The thing people said I needed was to be more sensitive to their needs, especially if I was going to do a feminine role, which is what society needed me to do, like teaching in a school.
I seemed to be stiff and robotic -- but that was my own opinion. And I just couldn't access the emotions of the average Westerner, or even any of them. They just kept telling me that things were common-sense, but it was like trying to focus my eyes to look at very fine needlework or stitching when I had already become very long-sighted. I just couldn't see what they were seeing, although I got up very early and went to work, and tried to make my mind focus on the things they were seeing but I was not.
It didn't end up very well. In fact, after a season of practicum I hadn't been able to tell whether one student in the class was male or female, which meant I hadn't been focusing and ended up referring to "he" as a "she" which meant I lacked the social skills to focus on the fine needlework of teaching.
It was only the mind-reading capacity of the Westerner that occupied me all the time. I still had to figure out how they managed to do it. How did they know all my thoughts, including my most innermost evil inner workings, so that they knew I was the right candidate for the social and political reeducation programs, when I hadn't yet figured it out myself yet? I mean how does one know, according to them, what is too arrogant and what is sensitive and what is "not sensitive enough"? One has to start by caring, perhaps, if one is going to adopt a feminine role, but I had a longing for the beauty I had once experienced, which was in Africa, not here, certainly not here.
I just wanted a peaceful life. And an initiation. I needed to draw the long lost pieces of my soul back into me, so that I wouldn't feel lost anymore, but would have all the different facets of my being available to me.
I really couldn't focus very much on things, except abstract ideas and philosophy.
But I had to get back to Africa, so I began writing a memoir -- a book. My only way to get back to my origins would be through my imagination
I seemed to be stiff and robotic -- but that was my own opinion. And I just couldn't access the emotions of the average Westerner, or even any of them. They just kept telling me that things were common-sense, but it was like trying to focus my eyes to look at very fine needlework or stitching when I had already become very long-sighted. I just couldn't see what they were seeing, although I got up very early and went to work, and tried to make my mind focus on the things they were seeing but I was not.
It didn't end up very well. In fact, after a season of practicum I hadn't been able to tell whether one student in the class was male or female, which meant I hadn't been focusing and ended up referring to "he" as a "she" which meant I lacked the social skills to focus on the fine needlework of teaching.
It was only the mind-reading capacity of the Westerner that occupied me all the time. I still had to figure out how they managed to do it. How did they know all my thoughts, including my most innermost evil inner workings, so that they knew I was the right candidate for the social and political reeducation programs, when I hadn't yet figured it out myself yet? I mean how does one know, according to them, what is too arrogant and what is sensitive and what is "not sensitive enough"? One has to start by caring, perhaps, if one is going to adopt a feminine role, but I had a longing for the beauty I had once experienced, which was in Africa, not here, certainly not here.
I just wanted a peaceful life. And an initiation. I needed to draw the long lost pieces of my soul back into me, so that I wouldn't feel lost anymore, but would have all the different facets of my being available to me.
I really couldn't focus very much on things, except abstract ideas and philosophy.
But I had to get back to Africa, so I began writing a memoir -- a book. My only way to get back to my origins would be through my imagination
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