phalbum_life

Many people have tried to answer this question. Hundreds and hundreds of pages have been written about Ayrton’s death, lots of intellects have tried to figure out why him, why did he of all people had to get brutally killed before eyes of millions? Because he oughtn’t to have died. From the sport aspect he was a top professional, from the world aspect he was a millionaire, from the business aspect a highly successful businessman, from the human aspect a benefactor - the only hope for thousands of people with no hope, and beside all this, he was a living symbol of positive, encouraging characteristics in the sea of hopelessness and rigorous reality. And still he died. Why?

People are usually small and helpless when they face this question. They’ve reacted differently. Cynics shrugged their shoulders and said: -Where is his God now?-. The half-hearted and the weak lost that little faith they had. People from "the concrete world" turned to others without giving much thought, the superficial immediately forgot, but I have a presentiment that there are also people who experienced Ayrton’s death in a different way and who can’t forget him despite his death.

For days, months and now even years I have been fervently searching for answers to questions who was that man, what he means to me, what happened because how can an absolute stranger at the moment of his death become a part of my life to that extent that it’s impossible to separate or forget him? Because I am not a fan of F-1. I’ve never watched races with interest. For me that had been a rather incomprehensible and therefore boring sport which I watched accidentally. And I didn’t know absolutely anything about Ayrton except of his name, not even his appearance. Nothing had tied me to him and also his death wasn’t the first which I witnessed on TV. I would always go away from the TV when the scene of somebody’s death was constantly repeated - it hurt me. I left this time, too, but in vain - Ayrton’s tragedy followed me. Some force was effective. I felt the horror and the pain of that terrible moment everywhere as if it was coming simultaneously from outside, from the space and from my own heart. It was an extremely confusing moment, I was feeling that an invaluable loss was occurring and my whole being wanted to stop it. The helplessness of not being able to do this hurt to death. I wasn’t able to say a word, but at the same time something in me wanted to scream. Lines from one poem might to some extent describe that extremely irrational moment. "Numb and full of cry is his dying", this is how the poet talks about that moment in time, in which something inexplicably tied me so firmly to Ayrton (whose appearance I didn’t even know then. I saw him only afterwards, in the news: they were showing Ayrton, in slow motion, while putting on his helmet). And the strangest thing is that this bond has never ceased to exist. It’s not confusing any more, as it had been on that sunny afternoon long time ago, but it has become something everlasting, valuable, something that is impossible to be unfaithful to. Ayrton Senna has become an inseparable part of my soul, a link in my life.

When after his death, I searched in all available sources for information about him, I came across these words, which he said when he was laughed at behind his back, because he talked openly about the spiritual experience he had:

"I know in advance that there will be people who will make fun of it - that’s why they’re here. But for me they’re are a minority and not worth thinking about. But the others who listen properly are more important. Perhaps what I say can be a link in a chain for them, in their emotions, in their lives."

It is truly incredible how these words turned out to be true. Ayrton is literally a link in my life, a powerful symbol on the way towards my own individuation. I have read lots of books from which I tried to comprehend the way these phenomena function, because they are only existing if they have real consequences.[1] In my search, I came across C. G. Jung’s body of work. This great reasoner and even greater expert on the way human psyche works gave me lots of answers. But here it is impossible to get into deeper analyses, it could be done only by an expert. I’ll still quote one of Jung’s definitions which might at least a little illuminate Ayrton’s path in his search for "the place where the gods dwell." Jung says: "This way towards ultimate religious experience is correct, but how many of us succeed to recognize it? This is a silent voice from a distance. It’s ambiguous, full of doubt and dark, it signifies danger and courage. It is a precarious pathway upon which you can walk only with God’s will, without security and confirmation."

When we look at Ayrton’s life path, we can clearly see how hard and enduringly, but loyally, he walked upon it setting us an example - that was his mission - to give an example to those who listen properly. Now, when he’s gone, those who understand must go on alone, on their own. Everyone in their own background, according to their abilities, because in our everyday lives we can find all those elements we could follow in his. We are all forced to fight with the difficulties that life brings, face with various authorities and injustices, with physical and psychical pain. We must live and try to give our best in that life. This is the only correct way of living because there has to be a correct way of living and at the same time, the only way to stay loyal to Ayrton’s memory.

"The only way to improve yourself is to live, to live day by day and thereby to learn about living", Ayrton advised us.

Once I had a dream in which all this was very symbolically shown. I dreamt I was on a very big field with freshly ploughed up soil. The furrows were long and stretched interminably, I was walking along them and sowing some kind of seed. I found my job very difficult, since the field was enormous, you couldn’t see the end of it, which is why I was grumbling to myself: Who will sow all this with seed? And I got the answer to my question: Senna ploughed this field up and now is your turn to sow it.

I quite often dream about Ayrton and those dreams are always answers to my dilemmas. It almost seems as if this is my way of communicating with him. Dostoevsky wrote, in one of his books, these words for one of his dying character: "Only few people stay in human memory, but it doesn’t matter, even if you forget, I will love you from my grave, too. Live and rejoice; I shall come to you in your dreams... It is all the same, even after death love continues to live... "

[1] Only ten years after Ayrton Senna’s death the author came across P.L. Landsberg’s book “Experience of Death” in which she found the answer to what happened to her on 1^st May 1994 . This philosopher says it is possible to experience the death of another person on the condition you feel true love for them. And this person doesn’t have to be someone you know or it could even be your enemy. After experiences of this sort you experience a change. Landsberg, who wasn’t talking only in theory, but he proved it the way he lived his own life, asks himself: will we be the same after experiencing this? Can we be the same?