Dear Robin, October 2012
I think I can relate to practically every word you write. I force myself to work, and besides that there are, of course, my lessons in Hungarian with Esther the teacher, for my application for a Hungarian passport. I’m reading a book about Communists in Hungary during World War 2. The author, Sandor Marai, writes of how he became indifferent: “I realized I had become indifferent to everything. Indifference is a dangerous thing. It is immoral and a contradiction to life. Until then, I had never been indifferent. I lived one thing or another, in my own way, but I had never known indifference. I looked at myself and then looked around, and was amazed at what had happened to me. Only later did I realize: I had become indifferent because I was constantly surrounded by evil, stupidity, and injustice.”
I read that and thought about life here, about the people surrounding me, and about myself. I thought about how the evil, the stupidity and the injustice surrounding us aff ect us, and how, if at all, I can protect myself from them.
Noa
This text is part of Hush, by Noa Ben-Shalom, ISBN 978-09943373-3, Sternthal Books (Hush was just nominated for best first Photo Book of the year by the Aperture Foundation)
To know more:
To see a trailer video and to buy the book: