What Is Your Name?

The irony in buying many copies of Alvin Pang's prose collection 'What Gives Us Our Names' for friends two Christmases ago, even keeping a copy for myself, is that I never got around to reading it. On a short four-station train journey and with a 20-minute coffee break between work meetings, I finally finished it.

The 17 stories are titled after their protagonists- 'Community', 'Success', 'Beauty',  'Race', 'Passion', 'Purpose', 'Learning', 'Anxiety', 'Freedom', 'Failure', 'Despair', 'Service', 'Hope', 'Courage', 'Complexity', 'Patience' and 'Congruence'. They aren't just human traits or experiences and emotions anymore. The traits have been written into the stories and might or might not be greater than their human hosts. Their stories wouldn't be unheard of among our friends and fellow humans.

Oh such familiar stories, but the writer swopped out the names for another set of names, shifting perspectives and riffling through layers of life's experiences. Totally enjoyed the easy writing style and deeper thoughts behind the stories for the reader to chew on. My favorite  is 'Despair'.

Despair keeps no clocks. If you ask him the time, he will always say it is too late to complete your journey. He will tell you his is the last stop there is, anywhere. Do not trust the wily old shopkeeper. Instead, rest a while and thank him for his stories of lost glory. Then it is best to be on your way.

The last story of the book was titled 'Congruence', a congruent sum-up of the bubbling thoughts a reader would hold by now.

This was how, at least, Congruence arrived at the feast. It did not matter that he was dusty and bruised  from his voyage, nor that the other guests had already taken their places. With open arms welcomed him and listened in awe as he described landscapes and heartlands that no one else before had walked or witnessed. He spoke of how in his darkest moments when the path seemed lost, the clear song of his wife, Conviction, had kept him from wandering astray. 

"Truly," he said, "it is what we love that gives us our names."

Today, my name is Contemplate.