What would you do if you were in a position of authority with the world-broadcast stage to confront Adolf Hitler, circa 1934?
President Bollinger answered that question for himself today as the host of the World Leaders Forum with President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:
Sept. 24, 2007
I would like to begin by thanking Dean John Coatsworth and Professor Richard Bulliet for their work in organizing this event and for their commitment to the role of the School of International and Public Affairs and its role in training future leaders in world affairs. If today proves anything it will be that there is an enormous amount of work ahead for all of us. This is just one of many events on Iran that will run throughout this academic year, all to help us better understand this critical and complex nation in today’s geopolitics.
Before speaking directly to the current President of Iran, I have a few critically important points to emphasize.
First, since 2003, the World Leaders Forum has advanced Columbia’s longstanding tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate, especially on global issues. It should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas or our naiveté about the very real dangers inherent in such ideas. It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices. To hold otherwise would make vigorous debate impossible.
Second, to those who believe that this event never should have happened, that it is inappropriate for the University to conduct such an event, I want to say that I understand your perspective and respect it as reasonable. The scope of free speech and academic freedom should itself always be open to further debate. As one of the more famous quotations about free speech goes, it is “an experiment, as all life is an experiment.” I want to say, however, as forcefully as I can, that this is the right thing to do and, indeed, it is required by existing norms of free speech, the American university, and Columbia itself.
Third, to those among us who experience hurt and pain as a result of this day, I say on behalf of all of us we are sorry and wish to do what we can to alleviate it.
Fourth, to be clear on another matter - this event has nothing whatsoever to do with any “rights” of the speaker but only with our rights to listen and speak. We do it for ourselves.
We do it in the great tradition of openness that has defined this nation for many decades now. We need to understand the world we live in, neither neglecting its glories nor shrinking from its threats and dangers. It is consistent with the idea that one should know thine enemies, to have the intellectual and emotional courage to confront the mind of evil and to prepare ourselves to act with the right temperament. In the moment, the arguments for free speech will never seem to match the power of the arguments against, but what we must remember is that this is precisely because free speech asks us to exercise extraordinary self- restraint against the very natural but often counter-productive impulses that lead us to retreat from engagement with ideas we dislike and fear. In this lies the genius of the American idea of free speech.
Lastly, in universities, we have a deep and almost single-minded commitment to pursue the truth. We do not have access to the levers of power. We cannot make war or peace. We can only make minds. And to do this we must have the most full freedom of inquiry.
Let me now turn to Mr. Ahmadinejad.
THE BRUTAL CRACKDOWN ON SCHOLARS, JOURNALISTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES
Over the last two weeks, your government has released Dr. Haleh Esfandiari and Parnaz Axima; and just two days ago Kian Tajbakhsh, a graduate of Columbia with a PhD in urban planning. While our community is relieved to learn of his release on bail, Dr. Tajbakhsh remains in Teheran, under house arrest, and he still does not know whether he will be charged with a crime or allowed to leave the country. Let me say this for the record, I call on the President today to ensure that Kian Tajbaksh will be free to travel out of Iran as he wishes. Let me also report today that we are extending an offer to Dr. Tajbaksh to join our faculty as a visiting professor in urban planning here at his Alma Mater, in our Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. And we hope he will be able to join us next semester.
The arrest and imprisonment of these Iranian Americans for no good reason is not only unjustified, it runs completely counter to the very values that allow today’s speaker to even appear on this campus.
But at least they are alive.
According to Amnesty International, 210 people have been executed in Iran so far this year – 21 of them on the morning of September 5th alone. This annual total includes at least two children – further proof, as Human Rights Watch puts it, that Iran leads the world in executing minors.
There is more.
Iran hanged up to 30 people this past July and August during a widely reported suppression of efforts to establish a more open, democratic society in Iran. Many of these executions were carried out in public view, a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party.
These executions and others have coincided with a wider crackdown on student activists and academics accused of trying to foment a so-called “soft revolution”. This has included jailing and forced retirements of scholars. As Dr. Esfandiari said in a broadcast interview since her release, she was held in solitary confinement for 105 days because the government “believes that the United States . . . is planning a Velvet Revolution” in Iran.
In this very room last year we learned something about Velvet Revolutions from Vaclav Havel. And we will likely hear the same from our World Leaders Forum speaker this evening – President Michelle Bachelet Jeria of Chile. Both of their extraordinary stories remind us that there are not enough prisons to prevent an entire society that wants its freedom from achieving it.
We at this university have not been shy to protest and challenge the failures of our own government to live by these values; and we won’t be shy in criticizing yours.
Let’s, then, be clear at the beginning, Mr. President you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.
And so I ask you:
Why have women, members of the Baha’i faith, homosexuals and so many of our academic colleagues become targets of persecution in your country?
Why in a letter last week to the Secretary General of the UN did Akbar Gangi, Iran’s leading political dissident, and over 300 public intellectuals, writers and Nobel Laureates express such grave concern that your inflamed dispute with the West is distracting the world’s attention from the intolerable conditions your regime has created within Iran? In particular, the use of the Press Law to ban writers for criticizing the ruling system.
Why are you so afraid of Iranian citizens expressing their opinions for change?
In our country, you are interviewed by our press and asked that you to speak here today. And while my colleague at the Law School Michael Dorf spoke to Radio Free Europe [sic, Voice of America] viewers in Iran a short while ago on the tenets of freedom of speech in this country, I propose going further than that. Let me lead a delegation of students and faculty from Columbia to address your university about free speech, with the same freedom we afford you today? Will you do that?
THE DENIAL OF THE HOLOCAUST
In a December 2005 state television broadcast, you described the Holocaust as a “fabricated” “legend.” One year later, you held a two-day conference of Holocaust deniers.
For the illiterate and ignorant, this is dangerous propaganda. When you come to a place like this, this makes you, quite simply, ridiculous. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.
You should know that Columbia is a world center of Jewish studies and now, in partnership with the YIVO Institute, of Holocaust studies. Since the 1930s, we’ve provided an intellectual home for countless Holocaust refugees and survivors and their children and grandchildren. The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history. Because of this, and for many other reasons, your absurd comments about the “debate” over the Holocaust both defy historical truth and make all of us who continue to fear humanity’s capacity for evil shudder at this closure of memory, which is always virtue’s first line of defense.
Will you cease this outrage?
THE DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL
Twelve days ago, you said that the state of Israel “cannot continue its life.” This echoed a number of inflammatory statements you have delivered in the last two years, including in October 2005 when you said that Israel should be “wiped off the map.”
Columbia has over 800 alumni currently living in Israel. As an institution we have deep ties with our colleagues there. I personally have spoken out in the most forceful terms against proposals to boycott Israeli scholars and universities, saying that such boycotts might as well include Columbia. More than 400 college and university presidents in this country have joined in that statement. My question, then, is: Do you plan on wiping us off the map, too?
FUNDING TERRORISM
According to reports by the Council on Foreign Relations, it’s well documented that Iran is a state sponsor of terror that funds such violent group as the Lebanese Hezbollah, which Iran helped organize in the 1980s, the Palestinian Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
While your predecessor government was instrumental in providing the US with intelligence and base support in its 2001 campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, your government is now undermining American troops in Iraq by funding, arming, and providing safe transit to insurgent leaders like Muqtada al-Sadr and his forces.
There are a number of reports that also link your government with Syria’s efforts to destabalize the fledgling Lebanese government through violence and political assassination.
My question is this: Why do you support well-documented terrorist organizations that continue to strike at peace and democracy in the Middle East, destroying lives and civil society in the region?
PROXY WAR AGAINST U.S. TROOPS IN IRAQ
In a briefing before the National Press Club earlier this month, General David Petraeus reported that arms supplies from Iran, including 240mm rockets and explosively formed projectiles, are contributing to “a sophistication of attacks that would by no means be possible without Iranian support.”
A number of Columbia graduates and current students are among the brave members of our military who are serving or have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They, like other Americans with sons, daughters, fathers, husbands and wives serving in combat, rightly see your government as the enemy.
Can you tell them and us why Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq by arming Shi’a militia targeting and killing U.S. troops?
FINALLY, IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM AND INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS
This week the United Nations Security Council is contemplating expanding sanctions for a third time because of your government’s refusal to suspend its uranium-enrichment program. You continue to defy this world body by claiming a right to develop peaceful nuclear power, but this hardly withstands scrutiny when you continue to issue military threats to neighbors. Last week, French President Sarkozy made clear his lost patience with your stall tactics; and even Russia and China have shown concern.
Why does your country continue to refuse to adhere to international standards for nuclear weapons verification in defiance of agreements that you have made with the UN nuclear agency? And why have you chosen to make the people of your country vulnerable to the effects of international economic sanctions and threaten to engulf the world with nuclear annihilation?
Let me close with this comment. Frankly, and in all candor, Mr. President, I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. But your avoiding them will in itself be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do. Fortunately, I am told by experts on your country, that this only further undermines your position in Iran with all the many good-hearted, intelligent citizens there. A year ago, I am reliably told, your preposterous and belligerent statements in this country (as in your meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations) so embarrassed sensible Iranian citizens that this led to your party’s defeat in the December mayoral elections. May this do that and more.
I am only a professor, who is also a university president, and today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for. I only wish I could do better.
Monday, 24 September 2007
Saturday, 22 September 2007
Toby Keith's "American Soldier"
Toby Keith's song was made in the same spirit as Beccy Cole's excellent tribute to Australian soldiers, "Poster Girl (On the Wrong Side of the World)".
Eric
Sunday, 16 September 2007
We choose to go to the moon.
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. -- President John F. Kennedy, Sept 12 1962
Eric
Eric
Saturday, 15 September 2007
Bye Traci
[Eric note: The second part of this post has been periodically and significantly amended since its original posting on September 15, 2007. Last substantive change: February 12, 2013.]
I unexpectedly found out something that ends a dream from my youth: she is married.
At my age, these things are no longer surprises: when Cyd was married, another dream of my youth was laid to rest. Traci is 28 now, after all, which is a more-than-reasonable age to be married.
Traci was my unrequited love from my last radiant days as a soldier, and thinking about my failure to win her love still hurts. I opened my heart for Traci and offered her the best of me, and the only thing my love accomplished was to push her to stress-induced smoking. Before I left Korea, I did my best to finish my "court" (her word) of Traci, for my own sake, so I would know conclusively there was no hope for her and me to become us. I wanted closure with Traci, not a repeat of my Judy obsession. After Korea, even when I found out she was at the University of Maryland at College Park, which is a reasonable commute from New York, a relationship of any kind was not something I would have sought short of an accidental encounter. I did consider contacting her in Maryland, and there are guys who can pull that off; me? I would have come off as a stalker and I'm not a stalker. I achieved closure in Korea and that was the end of it.
Life can be mystical. At the same time I was digesting the news about Traci, my co-worker in the next cubicle complained to her girl friend about a suitor in the same way Traci criticized me. For my co-worker, her suitor's behavior on their outings was friendly, not suggestive of romantic intentions; however, afterwards he texted her with a frequency, volume, and message that was much more intense. She was "annoyed" at them, especially his text messages at work. I believe she didn't respond to them and when she expressed to him her annoyance about them, he responded by asking her to tell him what not to do. My co-worker was made more upset by his request. After a heated discussion, he asked her if they "were cool" and if she still "liked him". (There may have been an accusation from him of mixed signals from her as well, but that just could be me projecting.) Clearly, he was convinced they had connected when in reality, she thought he was too demanding and inappropriate and felt smothered by something that wasn't even, in her mind, a relationship. My co-worker was confused by the "disconnect" between her suitor's cooler in-person behavior and the intensity of his virtual behavior, and between his serious expectations and what she considers a non-serious acquaintance. When I asked her about it, she believed he was being manipulative by "acting sweet", which she thinks he may have learned from other girls. She just didn't understand him, and combined with the unwelcome pressure she felt from him, the whole affair upset her.
I understood him - too well. Listening to my co-worker's conversation was like watching a Shakespearean play within a play. (I watched a stage performance of Hamlet on Thursday night.) Replace my co-worker's suitor's text messages with my voluminous, painfully sincere e-mails to Traci, and this guy could have been me. I didn't learn anything new from eavesdropping on my co-worker, given that Traci described her reaction to me the same way. But that's the lesson. Hamlet's uncle didn't learn anything new about his "murder most foul" from Hamlet's play, either, but it did confront him later on with the truth of himself in a stark manner.
I was sure Traci and I shared a mutual attraction when I gambled by revealing (e-mailing - ugh) my desire to her, so I can easily imagine his hurt and confusion when my co-worker pushed him away. I can see the two of them going out a few more times "as friends", his struggle to keep her in his life while suppressing his desire, her continued growing discomfort, and then her eventual toxic avoidance of him altogether. Oh, and get this, she still hangs out with her ex live-in boyfriend. Familiar, no?
Still, my experience with Traci made for rich food for thought. Traci remains the only girl to whom I've seriously connected the ideas of wife, mother of my children, and a relationship of decades. As long as I could think of Traci as single, I could use my memories of her - if no longer the actual Traci - as a reference point for reflection:
When I say I did my best with Traci, that means I tried to learn from my past mistakes with girls.
With Dora, I had a crush on her literally from the first day of high school and then proceeded to waste four years of opportunities to date her. We sat next to each other in homeroom and one memorable English class, and we were friendly, but as badly as I wanted to, I was just too insecure to take the risk of asking her out. Instead, I wrote her letters and cards as a secret admirer. Years after graduation when I confessed, Dora told me I should have asked her out, that she had a "nice" impression of me in high school. Lesson learned: I burned up all my chances with Dora. Given I only had a year left in Korea by the time Traci and I started seeing each other, I wasn't going to wait too long to tell her how I felt.
Judy was, and I imagine still is, a quintessential prize - talented, cultivated and sophisticated, intelligent, beautiful. But we weren't compatible. I say a lot about Judy when I talk about Traci because Judy was my background when Traci and I met. I was cautious and wounded by my Judy experience but still hesitantly hopeful that she represented an episode only and not a theme. The tantalizing promise of Traci was a compatibility-based relationship that would dispel my cynicism, so I fought against the protective counsel of my experience and fears in order to empower my hope for us.
With Judy, my fundamental error was self-editing. Self-editing didn't matter when I was merely a concerned friend, but it became destructive when my desire grew and I needed more from her. I believed Judy would reject the 'true' me and I was afraid to lose this girl who was way beyond my league, so I gave unconditionally and hid anything I thought Judy would find unattractive. Every conversation, visit, and outing with Judy became a struggle to please her. I was constantly anxious and on guard with her, never relaxed, and the sustained apprehension became exhausting. I learned with Judy that some selfishness is healthy in a relationship. When I visited her at Bryn Mawr and admitted my feelings, and she accepted them, our relationship had to change. At that point, Judy and I didn't have a mutual, reciprocal relationship. I understood we each would have to reach deep to hold onto each other. She and I needed to become equals and I needed her to earn my trust, which meant I could no longer be selfless and reserved. To be together, I needed to know she was committed to me and I could rely on her.
She couldn't do it. Judy couldn't commit to me. When I opened myself to her and asked Judy whether she would be there for me in kind, she answered, "you can't expect people to suffer with you". My fears proved accurate: for all my straining efforts to be there for her whenever she had wanted me, Judy had only valued me for the function I served her as a supporter and therapist. I fought for her and she didn't fight for me. The speed and lack of remorse with which Judy gave up on me came as a painful shock. The moment of revelation, when I knew there was no reciprocity between us, should have been the end. But with the commitment I made to her, the addictive intimacy we shared, and the intense emotion and energy I invested into her, I had built a temple for Judy in my heart and fueled an obsession for a relationship that didn't exist. I knew she was bad for me, yet my obsession with her persisted after our falling out. When I found myself back in Korea as a stunned West Point drop-out at the end of 1999 and still hung up on Judy despite all that had happened, I finally had had enough. I was angry at her hold on me, and I used my anger to act enough like a jerk in an e-mail to elicit a cutting response from her. It worked; I was freed from my obsession.
The first time I saw Traci was the first day of David Norris's English 101 class in January 2000. She walked in late and took the seat in the back of the first row. I was immediately struck by her fresh, youthful beauty, and I spent the rest of the class trying to steal glances of Traci from my seat in the front of the second row. After that class, we spoke for the first time, briefly, while waiting to cross the street from Yongsan's South Post to Main Post. I asked her something about being from Guam, which she had mentioned during class introductions. I drank in her searching eyes, sweet voice and natural demeanor. My first impression of Traci was 'She's exactly what I want in a girlfriend', followed by the self-pitying 'but I'd never get her'. So, while I continued to steal glances of her in class, I didn't try to speak with Traci again for the rest of the semester. But wonder of wonders, she stopped me to talk one day as I was striding through Yongsan Lanes. I helped her bowl a game, she bragged about it to her dad, and then we spent our first long night together walking and talking in Seoul.
Although I was attracted to Traci from the moment I first saw her, I didn't fall in love right away. When we started hanging out, I told myself her friendship would be a boon to my time in Korea and resolved not to screw it up. But the more time we spent together and the more I knew her, the harder it became to restrain myself. My heart made my choice for me. When Traci softly responded that if I hadn't dropped out of West Point, then she and I wouldn't have met, I believed fate was with us. More, I learned she arrived in Korea from New York City at almost the same time I did. I hardly dared to hope that, just maybe, Traci was meant to be my love story. She was 20 and perfect. I was 23 and falling in love. When I told Traci about my romantic history the 2nd or 3rd time we went out, I was really warning her I was about to gamble for her love. (It didn't make a difference, because either she would commit to me or she wouldn't. My gamble could only end in reward or punishment, like a fall-and-catch trust-building exercise.)
Because of my mistakes with Judy, I committed to be conscientiously communicative and genuine with Traci from the start. I tried to be more assertive in order to find out early in the relationship whether she would be there for me as reliably as I would be there for her. I theorized that if I revealed my soul and Traci still wanted to be with the 'true' me, and vice versa, then we would have the cornerstone for a strong partnership. Honesty and openness, with the good and the ugly, and the confident and the vulnerable, was the best I could give of myself. I was wary of long-distance relationships after Judy and my tendency to narrate with e-mail, so I worked to bring Traci and me physically together as much as possible. As I fell in love, the most important thing in my life was to be with her; when she was with me, I didn't want our time to end. It didn't matter to me what Traci and I did; whatever we were doing was an excuse to be with her. Traci and I saw sunrises together and spent 18 and more hours at a time with each other, just talking, and I thought it was enough. I thought I was careful enough. With Judy, I was desperate when I made my gamble for her at Bryn Mawr because I could no longer limit myself to be a selfless, unconditional giver. With Traci, constrictive self-editing wasn't a problem - I wouldn't have gambled with her, at least not when I did, if I didn't believe she felt the same way. Using my Judy experience as the comparison, the feedback and other indicators from Traci encouraged me. I thought we clicked. We were good together - when we were together - and good for each other.
So I was very confident Traci reciprocated my romantic interest. For a preciously few Spring days, I was brightly in love with the wondrous belief that Traci felt the same way. When I proposed raising the intimacy of our relationship, I was simply happy, eager to get on with our love story -- and wrong.
The problem is that by avoiding past mistakes and breaking new ground, I didn't recognize my new mistakes. I badly misread Traci's interest in me. Even before it turned bad, I was already rationalizing how hard it was becoming to see her. Rather, I downplayed any drawback on Traci's part as shyness or maybe girlish decorum. I naively thought, perhaps, she was even waiting for me as the man to make the next move. When Traci rejected my e-mailed proposal (the disastrous Tim & Deborah), the switch from illuminating, glorious promise to hurt, confused rejection was as shocking as it had been with Judy.
I've wondered at times, despite everything, whether I competely misread Traci. Empathy and sensitivity are two of my relative strengths, so it's hard to believe I was entirely wrong about her. I accept I was optimistic and too selective reading the signs, such as glossing over her determined refusal to allow me to pay for her, but even with the harsh scrutiny of hindsight, I recall moments with Traci from which I derive the same encouraging conclusions I did then. Rod gave the compelling explanation that I misinterpreted Traci's interest in me as an oppa. If I assume, however, she didn't view me as an oppa exclusively and was romantically interested at some point, the dilemma then becomes I won't sustain the self-editing that has worked to hold a girl's interest, but the times I opened my heart vulnerable for the sake of a soul commitment, Judy and Traci rejected me.
It's sad how little time I was allowed to be only happy with pristine hope for us. After her rejection, the rest of my history with Traci became a grim struggle as I forced my way to closure with the "court", more for a rear-guard defense of my precious love than from any realistic expectation Traci would change her mind. Traci told me during one of my later heartfelt entreaties that romantic love shouldn't be as hard as I made it. What she meant was that true love isn't one-sided, like my love for her. I still believe romantic love properly to be hard work, but I do agree genuine romantic love is forgiving and shared. A healthy “court” should be natural effort that returns great reward, and it wasn't like that with Traci. I knew it was a lost cause when I realized I was competing with Traci, not some other guy, for her love. I suppressed my pride to try to keep her in my life as just-friends, but that couldn't work and didn't last long. In the end, I resorted to sending her long e-mails pouring out my heart, in spite of my original resolve not to, in an attempt to preserve a link, however tenuous, between us. I did a few other stupid things, too - I even begged her once. I know I upset her - I know what her eyes look like when she's furious with me.
I became pathetic for the sake of love and it has hurt ever since. But I don't blame Traci. It was my choice when I fought down the counsel of my fears and opened my heart. I didn't give myself a safety plan and she didn't catch me. The long-term damage of my lost gamble is the end of the hope that my Judy experience was an episode only. Rather than exorcise Judy, Traci wounded me, validated my Judy experience, and proved that romantic failure is my theme. The prize rejected me, then the compatible girl rejected me, too.
So, where do I go from here? I'm lost. It's hard for me right now to let go of my belief in the simple bonding of "kindred spirits" and accept that the answer I've wished for since childhood has escaped me: my soulmate to enter my life who, as I eagerly reach for her, reaches for me just as eagerly. I thought Traci was her and I was wrong. Traci told me there was no spark (there was plenty for me), I didn't know her (I was learning), I made her think (I did) when she just wanted "drink and dance", I was intimidating (I still don't understand what she meant by that), and she didn't know I was engaged in a "court" (I don't believe that). I did my best with Traci and utterly failed, so at this point, I just don't know how to find this special girl or help her find me. Since Korea, the answer that has made the most sense has been to improve myself to the degree that, when I fall in love, I can be revealing without anything unattractive to reject. The problem is I already know that's a bad answer. Self-improvement should not be for the sake of impressing others. Love isn't a product of personal perfection; love is about combining lives and life is imperfect. Other guys' flaws don't stop them from successful relationships, and I know the notion is misguided because I already tried to transform for a girl. I joined the Army in part to prove my worth as a man to Judy. When I visited Judy for the last time right before I dropped out of West Point, I realized how hollow that purpose was as I walked South Street with her in my white-over-gray cadet uniform and Army ribbons on my chest. (I'm not saying my soldiering experience was empty, only the part about joining the Army for Judy. At the time, I didn't realize the manly platonic ideal of manhood is not the same as the romantically desirable man, at least in my generation.) Nor did my life-altering attempt to impress Judy fix our essential incompatibility. The harsh pragmatic answer, if I can compromise my romantic ideals, is to learn - belatedly - how to play the game of courtship. I'm moving closer to the pragmatic answer, because with my age, desperation is giving way to resignation that pure romantic love simply is not meant for me. In the meantime, at minimum, finding a better balance of cosmetic self-editing than either my tense reserve with Judy or my dogmatic disclosure (I believe one particular revelation did mortal damage) with Traci is prudent.
I don't regret opening my heart to her, what I felt for Traci, what I wanted for us, and that I did the best I could to "court" her. I tried very hard. For me, the news of Traci's marriage is wistful, sad, and laced with regret. I was in love with Traci, and I wonder what might have been had circumstances been different. Had I been different. I like to tell myself that the outcome was inevitable, that in the end, I am who I am and she is who she is . . . blaming fate is easier than telling myself I met my wife, who was interested, and I fumbled her away.
Of course, Traci was about more than romance. Met at the crossroads, she was a life test. For a brief tantalizing moment, I believed Traci was my anchor in the light and vindication I was okay. Instead, I was left in the dark and served notice I am not relieved from the fight.
Best of luck, Traci. All was right with the world and you were a blissful beautiful dream, for the short while it lasted. Your man's a winner. I'd congratulate you properly with a belated wedding card and a present if I thought my gesture would be viewed well. Bye.
Coda.
Add May 16, 2010: REO Speedwagon's plaintive I Can't Fight This Feeling captures my Traci experience rather well. These songs, too.
Eric
I unexpectedly found out something that ends a dream from my youth: she is married.
At my age, these things are no longer surprises: when Cyd was married, another dream of my youth was laid to rest. Traci is 28 now, after all, which is a more-than-reasonable age to be married.
Traci was my unrequited love from my last radiant days as a soldier, and thinking about my failure to win her love still hurts. I opened my heart for Traci and offered her the best of me, and the only thing my love accomplished was to push her to stress-induced smoking. Before I left Korea, I did my best to finish my "court" (her word) of Traci, for my own sake, so I would know conclusively there was no hope for her and me to become us. I wanted closure with Traci, not a repeat of my Judy obsession. After Korea, even when I found out she was at the University of Maryland at College Park, which is a reasonable commute from New York, a relationship of any kind was not something I would have sought short of an accidental encounter. I did consider contacting her in Maryland, and there are guys who can pull that off; me? I would have come off as a stalker and I'm not a stalker. I achieved closure in Korea and that was the end of it.
Life can be mystical. At the same time I was digesting the news about Traci, my co-worker in the next cubicle complained to her girl friend about a suitor in the same way Traci criticized me. For my co-worker, her suitor's behavior on their outings was friendly, not suggestive of romantic intentions; however, afterwards he texted her with a frequency, volume, and message that was much more intense. She was "annoyed" at them, especially his text messages at work. I believe she didn't respond to them and when she expressed to him her annoyance about them, he responded by asking her to tell him what not to do. My co-worker was made more upset by his request. After a heated discussion, he asked her if they "were cool" and if she still "liked him". (There may have been an accusation from him of mixed signals from her as well, but that just could be me projecting.) Clearly, he was convinced they had connected when in reality, she thought he was too demanding and inappropriate and felt smothered by something that wasn't even, in her mind, a relationship. My co-worker was confused by the "disconnect" between her suitor's cooler in-person behavior and the intensity of his virtual behavior, and between his serious expectations and what she considers a non-serious acquaintance. When I asked her about it, she believed he was being manipulative by "acting sweet", which she thinks he may have learned from other girls. She just didn't understand him, and combined with the unwelcome pressure she felt from him, the whole affair upset her.
I understood him - too well. Listening to my co-worker's conversation was like watching a Shakespearean play within a play. (I watched a stage performance of Hamlet on Thursday night.) Replace my co-worker's suitor's text messages with my voluminous, painfully sincere e-mails to Traci, and this guy could have been me. I didn't learn anything new from eavesdropping on my co-worker, given that Traci described her reaction to me the same way. But that's the lesson. Hamlet's uncle didn't learn anything new about his "murder most foul" from Hamlet's play, either, but it did confront him later on with the truth of himself in a stark manner.
I was sure Traci and I shared a mutual attraction when I gambled by revealing (e-mailing - ugh) my desire to her, so I can easily imagine his hurt and confusion when my co-worker pushed him away. I can see the two of them going out a few more times "as friends", his struggle to keep her in his life while suppressing his desire, her continued growing discomfort, and then her eventual toxic avoidance of him altogether. Oh, and get this, she still hangs out with her ex live-in boyfriend. Familiar, no?
Still, my experience with Traci made for rich food for thought. Traci remains the only girl to whom I've seriously connected the ideas of wife, mother of my children, and a relationship of decades. As long as I could think of Traci as single, I could use my memories of her - if no longer the actual Traci - as a reference point for reflection:
When I say I did my best with Traci, that means I tried to learn from my past mistakes with girls.
With Dora, I had a crush on her literally from the first day of high school and then proceeded to waste four years of opportunities to date her. We sat next to each other in homeroom and one memorable English class, and we were friendly, but as badly as I wanted to, I was just too insecure to take the risk of asking her out. Instead, I wrote her letters and cards as a secret admirer. Years after graduation when I confessed, Dora told me I should have asked her out, that she had a "nice" impression of me in high school. Lesson learned: I burned up all my chances with Dora. Given I only had a year left in Korea by the time Traci and I started seeing each other, I wasn't going to wait too long to tell her how I felt.
Judy was, and I imagine still is, a quintessential prize - talented, cultivated and sophisticated, intelligent, beautiful. But we weren't compatible. I say a lot about Judy when I talk about Traci because Judy was my background when Traci and I met. I was cautious and wounded by my Judy experience but still hesitantly hopeful that she represented an episode only and not a theme. The tantalizing promise of Traci was a compatibility-based relationship that would dispel my cynicism, so I fought against the protective counsel of my experience and fears in order to empower my hope for us.
With Judy, my fundamental error was self-editing. Self-editing didn't matter when I was merely a concerned friend, but it became destructive when my desire grew and I needed more from her. I believed Judy would reject the 'true' me and I was afraid to lose this girl who was way beyond my league, so I gave unconditionally and hid anything I thought Judy would find unattractive. Every conversation, visit, and outing with Judy became a struggle to please her. I was constantly anxious and on guard with her, never relaxed, and the sustained apprehension became exhausting. I learned with Judy that some selfishness is healthy in a relationship. When I visited her at Bryn Mawr and admitted my feelings, and she accepted them, our relationship had to change. At that point, Judy and I didn't have a mutual, reciprocal relationship. I understood we each would have to reach deep to hold onto each other. She and I needed to become equals and I needed her to earn my trust, which meant I could no longer be selfless and reserved. To be together, I needed to know she was committed to me and I could rely on her.
She couldn't do it. Judy couldn't commit to me. When I opened myself to her and asked Judy whether she would be there for me in kind, she answered, "you can't expect people to suffer with you". My fears proved accurate: for all my straining efforts to be there for her whenever she had wanted me, Judy had only valued me for the function I served her as a supporter and therapist. I fought for her and she didn't fight for me. The speed and lack of remorse with which Judy gave up on me came as a painful shock. The moment of revelation, when I knew there was no reciprocity between us, should have been the end. But with the commitment I made to her, the addictive intimacy we shared, and the intense emotion and energy I invested into her, I had built a temple for Judy in my heart and fueled an obsession for a relationship that didn't exist. I knew she was bad for me, yet my obsession with her persisted after our falling out. When I found myself back in Korea as a stunned West Point drop-out at the end of 1999 and still hung up on Judy despite all that had happened, I finally had had enough. I was angry at her hold on me, and I used my anger to act enough like a jerk in an e-mail to elicit a cutting response from her. It worked; I was freed from my obsession.
The first time I saw Traci was the first day of David Norris's English 101 class in January 2000. She walked in late and took the seat in the back of the first row. I was immediately struck by her fresh, youthful beauty, and I spent the rest of the class trying to steal glances of Traci from my seat in the front of the second row. After that class, we spoke for the first time, briefly, while waiting to cross the street from Yongsan's South Post to Main Post. I asked her something about being from Guam, which she had mentioned during class introductions. I drank in her searching eyes, sweet voice and natural demeanor. My first impression of Traci was 'She's exactly what I want in a girlfriend', followed by the self-pitying 'but I'd never get her'. So, while I continued to steal glances of her in class, I didn't try to speak with Traci again for the rest of the semester. But wonder of wonders, she stopped me to talk one day as I was striding through Yongsan Lanes. I helped her bowl a game, she bragged about it to her dad, and then we spent our first long night together walking and talking in Seoul.
Although I was attracted to Traci from the moment I first saw her, I didn't fall in love right away. When we started hanging out, I told myself her friendship would be a boon to my time in Korea and resolved not to screw it up. But the more time we spent together and the more I knew her, the harder it became to restrain myself. My heart made my choice for me. When Traci softly responded that if I hadn't dropped out of West Point, then she and I wouldn't have met, I believed fate was with us. More, I learned she arrived in Korea from New York City at almost the same time I did. I hardly dared to hope that, just maybe, Traci was meant to be my love story. She was 20 and perfect. I was 23 and falling in love. When I told Traci about my romantic history the 2nd or 3rd time we went out, I was really warning her I was about to gamble for her love. (It didn't make a difference, because either she would commit to me or she wouldn't. My gamble could only end in reward or punishment, like a fall-and-catch trust-building exercise.)
Because of my mistakes with Judy, I committed to be conscientiously communicative and genuine with Traci from the start. I tried to be more assertive in order to find out early in the relationship whether she would be there for me as reliably as I would be there for her. I theorized that if I revealed my soul and Traci still wanted to be with the 'true' me, and vice versa, then we would have the cornerstone for a strong partnership. Honesty and openness, with the good and the ugly, and the confident and the vulnerable, was the best I could give of myself. I was wary of long-distance relationships after Judy and my tendency to narrate with e-mail, so I worked to bring Traci and me physically together as much as possible. As I fell in love, the most important thing in my life was to be with her; when she was with me, I didn't want our time to end. It didn't matter to me what Traci and I did; whatever we were doing was an excuse to be with her. Traci and I saw sunrises together and spent 18 and more hours at a time with each other, just talking, and I thought it was enough. I thought I was careful enough. With Judy, I was desperate when I made my gamble for her at Bryn Mawr because I could no longer limit myself to be a selfless, unconditional giver. With Traci, constrictive self-editing wasn't a problem - I wouldn't have gambled with her, at least not when I did, if I didn't believe she felt the same way. Using my Judy experience as the comparison, the feedback and other indicators from Traci encouraged me. I thought we clicked. We were good together - when we were together - and good for each other.
So I was very confident Traci reciprocated my romantic interest. For a preciously few Spring days, I was brightly in love with the wondrous belief that Traci felt the same way. When I proposed raising the intimacy of our relationship, I was simply happy, eager to get on with our love story -- and wrong.
The problem is that by avoiding past mistakes and breaking new ground, I didn't recognize my new mistakes. I badly misread Traci's interest in me. Even before it turned bad, I was already rationalizing how hard it was becoming to see her. Rather, I downplayed any drawback on Traci's part as shyness or maybe girlish decorum. I naively thought, perhaps, she was even waiting for me as the man to make the next move. When Traci rejected my e-mailed proposal (the disastrous Tim & Deborah), the switch from illuminating, glorious promise to hurt, confused rejection was as shocking as it had been with Judy.
I've wondered at times, despite everything, whether I competely misread Traci. Empathy and sensitivity are two of my relative strengths, so it's hard to believe I was entirely wrong about her. I accept I was optimistic and too selective reading the signs, such as glossing over her determined refusal to allow me to pay for her, but even with the harsh scrutiny of hindsight, I recall moments with Traci from which I derive the same encouraging conclusions I did then. Rod gave the compelling explanation that I misinterpreted Traci's interest in me as an oppa. If I assume, however, she didn't view me as an oppa exclusively and was romantically interested at some point, the dilemma then becomes I won't sustain the self-editing that has worked to hold a girl's interest, but the times I opened my heart vulnerable for the sake of a soul commitment, Judy and Traci rejected me.
It's sad how little time I was allowed to be only happy with pristine hope for us. After her rejection, the rest of my history with Traci became a grim struggle as I forced my way to closure with the "court", more for a rear-guard defense of my precious love than from any realistic expectation Traci would change her mind. Traci told me during one of my later heartfelt entreaties that romantic love shouldn't be as hard as I made it. What she meant was that true love isn't one-sided, like my love for her. I still believe romantic love properly to be hard work, but I do agree genuine romantic love is forgiving and shared. A healthy “court” should be natural effort that returns great reward, and it wasn't like that with Traci. I knew it was a lost cause when I realized I was competing with Traci, not some other guy, for her love. I suppressed my pride to try to keep her in my life as just-friends, but that couldn't work and didn't last long. In the end, I resorted to sending her long e-mails pouring out my heart, in spite of my original resolve not to, in an attempt to preserve a link, however tenuous, between us. I did a few other stupid things, too - I even begged her once. I know I upset her - I know what her eyes look like when she's furious with me.
I became pathetic for the sake of love and it has hurt ever since. But I don't blame Traci. It was my choice when I fought down the counsel of my fears and opened my heart. I didn't give myself a safety plan and she didn't catch me. The long-term damage of my lost gamble is the end of the hope that my Judy experience was an episode only. Rather than exorcise Judy, Traci wounded me, validated my Judy experience, and proved that romantic failure is my theme. The prize rejected me, then the compatible girl rejected me, too.
So, where do I go from here? I'm lost. It's hard for me right now to let go of my belief in the simple bonding of "kindred spirits" and accept that the answer I've wished for since childhood has escaped me: my soulmate to enter my life who, as I eagerly reach for her, reaches for me just as eagerly. I thought Traci was her and I was wrong. Traci told me there was no spark (there was plenty for me), I didn't know her (I was learning), I made her think (I did) when she just wanted "drink and dance", I was intimidating (I still don't understand what she meant by that), and she didn't know I was engaged in a "court" (I don't believe that). I did my best with Traci and utterly failed, so at this point, I just don't know how to find this special girl or help her find me. Since Korea, the answer that has made the most sense has been to improve myself to the degree that, when I fall in love, I can be revealing without anything unattractive to reject. The problem is I already know that's a bad answer. Self-improvement should not be for the sake of impressing others. Love isn't a product of personal perfection; love is about combining lives and life is imperfect. Other guys' flaws don't stop them from successful relationships, and I know the notion is misguided because I already tried to transform for a girl. I joined the Army in part to prove my worth as a man to Judy. When I visited Judy for the last time right before I dropped out of West Point, I realized how hollow that purpose was as I walked South Street with her in my white-over-gray cadet uniform and Army ribbons on my chest. (I'm not saying my soldiering experience was empty, only the part about joining the Army for Judy. At the time, I didn't realize the manly platonic ideal of manhood is not the same as the romantically desirable man, at least in my generation.) Nor did my life-altering attempt to impress Judy fix our essential incompatibility. The harsh pragmatic answer, if I can compromise my romantic ideals, is to learn - belatedly - how to play the game of courtship. I'm moving closer to the pragmatic answer, because with my age, desperation is giving way to resignation that pure romantic love simply is not meant for me. In the meantime, at minimum, finding a better balance of cosmetic self-editing than either my tense reserve with Judy or my dogmatic disclosure (I believe one particular revelation did mortal damage) with Traci is prudent.
I don't regret opening my heart to her, what I felt for Traci, what I wanted for us, and that I did the best I could to "court" her. I tried very hard. For me, the news of Traci's marriage is wistful, sad, and laced with regret. I was in love with Traci, and I wonder what might have been had circumstances been different. Had I been different. I like to tell myself that the outcome was inevitable, that in the end, I am who I am and she is who she is . . . blaming fate is easier than telling myself I met my wife, who was interested, and I fumbled her away.
Of course, Traci was about more than romance. Met at the crossroads, she was a life test. For a brief tantalizing moment, I believed Traci was my anchor in the light and vindication I was okay. Instead, I was left in the dark and served notice I am not relieved from the fight.
Best of luck, Traci. All was right with the world and you were a blissful beautiful dream, for the short while it lasted. Your man's a winner. I'd congratulate you properly with a belated wedding card and a present if I thought my gesture would be viewed well. Bye.
Coda.
Add May 16, 2010: REO Speedwagon's plaintive I Can't Fight This Feeling captures my Traci experience rather well. These songs, too.
Eric
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
9/11 6th Year Anniversary
I remember.
I haven't joined the fight yet in the Long War. This anniversary reminds me that I have very important unfinished business. I have to choose a side and commit. The rest of what to do with my life comes after.
Eric
I haven't joined the fight yet in the Long War. This anniversary reminds me that I have very important unfinished business. I have to choose a side and commit. The rest of what to do with my life comes after.
Eric
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