You can't chew Conquistador-soup

When I was a kid, during certain turbulent times, when things that were supposed to be solid didn't deliver the kind of blanket I craved at night, I found myself with a strange ulcer gnawing my innards, and I discovered chicken soup for the soul.

Of course I wasn't familiar with that expression yet, but I was instinctively drawn to the resonance of neatly packaged solutions, of well groomed gardens, weight-watched expressions of faith, heedless of the kind of leaps over echoing chasms that I had to perform in my wee hours of night.
I wanted to be embedded in success stories of soothing interior decoration, feng shui for little dogs, the release of inner potential (such potential is always somehow held hostage in the western hemisphere, and not until we are deep deep into ripe age, can we individually set it free, maybe through Yoga or some other liberating act), and the neverending chain of stories about them.
The people who faced devastating obstacles, stared at them point blank and walked through the fires and floods without losing a limb.
They never grew bitter from the trials, they had always some words of gratitude and conclusion to utter about what they learned, and never once was there a hint of sarcasm about the cosmic finger that had been waved at them during times of hardship.
It was as if these conquer & success stories were moderated educational urban fables about a species of animal that was euphoric, humble and eternally hopeful (with lovely kids and a nice house).

I'm not sure when the Conquistador fables turned sour on me, but it was when I had packed my bags and left my parental home on a criss-cross lined journey towards some point that was constantly pushed further ahead of my protruding nose. The safety I created for myself seemed to lie in having goals and plans that were constantly moved ahead and re-created, I so badly needed the mirage of the oasis in the desert untouched, and also I was lazy (yet creative).
And I got an ulcer again, because I stared at the fables and realized that they were broadcasted and created, not necessarily to bring hope (although maybe they do to some), but to sedate the fearful & tired of spirit (lazy), and that was me I guess.

But I was pissed off as well, and I had a new ulcer, a lot more bleeding than the previous one. Luckily I was still young, and re-tracing my steps I discovered that the person I admired most in my own life, had quite a miserable existence at that time, compared to the Conquistadors. And the Bishops and Main Priests of the Conquistador Church had grown in numbers, Oprah Winfrey perhaps being the one most broadly famous. It came to the point where I had to turn the tv off from certain parts of those programs, even if it was only going on in the background (in those student days of mine they used to send old Oprah show episodes on daytime Swedish tv, which I sometimes had turned on in my college room) because it gave me such immediate stabs of angst.

I guess even the safe and the perfect can become like an antabuse to an ex addict, and my tongue was fuzzy from it.

Beauty, hope, inspiration, if not comfort, is found in other things for me now, it is more often a complex tangle than anything else, and I haven't cared to dissect or nitpick any knots in public very often, but one thing that won't be coming on Oprah anytime soon is Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazde, an amazingly well executed graphic novel about the Bosnian war. I'm mentioning this because I followed the war as closely as I could in those days, had friends and acquaintances from the area, and yet..it was quite the tangle to understand, with all the dynamics of the local as well as foreign journalistic interpretations, the UN, the US and NATO, and finally all the different (former) Yugoslavian factions having a big blame fest going on. tommdroid and I had a long and complex dialog about that war a while ago here on LJ, where I think I failed in giving a coherent picture of my view on it, but I whole heartedly recommend this thick, thorough and multi angled graphic novel about those years and that area.
Joe Sacco has also created works such as Palestine, a work of grim fun filled beauty, where such pearl expressions as Terrorist Groupie were baptized.

a graphite colored piece of political jerky anyone?
It's really chewy, but at least you'll know where the angst comes from.