Floating through life

As small children, most of us were taught how to swim. We were given a kickboard first, than maybe helped to float by our swimming teacher, and finally left to float on our own. Floating, it’s an interesting concept. Our bodies just bobbing up and down on top of the water, or balloons floating up into the sky. Life can be like floating. Whether we are changing from one culture to another, just bouncing around through different stages of our life, or trying to make sense of what is going on in the world. Robert Burton, in his book, Artist of the Floating World, writes “I borrow from the scientific, physical meaning of ‘flotation,’ meaning buoyancy and suspension between two or more states of being” (p 10). Throughout our lives, I think that there is a constant feeling of flotation that should cause us to stop and think about where we are in the world and how we feel about certain issues. There is so much hope yet at the same time so much despair. It’s important to stop and try to recognize which life narrative we have chosen and maybe how to get out of where we are at.

“To be a citizen of the floating world is to recognize and acknowledge the narratives that constitute our identity..and are constantly in the process of being reshapen” (Burton, 131). Each person has a narrative, life is a narrative. And that narrative will change. In Kazu Ishiguro’s book, An Artist of the Floating World, the narrative of the character Ono is caught between two different worlds, floating. He was an artist of a traditional form, ukiuo-e, that was well respected. However, not buy his father, which was a source of sadness and frustration that affected him throughout his life. Later in Ono’s life, he moves from the aesthetic principles or of the floating world, and renounces these principles and moves toward a propagandistic form of art fuelled by Japanese patriotism (Burton, 43). He is now caught between two very different paths and lifestyles; he’s floating between what some may say danger and safety. It is after the war that he is criticized and even frowned on by many of his previous friends. He seems to almost “forget” what happened in his past and would prefer just to go on with life. Even when faced with his past friends he is unsure what to do. Ono is unable to really look at his life and choices objectively and realize that he may have made some mistakes. It takes being a little intoxicated for him to finally admit to his decisions. By the end of the novel he is able to look back at the choices that he made and acknowledge them, but also able to move on with life and no longer be floating between his past and present life.

Living with choices that we make is a way that we can be sure that our narratives are what we desire them to be about. Life shouldn’t be based on what we did but what we can do with what we did. Our narratives are not stationary and the same. It took Ono a while to be able to remove himself from his current situation and look at his life with a different view. When he came across ‘the Bridge of Hesitation’ he should have decided too go one way or the other. Making decisions in life are hard, but a way to help with the feelings of floating is to remember to take a step back. In the midst of our own narrative, the aggravations and pleasures, we need to remember, we can change. Our lives aren’t fixed as one shape.

One of the first ways in which a person can try to realize their own narrative, is by determining their references or frames that their life is shaped by. In a book called A Question of Power, written by Bessie Head, the main character struggles with this. Elizabeth, a South African in Botswana, has never known her family, and feels like she doesn’t have a place in the world because her mother was an insane white women who just left her with almost nothing. She is questioning who she is, who she is to become, and why she is the way she is. Bessie Head actually once says, “I have always been just me, with no frame of reference to anything beyond myself’ (Burton, 64 qtd). Throughout the novel, Elizabeth also struggles with a mental instability. She is constantly questioning what is real and what is just inside her head because she really can’t tell the difference. There is a blurring of the boundaries in her life and what she is floating between; real and imaginary and the different cultures. However, by the end of the novel, Elizabeth is able to conquer her visions and is comfortable in a new place and culture with a group of people that helped her get back on her feet. As she fell asleep, she placed one soft hand over her land. It was a gesture of belonging” (p 206). Even though she started with a “frameless” life, she was able to float around a while and find where she was most content. Robert Burton helps to conclude the novel by saying, “there is a movement from a state of nothing, of primordial chaos, to a resolution at the end and an embrace of the transcendent, the universal, floating world…..an attempt to examine the frame of reference: she kept afloat when pressures to sink, to self-destruct, were powerful and intense” (p 65).

I think that what Elizabeth dealt with in the novel are the struggles that most humans go through. Does every person really have a frame for their narrative? If so, will that frame stay the same shape? Life takes us to places that we might not expect (“pressure to sink”) and have to face it whether or not we have the right frame or not. It’s important to keep our frames malleable and allow them to have an ability to be stretched and moved if necessary. If the frames of our narratives are static the problems and issues in life that are bound to appear may be more difficult to deal with than if we are able to take a step back and allow our frame of reference be modified a little. A way to do this is to surround oneself with a different or new experience like traveling or learn about a culture unlike your own. Learning a new language, watching foreign movies, or keeping up on what’s going on outside the little bubble that you live in. This way, when life gives you lemons you have the ability to make lemonade.

My life, the world in general, is continuously floating. Sadly there is despair and frustrations that cause my narrative and the world’s narrative to change, and maybe not always for the better. There are still starving people who don’t have homes, cultures that don’t get along, and people who make selfish decisions that affect the rest of us. As I’m floating, I can now remember that even though there will be difficulties and choices made I can change. There is a way to step back and act as an outsider of my own life and see how I am affecting others. My narrative can be altered, modified, and re-shapen to something that I feel is more me, more of who I want to be. I also will now remember that although I do have some frames within my life that guide me daily, they shouldn’t be immovable. When certain events happen my thoughts and frames should have the ability to flex and adjust to the situation. I was able to test my frame when I studied in Australia for a semester. Change and travel are an important part of a person’s realization that their frame can be and will be shifting. Even though floating can sound like something that’s not very desirable, I think that with the right mindset, bouncing back and forth can be a very healthy thing.