In theory...

I like many things in theory.
In theory, I like Turkey. And not the country. Just the pictures of the country. I've never been there and today, while looking at these gorgeous photographs of a half moon and a star, reds, vibrant yellows, coffee shops and cool outfits, I decided that I like the hypothetical country. Sure, the controversies over secularism and religiosity in Turkey are fascinating. But let me explain why I hesitate to say I like the country:
In theory, I like Croatia. I like the pictures I took when I was there. I like the Cathedrals, the iron railings, the mustard yellos and the skinny jean modelesque youngsters from Novi Zagreb. But I lived there for six weeks and I only actually liked living there 2 out of the six weeks. These moments of beauty are just that. Moments. They are not sustainable. We don't live in bubbles of beauty. We see glimmers of it.

I like reading. I like seeing the piles of books stack all over my room. I like their colors. I like that you can tell a lot about my interests by their titles, "Book of Hours," "Deep Economy," "Retrato en Sepia," "Cien Años de Soledad." But do I read them? Kind of. I read half of one book, a quarter of another, a chapter of this one, three chapters of that one.
But boy, do I want to read. And boy, do I want to travel to Turkey. But I want to do it in a Palestinian scarf with a coffee cup sipping espresso. In essence, I want the beauty.

Then there are things that I've managed to like both in theory and in practice. I like graffiti, in theory. I love it as a symbol of expression coming from the marginalized in our society; how talent oozes out through the hiss of a spray can from the fingers of those we thought were good for nothings. And I also love the way the spray can feels when I spray it against a wall or a canvas or a wooden slate. Even if I'm not good at it because I haven't had much practice. I like it, and am willing to spend hours practicing and sitting in front of random peaces of wood that I find in my house just so that one day I can proudly put my name on a free wall-beautifully.

Once I got into it, Retrato en Sepia, became my favorite book. I read it all the way from Boston to New York. I lost myself in Allende's pages and in the intricate details of Aurora's life.

In theory, I want to belong to boards, committees, get my voice heard. But, in practice, the work is not always fun. Sometimes it means pushing the envelope, having people get mad at you for doing so, and pushing through their anger anyways just because you believe in this cause. It means feeling bad about the work you do some days. It means researching and praying for connections that may or may not come-with the steadfast hope that one day they will. And even if they don't, all you have is this desire to push the system that keeps a people down; an inner desire to ruffle the feathers of those who maintain it. So even if I never get my connection, I have no other option but to push for them.

This difference between theory and practice is sticking with something through the discomfort. Beautiful pictures of Turkey don't make us uncomfortable. They inspire us. NYTimes articles about poverty, while they may elicit emotion, they mostly satisfy our thirst for knowledge. Again, they inspire us. But as tough as it may be to read the news, it's tougher to take the disappointment from a supervisor, the boredom of the every day. The theoretical helps us to stay inspired. The practice helps us get the job done.
So they're both important, huh?
Beautiful pictures give us perspective and help us see the forest. But the practice is where it's at. Let's keep practicing, people, until we reach the vision that the theoretical provides us with.