Who is L.F. Saidan?

Action.

Several years ago in Bangkok, a dear friend and I sat on a park bench, pounding beers and chain-smoking cheap cigarettes. As the evening wore on, she looked at me with a wry smile and asked, “who are you?”

“You know who I am.”

The wry smile widened. “Yes yes, I see you, but do you see yourself? Do you know who you are? Tell me who you are,” she insisted.

Push in.

I told her my name.

“No, that’s just your name. Your name isn’t who you are. Who are you?”

Push in.

Digging deeper, I told her my job, where I was from, and the things I enjoyed.

She belted out a deep, smoky laugh. “You’re an idiot. You don’t know yourself. Your job, country, and things like that aren’t who you are. Who are you, really?”

Push in.

I quickly became irritated. Rising to her challenge with everything I could muster, I told her my name again, including my middle name. I told her the key points in my life which I found to be important. As she began to laugh harder, I spoke with a deeper earnest, unfolding my story about the life I had lived thus far and how it brought me to sitting on the bench next to her.

Her chins shook as she laughed hysterically, choking on the smoke of her latest drag. “You’re so stupid, you don’t even know who are!” She laughed harder, slapping her leg.

“Well, who the fuck are you? You don’t know who the fuck you are.” I nearly yelled it at her.

She let her cackling subside before replying. “Yes, I know me but,” she said before pausing for a strong swig of beer and then looking me in the eye, “you don’t know yourself!” Again, she went into hysterics.

This went on for some time before I gave up on the seemingly pointless endeavour of explaining my identity. At the time, I didn’t know who I was.

Pull back.

Now a days, I still don’t know who I am but I sure do know who I’m not.

Cut scene.

A few years later, as my grandfather was nearing the end of this life, we were sitting together watching old spaghetti Westerns. He randomly posed a question.

“What’s your gospel?”

Push in.

I didn’t understand the question. “Do you mean, like, gospel music?”

“What do you live by?”

Push in.

“I’m not sure. I don’t suppose I know. What do you live by?”

“The Golden Rule. That’s what I’ve always tried to live by.”

Push in.

“That’s your gospel?” I asked.

“Yup. Unless I’ve had a hammer in my hand or I was staring at a mule’s ass hooked to a plow, I’ve never understood much. I’ve not been to church that much either, didn’t make sense to me. But when I was a kid, someone told me the Golden Rule. Ya know, ‘treat others as you want to be treated?’” He looked over at me expectantly.

“Yea, I know it.”

Push in.

“That’s my gospel. That rule made sense to me and I’ve stuck to it ever since. I haven’t always treated everyone the best but I’ve tried. I suppose it worked out alright for me.”

“I think it worked out just fine for ya. Seems like you’ve done good by it.”

“I suppose I have.”

“I suppose I oughta figure out my gospel,” I mused in reply.

“I suppose you do.”

Pull back.

About a year later, grandpa moved on. It wasn’t too long after his passing, I realised my own gospel.

Cut scene.

It is of some importance to me that you understand L.F. Saidan to be a nom de plume. One of the blessings of anonymity is an unshackling of the Heart without the fear of being linked to that which the shackles fall from. Earnest exposure is difficult, yea? In my thirty-five years of life, I have left this Heart to lay in the darkest reaches of my awareness; bound and gagged, starved of nutriment and mercilessly neglected. Over the past several years, through a deep and genuine striving, I have slowly begun to conquer the act of forsaking the nature of who I had begun.

Throughout this process of awakening, I have found writing to be extremely cathartic. Writing, in one form or another, is the most efficient method for me to both respond to and process the world inside me as well as the world around me. Through writing, I am able to reconcile these two worlds and as I do, attain a greater sense of contentment with whatever has come my way or, I believe, whatever will.

Through the harmony of contentment, I am able to foster a greater sense of compassion, kindness, and understanding and it is through and by these three qualities that I endeavour to conclude this life.

I don’t suppose I’m really anybody. I feel like nothingness, embodied. In this nothingness, I continue to cultivate and realise the characteristics of my gospel – compassion, kindness, and understanding. I also continue to envelop my gospel – to do the good that’s in front of me, when it’s in front of me, and to the best of my ability.

In this life, nothing has ever been more important to me and I found comfort in the fact that I know, deep down in my heart, nothing will ever be more important to me.

Begin anew.