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July 22, 2006
Fortune
He extends his hand to me, a soft smile on his face and the kindness in his eyes that we extend to strangers when we first meet them.
"I've heard a lot about you," he says, surprising me. I have no idea who he is -- haven't even ever heard his name in the professional circles that I've been running in lately.
On the conference circuit, we're all beginning to know one another pretty well: the small but growing group of those who have been deemed "experts" in blogging and the evolution of what they're calling "new media." Everybody wants to talk about how business will use blogs, and there's only a relative few of us who can speak with any authority to that... so we end up being invited to do panels or give presentations and speeches at the same conferences. After seeing each other at events from San Francisco to Toronto to London, we're starting to get to know one other socially, friendships are forming, and the names of those in the "inner circle" of the circuit start to become familiar, even when you haven't yet met.
But this gentleman is different. I've not heard his name, never heard of his blog. Then again, this conference is not like the others I've attended. In any way.
"Nice to meet you," I tell him, shaking his hand warmly. "I'm looking forward to hearing you speak this afternoon."
He wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead; it's July in Washington DC, and unfortunately for us the building in which we're holding the conference is having air conditioning issues this morning. "Thank you," he says with that slightly British accent that so many foreigners who've been schooled in English as their second language have. "I hope you'll find it interesting."
"I'm sure I will." I pause, stuck in that awkward moment when you meet someone new and you can't decide whether to continue the conversation or find a reason to excuse yourself. Something makes me want to keep talking.
"Do you speak at these things often?" I ask. There's still something about this man -- an inner strength that radiates from him, but tempered by something more, an emotion I can't put my fingers on. "No," he says. "Or, not in these circles, anyway."
I've just flown in to Washington, having survived weather-related delays and airport insanity to arrive in town 24 hours after I was scheduled to, having been placed on seven separate flights from four separate terminals in two different airports on three separate airlines before finally winning the lottery and getting a shuttle to National a couple of hours ago. I had time only to check in at my hotel and drop my gear off before getting a cab to the conference. And for some reason, despite the theme of the conference, I assume that the other speakers don't live in DC either; I assume that he's had to fly to get here too and might have similar travel nightmare stories. Since I am in the mood to vent about my own, I decide to push that button to see if he'll join me in complaining about flight havoc.
"So how long are you here?" I ask him. "When are you going home?"
A look crosses his face that betrays emotion stronger than I expected; it takes me aback and for some unknown reason I feel like I have just said something wrong. He looks at me but through me, and for a moment he barely seems to be in the room despite his physical presence.
"It looks like I will be here a long time," he says quietly. "I think it will be a long time before I can go home."
I don't know how to respond to that. I am suddenly acutely aware of the theme of the conference and its location, and realize that my sense of "home" and his are different -- and that the definitions of the "hell" we each went through to get here are likely so opposite in scale that they're not comparable.
We talk for a few more moments, mostly in the pleasantries that speakers on the same agenda extend to one another. We're seated at the same table, so there's no chance for me to sneak a quick look at his bio and find out just how much of a faux pas I've just committed. But in the ensuing conversation as others join us at our assigned seats, his story becomes clearer to me.
He is a dissident. In his home country, the media are controlled by the state; blogs and e-mail and text messages are among the only tools the people have to speak freely -- and after being initially caught off guard, the government has caught on and monitors blogs, especially looking for anything written by known "agitators." Blog the wrong thing, and you can count on a visit from the secret police. Blog the wrong thing again, and you are probably headed to jail for a little while. Blog the wrong thing a third time, and you can probably expect that you probably won't get the chance to blog the wrong thing a fourth time. He's blogged the 'wrong' thing one too many times; he's in Washington because he needed to find someplace else to go when the police came looking for him one last time.
As I listen, I compare his life with mine. I started a blog upon which, among other things, I frequently criticize my government; so did he. I was eventually promoted when my bosses became aware of my efforts; he was eventually exiled when his government became aware of his. My reward has been to become 'famous,' speaking at conferences all over the world and being interviewed by the BBC, Wall Street Journal, and a hundred others; his reward was perhaps permanent exile from his homeland, and the kinds of treatment you'd expect when the police are showing up to "discuss" something you wrote on your blog.
I suddenly realize that I have no idea at all of what the word courage means. Not next to him.
And later in the conference, when it's my turn on stage and it's me who's fielding questions from the audience, I feel something that I have not felt in months (to my shame): humility. Today, I'm not the expert, not the one they've come to see; today, in my mind, I am the least of those in the room. They're asking me questions, and even though I am giving my best answers, throwing in my well-practiced one-liners that always get a laugh when every new audience hears them, and sounding for all the world like the expert they've brought me here to be, I still can't help but feel like I am the one with so much to learn from them.
To be periodically reminded of one's fortune in life is a healthy thing. To have it thrust into your eye like the Biblical beam to where it cannot be ignored is a sobering, altering experience.
When the day is over, I go back to my hotel, sit down on the edge of the bed, bury my face in my hands, close my eyes, and remind myself of how truly small I really am. And how truly lucky I have been.
Comments
Well done, and well written.
Posted by: Cuzin Jose at July 22, 2006 01:54 PM
This is great.I honestly think, unless it's against your contract with the company you work for, you ought to revise this, add the appropriately-left-out-details, and send it to major publications.
Posted by: Jill at July 22, 2006 04:04 PM
Even if it is against your contract, you should get it placed. You're a writer, people need to hear the power of what you experienced.
Posted by: The SpinMD at July 23, 2006 09:32 PM
Thanks, everyone. I appreciate the kind words. We'll see.
Posted by: Curmudgeon at July 24, 2006 01:02 AM
