AMBITION by Romana Iorga
Many years ago, I was told by a number of people—thankfully, a very small number—that I lacked ambition. I was young at the time, barely out of my teens, and these were people Who Knew Things, so I believed them. They wanted to encourage me to become more assertive, to put my skills to good use, to make money or a name for myself, or hopefully both, rather than drift from one frivolous pursuit to another. They meant well, I thought at the time, and something was clearly wrong with me not to crave anything that normal people crave.
Like, what’s even the purpose of being alive, normal people said in my childhood, if you don’t have a big soviet-style apartment and a Zhiguli and a job where you make lots or rubles for your family? My parents, a poet and an actor, who decided to marry their misfortunes, didn’t have any of those things. Their most precious commodity was books. As a result of their sheer incompetence at life, all I wanted was books as well. And, secretly, friends, but friends were in short supply so books had to do. Friends tended to flock with other friends of the same feather. I followed them surreptitiously, under the pretext of pushing my younger sisters in the stroller, hiding behind this or that tree. This is how I discovered trees.
Ambition. A particular goal or aim, something that a person hopes to do or achieve, a desire to be successful, powerful, or famous. It’s a word that has haunted me all my life, pointing its crooked finger at my shortcomings. During my rare periods of rebellion, lacking ambition became synonymous with doing my own thing, being a nonconformist, I mean, screw society and its unrealistic, capitalistic demands on my time. Then hunger would knock at the door and suddenly society’s demands became quite reasonable and my time well spent in currying favors from this person Who Knew Things or another.
I was learning to mistrust. It’s mind-boggling how long it took me to figure this out. That of all the people I’ve met and the books I’ve read and the trees I’ve touched simply because I couldn’t help myself, I trust trees the most. Particularly when they are together in something called a forest, which is an amazing concept that humans have yet to master. Cleaning the air instead of polluting it? Regulating temperature? Dispersing noise? Reducing soil erosion and increasing soil fertility? Controlling flooding and the expansion of deserts? Providing a habitat for other forms of life? Helping us breathe?
It’s a no-brainer that a forest is the superior societal system. People tend to disappoint sooner or later but a forest never does. We brag and hide our shame and brag some more. We have this irrational need to prove to ourselves and others that we’re smarter, more handsome, more rich. Look at our weapons! Look at the size of our nuclear arsenals! Look at how many people just like us we can kill and get away with it.
A tree will sacrifice itself for the good of others.
I believe it’s within our powers to be a forest but we’ve forgotten how. We could live authentic lives and tell the truth of our existence the way a forest tells its truth and does not expect accolades for it. We are capable of so many new things, things that were not even possible a hundred years ago, but we seem to have lost the sense of who we are in the process. We could stop hurting one another. We could share our resources. We could help each other breathe.
It turns out that I do have ambition, though it may be the wrong kind. People Who Know Things would never take it at face value, but we’ve grown estranged and their opinion doesn’t matter so much these days.
I want to inhabit, no matter how briefly, the shape of things I encounter, the pelt of beings I come in contact with. I want to give them a voice—not out of some super-inflated sense of self, but simply because we coexist in the same fragment of space, in the same interval of time. Because there’s room for all of us here if we admit that we know nothing but are willing to learn from the trees.
When I grow out of this body I want to be a forest.