Sindbad went through his stuff the ninth time then sadly drew the conclusion: the feather collection was irretrievably lost. Wing feathers of the white sea eagle, strawberry downs of galah cockatoes, beautiful deep-green wing patch feathers of the black duck, the varied, colorful parrot and tropical pigeon feathers, all gone. Together with some other items in the wrapped-up newspaper. I should have watched that bundle better - he thought. He has already made plans for using the feathers, and anyways, he's been collecting them for seven weeks, what a stupid thing to lose that nice set in the last days.
He thought of the enterpreneur from Mariupol who gave them a ride in Turkey. He showed pictures of his luxury house, burned out by Russian bombs. His luxury car, for a change, was taken by Ukrainian soldiers. Fortunately his family survived, he stashed them into his company car and resettled in Bulgaria after the siege. A nice, sad young man.
And how about you? - he looked at the reader. When was the last time you lost something? It had been yours, a part of your life, as natural as the air you breathe. Or maybe a treasured object, a source of pride. All of a sudden it's gone. Lost, stolen, destroyed, whatever. Looking under the sofa, trying to figure out where you could have left it, calling lost and found won't make any difference. It's gone. Whether it was important and valuable or not is immaterial. How do you handle loss?
Travelling is a double-sided sword with regard to loss, Sindbad thought. On one hand the few objects you carry around are more important than at home. Some of them may save your life. On the other hand the trip makes it more obvious that objects are only temporarily in our possession. They last for a shorter time, new ones appear while some of the older ones say good-bye.
The seafarer had an old fantasy: returning to his backpack hidden in the bush and finding it gone. Being left with the jumper tied to his waist and his belt bag. And continuing on like that, with no weight. What freedom and what limitation, having to rely on others for everything, using his communication skills. He was not ready to try that but his mind kept returning to the thought.
Many languages have two kinds of possessives, he continued his deliberations. One is used for permanent possession like my head. True, you may lose that, too. If in the literal sense, your earthly possessions won't matter any more. But you can also lose your head figuratively if a temporary possession gets lost, such as your wallet.
He quickly felt his waist to make sure he still had the belt with the pieces of colored paper, plasic cards and things printed in Bureaucratese. It was a reassuring feeling without any spirituality.
He thought of all the objects he lost on this trip. It's generally not a good idea to stack your losses. Stack your gains, keep your losses separate. But this time they were not significant and he wanted to see if there was a pattern.
Right in the beginning he lost his favorite pen. This could be quite symbolic for a scribbling man. He got a pin with an Oman flag in the desert, pinned it on his belt pouch, it was gone the same day. The washed clothes he kept leaving behind. The one dollar knife. Most significant was the loss of his amethyst representing Nepal that he wore around his neck together with a purple seashell that stood for Australia. He went through every pocket and bag but the necklace in Ericksonian colors remained lost.
Does the disappearance of such symbolic objects mean the beginning of a new era? - he wondered. Obviously, he couldn't just trod around in the dirt without something representing a higher connection. He kept his eyes open and soon found a Tasmanian spiral shell. He kept it in his pocket for a few days when the next wanted object, a thin, strong string presented itself on the scene.
The spontaneous appearance of wished-for objects merits an article on its own, he thought. For now let us concentrate on using loss. Individual loss may be handled more easily but what about collective loss? For Hungarians, there are both world wars and Trianon1 to start with. You obviously can't always win, this is only a feature of Hollywood. There is a balance in the world. Americans have no strategy for handling defeat, even though they have already started on a downhill path and this is but the beginning. They are about to receive significant teachings.
If we leave the material realm for a moment and think more abstractly about struggle it seems quite obvious that being defeated is necessary sometimes. If you only fight weaker opponents, how will you ever progress?
The first step of learning from your loss is probably acceptance, he thought. I think there is a difference between grudgingly giving up your goals and genuine acceptance of what happened. The latter implies that you accept the gift the Universe is giving you. An opportunity to transcend your former limits.
Of course, you don't actually have to own something to experience a sense of loss. You can also lose your dreams. Mid-life crises are probably about realizing that you will not fulfill your wished-for life. Perhaps this is harder than losing tangible things.
There is also the case when you unexpectedly regain something. Australia does not allow the entry of plant materials, this is fairly widely known, but Sindbad was unaware of Tasmania handling the mainland as a foreign entity. The fruits he had just bought were saved in his belly but the beautiful leek that was to become soup ended up in the garbage bin.
As he was walking on the highway on the island, he saw an onion on the road. It must have fallen off a truck. Well! he thought. This can be cleaned well. The onion was perfectly fine. He dusted it off and put it in his pocket. After a hundred meters another, sizable onion waited for being picked up. And another. That'll be enough! - he signaled the Universe with satisfaction, but the Universe was on a roll. There was a long stretch of highway with onions waving at Sindbad. He waved back and wondered whether little could be more than a lot.
He had to admit that all the practical things he lost pushed his limits farther. Doing without or getting another one forced him to be creative. And as far as the feathers were concerned... Somehow it was all okay. Obsessive collecting, protecting, carrying around got punched in the face and that was good. He did need to figure out how he lost the bunch, but after that it was all right. In spite of the weightless nature of feathers his pack was lighter without them.
To make things more complex, he thought, compulsive asketicism seems quite similar to compulsive hoarding. Anorexia and bulimia appear to be just two sides of the same coin. Could the object fetish of our society stem from the scarcity of times bygone? The mountains of things people own has, by now, long superseded the level of an absurd theater piece. Living beings are crowded out by the heaps of plastic. Not speaking of the information overload... All in all, it might be good to lose things at times.
On his last day in Australia Sindbad found a yellow-green feather on the shores of Woy-woy (deep water) Bay. It was exactly like the first one that started the collection. A nice cycle, he thought and hid the feather with the optimistic colors in a place that seemed secure. This is where the story should end. But the feather disappeared the next day.
This needs to be put in the correct perspective, the seafarer scratched his head. Or, rather, I need to put things in their correct places.
Y,,s, .,q
The so-called peace accord of 1920 when Hungary was forced to give up 70% of its t @erritory without the possibilitf r÷=y of a plebiscite.