Being “forgetful” once got me into thinking like Kant.
As a “forgetful” child, unable to recall specifics of daily happenings or frustrations with friends, I had to distill life into manageable concepts like “today is for meeting new people”. Partially to answer my mom’s daily inquiries and to eliminate the need for excessive details, abstraction became my brain’s new default mode of thinking, invaluable for enabling me to navigate complexities intuitively. I slid into philosophy — jokingly the ultimate pursuit of abstractions, then even pushing myself to distill experiences into philosophical reflections.
Yet, reading the autobiographies of philosophers and vivid characterizations — such as attires, appearances, and complete accounts of one’s hobbies — in Latin American literature, I saw a richness of vitality in those concrete details, which I once dismissed as “petty”. It’s from the concrete portrayal of Aureliano's meticulous crafting of golden fish that I feel his despair from wars, and wrinkles etched by years of persecution on Auxilio Lacounture’s face bring her to life as “Mother of Mexican poetry”. I realize that too much abstraction, originally meant to capture the essence of life, filtered out its very core — the lively, juicy details that constitute living and enable connections. Yet, when recommending OHYS to my friends, I found that conveying its significance — its postcolonial reflections on history — among the plethora of details still required thematic distillation from the profusion of details. In my new approach of “post-detail abstraction” — no longer as a shortcut, I went back to the book again and again for its specifics, each time with more appreciation for concretization. Now, I seek abstractions to enhance, not replace nor overshadow, my appreciation for the lively details — like my friends’ new outfits and my Peruvian homestay’s Quechuan practices, connecting me to them in same ways as how concrete details in OHYS connect me with its characters viscerally.
Breaking free from abstractions was no easy transformation. I long hid behind theories and philosophies for a detached stance to evade the discomfort of real-life issues, like in grappling with my queerness in a traditional family setting. I immersed myself in books on sexuality and the formation of social discourse to normalize my affection for a girl and rationalize my parents’ contention, attempting to turn these issues “impersonal”. Then, at dinner tables, I wielded these theories as shields and swords against my parents’ fortress, only growing more fervent, one time even turning into a “missionary” for LGBTQ equality, directly calling their biases “nothing more than products of their times” and finally shouting “you would never understand me”. Under my sharp attacks, my father’s expression darkened.
He looked like a defeated general, much as I imagined Colonel Aureliano would after his losses to colonial violence. I came to the realization I connected with Aureliano more deeply than with my own parents on the emotional aspect, when our debates only entrenching our stances, distancing me from my role as their daughter. Just as OHYS spoke to me through concretized characterizations, I could have shown my parents the proses and music I composed and played, which, like Aureliano’s fish, reflects my inner turmoils, or the photos of me (and my girlfriend) attending pride parades with rainbow nails and accessories in solidarity with others, just like Remedios’s white dress uniting the villagers. Generalizations and simplifications often perpetuate stereotypes and polarize discussions; lofty theories, no matter how well-argued, won’t touch my parents, as they are only cold weapons. I should communicate my detailed experiences to lay a foundation for empathy, from which understanding and happiness — albeit also abstract and conceptual — could be born.
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