PASSING FOR NORMAL

Arabia.com

A recent writer, whose novels I have grown fond of, used to say that storytellers are haunted with a thousand spirits. Here go some spirits I was haunted with…

Suddenly, I found the door to my own raw self. Suddenly I came into crude contact with my identity. Suddenly I refused my heritage and the burden of my name and political profile. To my own surprise my pen kept on writing insulting the coldness of the bare papers and it came to me under a scary name. The name was and just had to be” the walls of my life”. I had this very intense vision of the childhood of Chateaubriand and I kept on thinking of the game that I used to play in Beirut (do you remember that game?). I kept on thinking of what could be happening in all these windows and in the attics of all the houses where children play and dream. Today, I am thinking about the world cup. I guess four years have already passed, wiping away any trace of my remaining innocence. I had a small chat with a complete stranger once based on common heritage. I have missed the long hours of passionate conversations about everything that is happening and everything that is not. To my surprise, this friend’s basis for making any connection with another fellow was based on two questions, what religion do you belong to and whom are you supporting in the world cup, or the“ mondiale” as we so presumptuously call it. He repeatedly informed me that he is supporting France and that I should support them too. I wanted to tell this friend how insignificant and low he strikes me by his questions. I just wanted to convey him part of my longing to my country and their people. I wanted to tell him that I love him and miss him without needing to know what religion does he follow. I wanted to scream and cry and ask him” how is your father and mother?”. I wanted to ask about Lebanon and Beirut and my mom. Instead I said that I do not care. I am Arabic as you should be. And I felt a strange weakness in my bones and a sour taste of disgust and boredom under my teeth. At least, and for the first time in my life, I was on the other side and I was free of the guilt of a corrupt population. At least, this time and for the first time, I was honest. I was done with the human race, with politics, with aggression. I was turning my back for the last time .In my journey and my actual presence on the other side of what is happening, I had them in my heart but I had a bigger involvement and a better view. During the years of terrorism and turbulence, I came to see our problems from a different angle. War has taken another name that was horror and heroism simply ceased to exist. For the sake of the general opinion and the worldly consent, we lost our humanity. Once again, what is the meaning of a world that has gone mad and who is a man that has gone blind? Once again, who deserves pity or salvation when we are criminals and all of us are guilty and accomplices? Today I am dancing and celebrating the birth of million new spirits and the ugly death of our conscience.
At least, it was a new way of looking at things. New it is, but a cowardly way of taking the blame off my shoulder and getting rid of the guilt for good. Your war is not my war anymore and I throw the heavy weight on everyone but me.
It all has started since the beginning of times and this was man as God intended and created. Is this what God’s hands have made? I throw God then. Are these children his and he lets die? These are yours to protect and not my responsibility anymore. Goodbye to all the good things I have seen. I am tired and my eyes need rest. I saw miracles in everyday life and in all the people even the simplest. Nature is so divine and, still to the surprise of my modest judgement, we are as earthly and beastly as we have ever been.
War, my friends, is human-made and peace is a privilege we do not have anymore. I pray for forgiveness. The forgiveness of good, worthless, weak, pointless values and spirits. I pray for the forgiveness of my and of your parents and I pray for a god. Damned is this earth that has gone so small and tight to its own inhabitants. Damned religion and I scream outrageously at politicians. I carry the burden of all dead babies and my heart will rise and fall with the tears of millions of mothers and fathers and brothers and lovers. Damn you people. I curse the minute I came to a world full of ugliness and yet so full of beauty. Oh my God, my wise God would you give me a sign. Tell me you great powerful being that you have a reason. Tell me you are watching over us. Tell me that children are not dying in vain.
I quit and I leave, crying, as I never cried before. I don’t have a home anymore, I lost my roots and my leaves are burning. I look for my mother everywhere. My mother is the earth and my father is the country. But again we are people who let go of the country and who never sacrificed for the earth. My mother does not recognize me anymore, but I see she does but looks away… my mother is embarrassed with me.

We are all reflecting on each other’s conscience and awareness. Knowing this fact and truly acting upon it, it would be very hard for any of us and in the minute details of our life to do, to act and to exist as human beings and as functional entities of this place we call society. Imagine that a small detail you did not take care of could influence the well being of a child. Imagine that hatred could be contagious and imagine the baby you never had is dying. Being one of you and existing just for you, others…I hate you. From the way I perceive it finally, I see that animals are far more superior and civilized than we are. Defining society as a place of interactions and mutual services, who is the animal again?



If one would think of the absolute social service that is considered good in our days, he would absent-mindedly and hopefully think about science. Think again of what science did to the human race. All throughout history, massacres and tragedies, ladies and gentlemen I would like to give science an award of neglect and exaggeration. Think again of what our life would have been without the tool of science. I call tool what to many others would be a profession and a life style and most dramatically the future of this earth we are on. I call it tool because, by God’s name and integrity, I will always put humanity first. I call it tool because, by the name of all good and evil, I will always cherish the individual human life more than the well being of humanity. Apparently this was not the case in the past times when it comes to research and performing trial and error methods on human subjects. Sadly and surprisingly, it still is not the case nowadays when all the reasoning and goals behind medicine and applied sciences is recognition and profit. Once again we are humans and we all need positive reinforcement in order to believe in what we do and what we are up to. Let me ask you, dear friends, does the need for believing takes away the real beneficiary behind it? Man. Does the profit serve the cause behind science? Health. I have a vision and I have a dream of a different world. I have a longing for another existence. Should it be heaven, as we know it? Should be the presence in a god’s love and protection. To spare you the answer, no. Heaven should be in this treasure of a life we have been given and heaven should be what we make of it and for it.
That is on the subject of science and I have made my resolutions regarding the scientific standards and I go back to love and faith. What happened to our principles? Where are our hospitality and good manners? When did we stop caring and loving and asking about others? One would think that we got too involved in today’s practicality and pace to the extent where love became a Eutopic ideological concept. Others argue that love is what makes us and is the seed of God in each and every one of us. I argue and say, if a seed of love you say, if planted by God you say, tell me where is your God and why doesn’t he love us anymore? And tell me what would be love without having someone to love or share? And tell me whom do you want me to love when everyone fell out of love right into the center of their own selves. By definition, it is a beautiful mutual feeling whenever you can reciprocate, so could it happen to us, humans?
I fell in love before many times actually and now I believe that I will never love again. It was an absurd childish feeling of existing and self-expressing. It was the pure belief that you should present and accommodate all of life’s pleasures and leisure to the person you deeply feel for. And correct me in case I could be mistaken but who among us does not wish to have someone to share the details of a boring life with. Who among us does not long for his other half, for the being he has dreamt of? Who again, due to our nurturing nature as humans, does not wish for the person he can protect and sacrifice his life for? I have found this person and this feeling before in my life. At that time, it seemed so strong that it was impossible to give away or lose. I lost my tasty secret feeling in the one assured way a person could fall out of love with others. Today I admit that I fell in love with me and you and a whole world called third and another world called powerful. Here’s my heart put aside and my soul torn on the other side. Here’s to you my country, my love, my lover and my passion.
Well I don’t know exactly what is this feeling that haunts me and dictates my identity but I know that it defines me with every breath I take.
I want the land of martyrs and heroes.
Of colors and disguises. I will be back to the land of love and hate and revenge and millions of feelings and emotions not hidden even if not understood. Today I miss everything I was raised to value and love and anticipate. I refuse to live in a world that has turned down any evaluation of human feelings and sacrifice.