the world.

The linear thinking leads to the concept of living one’s own life without any interest in what is happening in the world. However, in the era of media and globalization there are no longer boundaries and the luxury to hide in one’s own shell becomes inaccessible. It is important to understand that our lives are not separate parallels, but parts of a circle. People are vulnerable no matter where they are. The illusion of security that exists in our beds is so faint and fragile that it can barely protect us. Only by accepting the connection we all have with each other we can start thinking about the ways we in which we can make this world a better place to live in. It doesn’t require everyone becoming presidents and prime ministers, but the change of a mindset can already be a small step toward a better future.