National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC December 2021
“And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened.”
- Doug Coupland
[from FB post: April 26, 2019]
It is taking a lot of time and emotion to process this place. In Saudi Arabia it was "foreign", but easy to describe. Here is different.
Khalid
When I first arrived at my hotel there was a young Georgian guy cleaning the rooms. He left after about a month and was replaced by Khalid, a Kurdish guy of maybe 19. Khalid was, I think, a distant relative of the owner. It seems Khalid didn't know much about anything. He certainly couldn't clean and if sent to fix something broken, he just made it worse. Most maddeningly, Khalid sat in the lobby looking out into space with a very vacant stare. There was no motivation in him to do anything. He did sometimes look at his phone, but not as much as just sitting there, doing nothing.
"So typical of young people these days" I thought. He wanted a salary to do basically nothing.
I did give the guy a chance to grow into the job. It just wasn't happening. I was losing my patience rapidly. Finally, at the washing machine, he so f...ked up the cycles that the machine stopped working. Even if Khalid couldn't understand English, I let him know how frustrated and angry I was. I wanted to make him feel small and stupid. He smiled lamely and walked away. I was completely sure he was a lazy, good-for-nothing.
I complained to the owner's son (who spoke English). I told him Khalid seemed lazy and not too bright. Then I was told, "oh Mr Matthew, please try to be patient with him. He is just learning. You know ISIS killed his entire family".
Now I was the one to just stare vacantly.
I went to my room, feeling very bad about my behavior, and cried.
After that, I totally did a Scrooge transformation and did my best to be patient and show him what I wanted done. He improved a bit, but I really didn't care. Whenever I found him sitting and staring, I would try to engage him and make him laugh. I gave him Middle Eastern kisses and hugs always.
He would never react with more than a very far away smile.
Finally, he got a better job in a local hospital. He sometimes texts me a heart or a rose. I am so sad I couldn't communicate more with him.
This is what living in "the Land of Broken People" is like. It is really a test of my emotional strength, but it feels like one of the most genuine experiences of my life.
I re-read this and reflect on the broken people I have met in my life. I think in my younger days I felt sincere sympathy for friends who suffered through incredible hardship and abuse. However, only after I myself suffered personal loss and devastation did all of this allow me to become an empathetic person. If nothing bad has ever happened to us personally, can we ever really feel the pain of others.?
I still struggle. I have met people of incredible resilience who made me think we all somehow could buck up and carry on. I also still meet people with the vacant stares of Khalid, broken beyond repair.
As Coupland points out - how will we know when we ourselves join the ranks of "the broken"? Or are we all there already?