موكب الجنازة

في الطريق الى ابوظبي و عند الاقتراب من حدود المدينة ، يتخذ الطريق السريع انحناءة الى اليمين ممكّناً من ينظر إليه من بعيد من رؤية جميع مصابيح الإنارة و هي تستيقظ من غفوتها بعد المغيب.

كنت استمع الى اغنية قديمة عندما شدت انتباهي هذه القافلة الحزينة في عتمة الأفق ، إذ بدت لي سلسلة المصابيح من مكاني كمسيرة من حاملي الشموع ، في طريقهم بتؤدة وسكينة نحو جنازة ملحمية.
عندها انتبهت الى ان كلمات الأغنية تناسب المشهد الذي أراه لدرجة مرعبة...

"Dominus, miserere" 

"Sanctus, gloria"

و تملكتني رهبة المشهد ، كمن تسلق أعلى قمة على وجه البسيطة و التفت لرؤية العالم المترامي الأطراف في الوقت الذي بدأت تشرق فيه الشمس. إنها لرهبة نادرة لا يشعر بوخزتها إلا من كان حاضراً في عرس الزمان و المكان عندما تعقد الفكرة قرانهما.

علام تأسى تلك الكائنات اللامرئية يا ترى وهي حاملة شموع الفجيعة ؟ هل يندبون الجمال ، جمال الحياة وجمال الروح البشرية،  الذي تم قتله وتشويهه بكل بشاعة على مر العصور حتى وصلنا الى هذه الحال المتردية ، حيث لم نعد نتذكر متى كانت الحياة جميلة ؟

لسبب ما تذكرت عبارة قرأتها في رائعة أنطون تشيكوف "النورس L'Albatross" : " انا في حداد على حياتي" .

و ظللت اتساءل بينما احدق في البعيد محاولة ايجاد قائد موكب الحداد عبثاً :  متى يكون المرء في حداد على حياته ؟ 

متى يجب ان نتوقف فجأة في خضم الصراع الأزلي الذي يسمى "الحياة"  لنقرر اذا ما كانت حيواتنا تستحق الرثاء ؟

هل حدث وأن استيقظت يوماً ، عزيزي القارىء ، و أدركت ان ما أنت عليه الآن بعيد كل البعد عن ما أردت أن تكون ؟

وأن عليك الإختيار بين اثنين : إما ان تعود إلى الوراء لتغتال ذاتك القديمة قبل ان تشكل كل تلك الرؤى الساذجة عما ستكون عليه في المستقبل.
وإما ان تضع ثوب الحداد حالِك السواد ، و ترثي كل ما لن تكونه في المستقبل.

في كلتا الحالتين شيء بدواخلنا يختنق ببطء و يختفي مع الشمس عند الغسق.

The Whispers Of Footprints

When our journey in this life reaches an end ; and we start to fade away from people's memories, isn't it scary to think that our stories won't be told anymore and that we would disappear like the morning dew when the sun rises ? 

One of the greatest wonders that i could never fathom is how would the waves that engulf your bare feet in the coldest of nights by the sea shore feel so warm. Warmer than the water at the surface...How the soft, small sand grains seep between your fingers and replace the memory of the greatest foot-massage you have felt in your entire life...How the waves seem so angry, so sinister when you are standing beyond their reach, yet they suddenly calm down and embrace you with a keen passion the deeper you immerse yourself in the water and become one with the sea...
But the most puzzling enigma of all is how you can often hear, during quite, starry nights when there aren't many wanderers disturbing the peace of the infinite blue, faint whispers coming from the multitude of foot marks imprinted on the white sand.
Yes, I dare say I spent more time by the shore than anywhere else in the world. Wherever I go, I'm drawn to the ocean. To the sea, to the lake, it calms me. That's where I belong.

They whisper in a monotonous, low tone, these footprints. You can't hear them clearly unless you close your eyes and shut up the voices in your head and adapt yourself to the sound of the waves...Close your eyes, for you can listen to the voices swarming in the darkness far better when you can't see, each and every one of them is telling a story : A story of someone we don't know, a story of someone we might have known, a story of someone we might get to know some day.

 "Until the end of times , keep me alive", they implore.

One can almost feel the warmth of the person that left every trail..

How many of these people are still alive ? how many of them remember when they left these footprints ?...how many of them have changed and how many are still the same ?
Every single trail printed on the plane of the earth tells a story of a person, an individual different from everyone else, with a heart like no other, with a character like no other.
And every footstep is a rebellion against time ; against fading away to the gloom of forgetting, against the vicious rising tide that despises history and puts in endless efforts to erase its marks printed on the brow of the shore.

All of us fear the nightmare of fading away , that's why we go out of our ways to force the oblivious world to remember us; some of us wish to remain immortal through the stories people tell about them, and so they spare no effort in connecting with those who might remember..some of us leave physical mementos; books, memoirs, paintings, sculptors that remind the world of their existence, so the next generations would still point out at their legacies and know they were there and alive once upon a time... Some of us leave their footprints by the beach, by the rocky knolls ; in a place where the vindictive waves and the mischievous foots of wanderers can't reach and erase them...and with every deep step they leave a fragment of a wish : "Until the end of times , keep me alive".

For You In Full Blossom III

The Sun And The Shadow

"Typical nerd" , is what I thought the first time i saw you from afar. Messy, quiet, plain-looking, good with studies, timid. There was always one like that in every classroom, i guess..

I think i approached you because i've always been friends with outcasts ever since grade school, not only because I was one myself ,but also because, according to my (let me call it ) experience, delinquents - social pariahs in short, usually turn out to be very interesting when you get to know them....
Plus they are the only type of people that tell you the truth to your face and yet ,as opposed to several people that appreciate honesty in my immediate surroundings, they actually don't get offended when you do the same.
I like that...it puts me at ease..I really think that outcasts are outcasts just because they are honest...
for ,you see, the majority of people don't like the straight-forward, blunt ,almost rude lot that they venture to circle them ,like ants circle the mischievous one ,and then kill them metaphorically by branding them with nicknames they think are demeaning....."nerds", "dorks".. "geeks"

"Nobodies"

It's a sick society we live in..

I have a thing for people with original (sometimes unpopular) perspectives, which they come at by following a logical and authentic process of thoughts, instead of just being mainstream because it's easier, like most of us do.
The mere fact that they think differently makes me want to approach them and observe how they go about things. Learning. It was always such an intriguing activity to try and figure people out, to explore every Pandora box that i find in every stranger i meet.
It's because i feel suffocated every day when i have so much to say, so many points to argue about and so many random ideas that pop up in my head, yet i have no one in my age-range that was equally clueless and curious to learn and discuss and argue and disagree.
Older people usually know the answers to many questions so they usually give advice right away instead of arguing their way through it.
But you get what I'm talking about....there is a limited number of people in this world that make me feel understood; one of them was my dad -my favorite debate partner to which i owe the development of my argumentative skills and bold curiosity...for my dear father never flinched when i bombarded him with the most outrageously irrelevant questions, he took great interest in how i came to ask them...and i think i got that trait from him. This bold curiosity about people and things.
You, though, were the first person of my age that I could talk to about puzzling life questions that made absolutely no sense to anyone else, and probably people thought we are crazy to discuss such topics at the lunch table.
The thing about you is that not only do you think like a scientist, but you also speak like one....which is why you don't get along with people your age, i believe ...therefore, you prefer to keep your brilliance capped under the hood of aloofness.
This is what attracted me to you...we were similar ...in a way. I just learnt to level my head and speech according to the person i'm dealing with..I wouldn't have survived otherwise.
I must tell you that there is no power on earth that would make me succumb to anyone that i deem my "peer"; that's just how i rolled. Although I don't like coming forward and demonstrating my opinion because it brings along major responsibilities, i get irritated when a "nobody" acts all high and mighty and starts giving me instructions on a matter i probably know more about. Or could learn more about in no time.
"The one that has the right to boss me around must know better", is what I always thought..But you, my friend, I would gladly work for you anytime, if you ever become my superior at work...you make me feel like helping you to shine and become something big,  like helping a fully-developed butterfly coming out of a cocoon...I would actually feel accomplished if i helped you rise, because you are a person of a vision, "you are meant for great things", you are just too naive to try and listen to your inner "Ess Mussein !"..maybe because no one told you to listen to it like this old man did when i was young..
I chose to believe him and worked my way up to what I believe is greatness. It bums me that nobody seems to have told you that as a kid, that you wouldn't believe it now that you are old and capable.

Therefore here i am telling you :

You have so much to brag about, yet you don't. Your mind is a rare jewel ; it's not exactly a jewel in the mud , for the people who are meant to notice it did, in fact, appreciate your brains...professors noticed it, I noticed it, journal editors did. YOU didn't, alas.

I was at some point positively mad at you, for having such low self-esteem that you would actually allow anyone to look down on you..And the way you would tell me that I'm "overrating you", and that you are not that wise ; that used to piss me off beyond limits.
You should know that i never "overrate" people at all ; in fact , not many people strike me as interesting even after years of interaction and probing as to want to stick around and voluntarily share with them my views of their characters; i don't give complements right and left...and i'm especially not the type of person that gives false compliments...never. Not me; I would rather stay quiet than deliberately lie to someone like that..therefore it pained that you didn't believe me when i told you how great you are, how great you could be.
I dedicated this letter to you because you taught me how to suppress my vanity for the right reasons
, because you were the first rival I didn't try, nay, didn't want, to overcome, and because you were my first peer role-model. We shall meet again, plenty a times, I promise, and I will tell you all of this when we do. I just had to leave this message here for myself.

I hope many a great things happen to you.

Vertigo

"Anyone whose goal is ‘something higher’ must expect some day to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? Then why do we feel it even when the observation tower comes equipped with a sturdy handrail? No, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves."  - Milan Kundera

I've spent a fair portion of my life trying to balance between self-acceptance and the susceptibility to change.
Between trying to maintain my individuality and the need to blend-in,
Between protecting my pride and wanting to fall in love,
Between perseverance ;clinging of reality,
And wanting to answer the calls of chaos that dwell inside of me.

"Balance" is quite a concept ; we can spend a life-time trying to find it, walking on a narrow rope suspended mid-air, trying not to fall, trying not to fail.

But did you know that humans are bound to respond to their inner vertigo, eventually ?
It's not an evil power, it grants us what we secretly wish for; it pushes us to fall ,but we actually yearn to fall because we yearn to "choose".
And we yearn to choose because ,you see, we, humans, fear the freedom of not knowing.

A state of balance causes us a great deal of distress because it is restricting ; could you, after all, imagine spending the rest of your life walking on a narrow rope between two ends across the valley ?

I think not.

As scary as it is to choose between one of what we think are extremes ; as scary as it is to look below and see the bottomless oblivion of choice, and as scary as it is to purposely lose your footing on the trembling grounds of balance, falling towards either sides of the border is better than walking along it for eternity. Not knowing on which side we would fall if we slipped the wrong foot first.