12/16/2012

your particular kind of resilience

I live in fear of losing days, moments. My writing is an attempt to capture things from the outward flow of time and make them mine. I have a bad memory. Not surprisingly, memory is a recurring theme in my work, how it shapes identity. Other concerns have to do with belonging and acceptance. Do we only exist in relation to others? I’m drawn to people who’ve struggled, and fought, and people who’ve won something, or people who haven’t but have never given up fighting -- these are the people I like best in real life or as fictional characters. I am fascinated by the idea of resilience. Maybe what I’m talking about, and using the word resilience to describe, is something closer to the idea of some kind of identity – or strength – given the context of the human condition. Maybe the question that I pose is: What is your particular kind of resilience and on what is it based? What is it that encourages us to get up and keep getting up in the morning, given the sadness of being mortal?

- Yasuko Thanh, in answer to rob mclennan's 12 or 20 questions. You can read the whole thing here.

No comments: