Tired - TLC 15

Ankara students felt tired. They loved being addicted to a phenobarbital reality altering sensations and emotional health with anti-depressants.

“Anxiety is a national problem,” said a male psychiatrist. His small silver spoon dissolved sugar cubes manufactured in a factory where hygiene conditions were abysmal.

They sat on thick embroidered cushions in a teahouse decorated with Turkish and Iranian carpets, blue amber oil paintings near a well-thumbed Zen Tarot deck.

The troubled shrink had endless neurotic patients. Predicting the future Lucky shared a meditative suggestion. “Heal them with metta - loving kindness. We are all extras in someone's film. You play a leading role. They trust you.”

How am I supposed to feel? - TLC 14

A brilliant kid in his second year of medical school expressed uncertainty in a TLC encounter. “How am I supposed to feel when I see these patients?”

“It’s about objective detachment with compassion. Emotional distance. Doubt is good. Do what you can. The rest is silence.”

“I am one of them. I am a patient. It's hard being a doctor. I don't know enough to help them. I am learning from more experienced students and doctors.”

“Pay your dues. We are all terminal cases. What do they tell you in the emergency room?”

“They tell me how I will learn how to keep my perspective over time.”

“True. What do you do to relax?”

“I go out with my friends to a club. I go to movies. I want to forget about all the terrible things I've seen at the hospital. But I am happy being a doctor. When someone puts on the white coat they feel special. They help people. I thought about becoming an engineer like my father but I saw how he only worked with machines, how at the end of the day he would come home and talk about electricity. It was interesting but I wanted more out of life. I wanted to understand DNA and genetic structures. I wanted to help others.”

“Helping others with kindness is your gift. You’re doing good work. Thanks for sharing with me.”

“You’re welcome. Being a doctor is hard. I don’t know how I am supposed to feel.”

TLC

Burn your fear

Creative non-fiction. Journalistic facts. Literary imagination.

Lucky Foot taught English at The Language Company in Turkey in 2008. He returned in 2012 to explore Trabzon along the Black Sea. Field notes.

A Vietnam veteran, journalist and facilitator of courage he gifted luck to people in China, Turkey, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos since 2004.

He showed up to sit for a spell nurturing positive relationships in the long now.

Accompanied by Humor and Curiosity he helped students speak English minus their illusions of fear and phobia's relatives:

Fear of taking a risk.

Fear of being incorrect.

Fear of peer ridicule.

Fear of poverty.

Fear of starvation.

Fear of being ordinary.

Fear of success.

Fear of abandoning a manuscript by Zeynep entitled TLC.

Fear of accepting responsibility for their choices and accepting the consequences.

Fear of letting go of old conditioning. Shadows.

Fear of being alive and real. Growing.

Fear of_______. (Your free choice)

Lucky, Humor and Curiosity observed parents, schools, and religions fostering passive acceptance, fear, indifference and rote learning teacher-centered systems.

It was all about passing exams, not learning how to be more human and think for yourself.

Status quo. Sheep mentality. Blend in. Questions are forbidden. Authority washes your brain daily.

Zeynep, his young genius friend in Bursa, Turkey taught him about life in her totalitarian country.

As a literary outlaw I say what others are afraid to say. Anxiety is a chronic national problem. Adults here are good at two things, eating and fighting. Dissent is terrorism say our corrupt manikin authority figures.

Leo revealed dystopian China. I spent years carrying word shit in a Re-education through Reform Labor Camp for questioning Authority. Everyone here belongs to the Big Ears, No Mouth society.

Oh the shame.

Rita, the independent author of Ice Girl in Banlung shared stories about her Khmer culture and Cambodian history. We've had twenty years of hopelessness. We breed. We work. We get slaughtered. Poor people see education as a waste of time and money.

I dream I am a free person in a free country.

A seven year-old Vientiane kid explained Laos. I develop my authentic character with critical thinking skills, humor, gratitude, abundance, and wonder as a free- thinking individual. I have my junior philosopher's badge.

If you want to do great things you must take great risks and suffer greatly, said Zeynep. You either let go or get dragged along.

Awareness. Mindfulness. Compassion.

It's not about people buying this book, Rita said. It's about people reading it.

TLC

Big Time - TLC 13

One curious phenomenon in Turkey was the predominant and fashionable Big Time watch.

Big Time displayed itself in grandiose opulent design styles, rainbow spectrums and analog displays. He observed huge pieces illustrating manifestations of invisible time delighting wrists with panache and glamour. Frequent sightings of super-sized chromatic sundials featured a Kurdish weight lifter struggling to keep time overhead. For the majority of volunteer wage slaves heavy time dragged them through life.

A sweeping second hand swept piles of debris stranded on corners past idle bored women studying their undulating singular reflection in store windows between numerals 12 and 6.

A wild rabbit dragging a pocket Watch Out down Dreamtime Street yelled, “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date, no time to say hello, goodbye, I'm late, I’m late, I’m late.”

Rabbit passed Curious, a Chinese linguist at the intersection of Imaginary Fear & Enlightenment.

“What are you doing?” said Rabbit.

“I am begging people to open their head, heart, mouth and get to the verb. Where are you going in such a hurry Mr. Rabbit?”

“Through the looking glass.”

“May I go with you?”

“Do you have courage?”

“Yes. It's my most important virtue.”

“What is essential is invisible to the eye. Let’s share an adventure.”

TLC 

Kabul Doctors - TLC 12

Ankara streets were dead one Sunday.

Everyone disappeared to vote for someone well connected and wealthy.

He passed shuttered watch shops and clothing stores.

Moneychangers yelled, “Mr. Lucky Foot come here. Invest in your future. Change money. Change your wife. Change your life. Change or die. Change into a nine-year old meditative Buddhist monk in Luang Prabang, Laos walking with a begging bowl.”

A man selling Simit, a common seedy pretzel meditated near his small carnival cart in stone cold shadows.

Five jabbering women in shimmering sea green blue fabrics decorated with mirrors and silver balls danced along plate glass windows. Dark skin sharp noses deep black eyes and long hair. Headscarves reflected light waves.

Three posed in front of a clothing store and Caucasian mannequin. The dummy wore a dark pinstriped suit. A tall woman stepped back with a point-n-shoot camera.

Finished, she turned. He gestured if she wanted him to photograph the group.

“Yes,” in impeccable English. “Please.”

He pointed at foliage. “Ask your friends to stand over there.” Two hid behind flowing skirts. She coaxed them into the frame. Click.

He handed her the camera. “Where are you from?”

“We are from Kabul.’

“Why are you here?”

“We are doctors. We have been attending seminars and return home this week.”

“Are you all from Kabul?”

“No,” gesturing to women hiding behind sisters, “they are from distant provinces.”

“I see. How is the medical situation in Afghanistan? Do you have enough medicine?”

“It changes. We are fortunate to receive medicine from international aid agencies. Our hospitals need more equipment. It’s a struggle at times especially outside the capital.”

“How are the children doing? Are they receiving medical care and enough food? Can they go to school?”

“We are doing our best to take care of the children.”

“I wish you well. You face large responsibilities. It was nice meeting you.”

“Thank you,” she smiled. “Good-bye.”

He shared this encounter with a female student at TLC.

“Were they open or closed?” she said referring to veils not their state of mind.

“They were open.”

TLC

Dr. Suit and fashionable Ankara friends.