A Bridge to No Where

Last night while contemplating possible changes in my life a dream came to me that I’m not sure of its meaning. If any of you who read this have thoughts to share, please do.  I was with a woman (we were supposed to be in some form of a relationship). She shifted between being Asian and Latina. We were on my white vintage Vespa. Some how the Vespa was not running as it should and I sensed that she was not impressed with my Vespa. I thought to myself “It is not the best idea when dating someone to be riding an old Vespa.” I pulled to the side and noticed that someone switched the exhaust pipe and so I fixed it. Once fixed, it runs better than before. We went through a small community and then exited. Then we were on foot talking about her future career. She mentioned that she was contemplating pursuing an MFT (because she did not like the other option which was nursing). At this point we were on a white bridge which was pretty steep. The path on this bridge was a little convoluted and we had to cross a high barrier. Once crossed we discovered that the bridge does not lead to the other side. It ends abruptly. We were kind of puzzled. Then we saw other people on the bridge and the whole bridge became wobbly and sinking. But no one was scared. As the bridge started slowly sinking there was a man on the bridge residing some Biblical text. The person I was with started walking ahead of me cheerfully. I saw a big turtle swimming gently back and forth. There was a sense in which we can all get to the other side and it will be somewhat magical even when we do not know how it can happen. And suddenly I was caught in a kind of gentle and yet overwhelming wave that puts me under. I knew I would emerge in a better place and there was a sense of serenity although it was taking a long time and I was struggling to breathe. Then I woke up.

I do not know how to put all the details of the dream into something meaningful but it appears to be that I was on a journey. And the journey involves a relationship and a career path. And while the journey seems impossible to reach because it was a bridge to no where, there is a path, a non-linear but  more mystical path that can lead to this final destination. It is not over the water but through the water, the path of least-resistance, the place of softness, the place of the heart, soul and the unconscious, and the willingness to flow.

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Coloniality

I have been reading a book that is life changing. Mignolo’s “The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options.” A book that shapes how I come to see the socio-economic world that we are living in and it is eye-opening. There is much to be said but I just want to start with some new terms that I have come to appreciate. I learn the difference between post-colonial and de-colonial. While they both aim at deconstruction dominant discourse but they emerge from different genealogies. Post-colonial has its root in post-structuralist, post-modern philosophical historical context while de-colonial is a movement that stems from the awareness of the force of modernity through Western civilization and its effect on Third World/developing countries. The aware is traced back to the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia. There is yet one more important distinction between decolonization and decoloniality. Decolonization focuses more on geo-politics of Western colonization in various regions and the desire for self-governance. Decoloniality, on the otherhand, address the epistemic focus of Western modernity and the power of discourse through various venues such as language, arts, literature, economy, politics etc. In a way decoloniality suggests that “he who controls knowledge, controls.”

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