Far Away Up Close

Two stories hit me yesterday on NPR, and unfortunately I did not feel able to write about them yesterday by the time Ari was asleep and my day as mommy had ended.

I think both struck me as stories of disconnection or disassociation. The first was about the young boy, Zakria Ebrahimi, who starred in The Kite Runner. Apparently, he and his family are encountering threats, violence, ostracization, and discrimination as the film becomes more widely distributed in their homeland.

Although the young man was originally relocated to the UAE for his safety upon release of the film, he missed his family back in Afghanistan and returned home. His family is now seeking assistance from Paramount Pictures to relocate to a new area... and the company feels it is no longer possible to help the family in any additional way.

So here is a young man who is essentially an exile in his own homeland - all for the sake of art and filmmaking. Can a 12 year-old be expected to be courageous in this way? It's one thing to ask such sacrifice of an adult or to allow a professional artist to make his or her own choices and to accept societal, ethical, or legal consequences as the world responds to a particular statement or work.

But when it's a child, the issues of responsibility, consent, and comprehension and acceptance of all ramifications becomes quite muddy. What is the age at which you can willingly give your life, your consent, your freedom away if you so choose? Are there age limits on such things?

The second story was a different sort of exile - that of the hostages held captive in Columbia for for over five years. Their homecoming likely will be a mix of complex emotions and challenging situations as they seek to re-enter lives inevitably different from how they left them.

Both of these stories have led me to think about how so many events in our human experience - particularly the momentous, defining ones - contain a dichotomous element of joy and sorrow.

Many of our failures and challenges can be viewed as opportunities and beauties, while some of the greatest joys of our life can be the most difficult aspects of our living.

It has reminded me how powerful perspective can be, and how - even in the midst of events that feel overwhelming or within which we feel powerless - we always have the ability to adapt and evolve our ways of understanding those circumstances.