Snow in March

Some time around mid afternoon today, I felt a sudden repulsion against Milan Kundera. Sensing a righteous excuse to be lazy, my mind stopped working. I gazed at a single page for 5 minutes without absorbing any information. All I felt were disgust, disappointment, and despondency. After some more minutes of struggle, there was only an aftertaste of sadness.

In Kundera's universe, heterosexual relationships are taken for granted. They form the basis for each story. Even a man with the most unfortunate career and lifestyle can manage to have a girlfriend - whom he doesn't care about. What does it mean, to have a girlfriend that one doesn't care about? For me, to have a man-woman relationship with mutual affection is a dream. It is something I may never experience in my life time. Seeing an author sketch relationships in such facetious, careless, and presumptuous manner is nothing less than infuriating. Perhaps jealousy plays a major role in my anger, but to me one of the greatest offenses in humanity is ingratitude. However much I envy Kundera's fortune with women, I also see that through such promiscuity one starts to consider relationships disposable. What seems unattainable in my prospects is disposable in someone else' indulgence.

It was at that moment that I realized that I was no longer able to identify myself with Kundera's insight and perception. Having lived most of my life in solitude, I yearn to find film and literature that mirror my existence and its characteristics. I want to imagine myself as the protagonist in a story. Nevertheless, I came to realize that very few authors have focused on men who are deprived of women's attention. The closest depiction that I have come across is Yusuf in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Uzak. Perhaps that explains why I love the film to the extremes. One man struggling with his creative dreams, another craving for romance - my life in a nutshell.

In such moments of rage and sorrow I almost tore Laughable Loves to shreds, but public inhibition and internalized respect prevented this superficial act of defiance. Instead, I made a decision: if no one wants to tell my story, I will. What is stopping myself from telling my own story?

Let's add one more motivation to my unrealistic creative dream.