The Last Resort: Literary Essays

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE LAST RESORT

 

Selected Stories and Literary Essays

Manal Khalil

ENGLISH LITERARY TRANSLATION

 

Contents

01   The Price

02   The Missing Truth

03   The Lost Paradise

04   The Device Is Broken

05   Gaps

06   What If...?

07   Under the Guillotine

08   Eagles Fly Away

09   Red Lines

10   The Foundling

11   The Last Resort

The Price

A Literary Essay

When you tell someone a secret, remember that you have placed an arrow in their hands—one they may one day turn against you. But let me tell you a secret no one has told you before. Or perhaps it is something that has always been there: you live and move inside its system without being aware of it. It may not be a secret in the ordinary sense at all. Perhaps it is simply something you ignore, deliberately forget, or allow to fade from your mind as time passes.

We are always more eager to avoid pain than to find happiness or seek it out. If you ask me why we fear pain and do everything possible to escape it, imagine with me a stormy night, the sky flashing with lightning like the mouth of an angry volcano. It is as though the heavens had been holding back their rage for years, only to erupt at last in fiery bursts, announcing an assault by armies of rain. The torrents descend upon cracked, thirsty earth, quenching its long thirst and feeding the seeds buried in its soil so that they may grow and flourish. Who benefits? The parched land? The seeds? The orchard's owner? Or all of them together? You will answer quickly and confidently: all of them. The benefit is shared by everyone.

But here comes the more important question: are there others who benefit, or are there people who suffer harm? At once, a series of images begins to play before your eyes, like scenes in a film. You see refugees in camps, living in dilapidated tents. What has this calamity done to them? It must have wrecked their already fragile shelters and brought disease. The image shifts to rooftops submerged by the heavy rain, then to sharp blades of water battering the windows of an elementary-school classroom while children scream against the merciless cold.

Soon you remember a poor, wretched man whose ribs seem to groan beneath the shadow of death, which has settled—or is about to settle—over every inch of him. He lies in a freezing room that feels like a morgue, where icy gusts toss the sick man from side to side until he is no more than a feather at the mercy of the wind. Is he benefiting from this heavy rain, which has brought him nothing but more humiliation, degradation, torment, and illness? He owns no land, grows no crops, has no orchard, not even a single fruit to quiet the pangs of hunger. Then the one explanation many people find stubbornly difficult to understand or accept comes into view: one person's misfortune is another person's gain. What benefits you may, at that very same moment, be another person's ruin, destruction, or death.

What you hope and pray will happen is precisely what someone else hopes and prays will not happen. A drowning person in the open sea clings to a tiny straw, pleading that the thing you long for—the thing you regard as wholly beneficial to you—will never come to pass. Do you not agree, dear reader, wherever you may be, that this is a riddle, a puzzle some people may find impossible to accept? I say some, not all. Perhaps you will easily recognize that this is simply the nature of life, one of its laws. You must learn to accept the truth and swallow it with the bitterness of aloe and the roughness of thorns that cut your feelings, perhaps even tear them apart.

It is the principle of relativity: the killer and the killed. Life has rested on this principle since time immemorial. Life is forever born from the womb of death. The very killer who takes one life may, through that killing, give life to others. It may sound strange, but whether you swallow this bitter truth or spit it out, it remains. Its laws flow through your body and soul until, knowingly or not, you digest them. Resist them as fiercely as you wish; they will arrive all the same. They may even disguise themselves in a dazzling garment that seduces you. You will wear it happily, never suspecting what lies beneath it. You will not ask—or will not wish to ask—where it came from or how it reached you.

But pause before you pass judgment. Let me tell you, dear poor man, dear sufferer, dear person who has been injured or humiliated: you are not the only loser in this game. Do not imagine that everything has been arranged solely for the benefit of the other side, or that you alone endure pain and cry out for help. Your plea may be voiceless, and the one who ought to hear it may be deaf and blind, unable to see even your tears. Yet the others, too, are losing at the same game. Be certain of this: there must be losses. Everyone loses in this battle—or game, if you prefer. There are no real profits here, only enormous, brightly coloured soap bubbles, full of air, ready to burst with a single breath or the touch of a fingertip.

It is a great drum that booms so loudly it deafens the ear, magnificent in sound but hollow within, containing nothing but emptiness. Profit, my dear reader, is a grand rumour invented and magnified by human beings, embellished with all their imagination. It is comforting, perhaps, to console oneself with such a fantasy.

The rich man may have money, palaces, and everything the heart desires, all that is delicious and delightful. And yet he is a loser. Nothing comes without a price. He has paid for everything he enjoys, and he continues to pay with his nerves—with his fear that the money piled up in his bank accounts may dwindle or be stolen; with his dread that a business partner may ruin him until he owns nothing, or at least leave him poorer than before; with the fear that he may be killed or assassinated because he is well known. Others envy him for his fame, never imagining the sadness and resentment he feels toward an ordinary person who can simply enjoy life without tongues lashing him for being famous. He envies the unknown man who can walk freely down the street without eyes piercing him, prying into his very insides with curiosity and spite, simply because he is recognizable.

Nothing comes without a price. In the end, the famous man is sad and unable to feel happy. Which is worse: the misery of the celebrated or the happiness of the unnoticed? So do not assume, dear poor man, sick man, refugee, humiliated or downtrodden person, that you alone are losing. They share in the loss, too; perhaps their loss is greater and more devastating. Often, in fact, they envy you. Do not be astonished. Somewhere inside themselves, they envy your circumstances. At least you have nothing you must constantly fear losing; you need not lock every door behind you in terror that something will be taken away. You have no fortune you fear may shrink, disappear, or be depleted. In short, you have little left to lose—or perhaps you cannot lose much more than you already have.

The old saying warns us never to challenge someone who has nothing to lose and nothing to fear. Such a person will not lose heart or grow weak because something twists his arm or grips him by the hand that hurts, as the saying goes. Is that not some compensation for what you have lost? Do you not, too, possess something they envy and wish you would be deprived of? Yet, at the end of it all, you are not at ease either, and you are not happy. Perhaps what I have said offers you no comfort. Despite everything I have described, you still look toward them, while they look toward the simplicity you possess and cannot find, in spite of all their wealth.

You all look at one another. Each side of this game tries harder to avoid pain than to pursue happiness. Each regards the other with the wariness of a fighter preparing to sharpen his spear or load his rifle, ready to face an enemy who may strike with any weapon. Both fear being wounded by the other's arrows. Both seek to escape a pain that gnaws at the bones like woodworm. Whether you notice it or not, you have both lost many times more than you have gained. You are both resentful and dissatisfied, whether you possess much or little, whether you flourish or perish. Each envies the other's life without paying attention to what that life actually contains. Why? The reason is plain—or perhaps hidden, though plain to anyone willing to look. You have both lost something precious, or at least you both feel that you have. Remember: the price is not always money. There are other costs, so steep that no sum can measure them. They are not paid in cash, but in something far more precious. You will recognize them when peace of mind deserts you, when tranquillity slips away, and when you discover how impossible it can be to escape your own pain. The continuation of this condition may be just as inevitable.

Perhaps it will ease your journey toward the truth to know that, just as you envy the other person—envy here is only a metaphor to clarify the idea, not a literal or strictly logical accusation—they feel the same way about you. Imagine it: the two of you are equal. Yes, evenly matched. Do not be surprised. You are equal in pain, equal in suffering. You seek the same thing, yet cannot find it. And if you do find it, you will never find it complete or sufficient; it will arrive deficient, missing something. If it were ever complete, the search for truth and happiness would end. But life never stops. Its wheel keeps turning, whether you wish it to or not, whether you laugh or weep.

This brings me to an essential question, dear reader: does happiness lie in the truth and in searching for it, or does truth lie in happiness? Which is clearer, which is more satisfying? Which relieves our pain more than the other? It is a legitimate question, but its answer is even more elusive. Perhaps each completes the other. Merely asking it can set the mind and the soul in motion.

Seeking perfection or completeness in everything can be destructive, perhaps impossible. Remember, though, that nature has offered you the best solutions it possesses. It has never claimed omnipotence, nor given itself grand, sonorous titles. It has made no such claims and sought no such glory. It gives what it has, asking nothing in return. It simply turns the wheel of life, while living creatures revolve within its orbit, their faces darkened by the strain of existence. Perhaps this can help you find a fragment of honesty amid the ceaseless game, a game that always leads—or will lead—you to nothing. Yes, nothing.

If you ask yourself why life exists, what your suffering is for, and why you chase endlessly after a little relief from pain in the hope of gaining even the smallest measure of happiness, perhaps you are longing to rest your weary soul on a shore of calm and peace of mind, far from the waves of fear and anger. And when your veins swell and you spring to your feet like an indignant turkey, remember the wheel on which you have been running. In the end, you are a thing that will perish. Yet this very thought may prompt you to recognize your worth and leave behind a good trace, so that your memory may endure. This is the central point I wanted you to notice: the same wheel that carries you toward nothingness may also propel you toward everything. You can, dear reader, create something out of nothing. That is a form of creativity in itself.

Indeed, you need no more than that. What importance can anything that follows really have? Once the moment has passed, there will be no second chance. What can anything matter after nothingness? Yet I know that, with all the confidence and insolence in the world, you will say that you are alive for this, and this, and that—and that without these things you would have no purpose. Those are your beliefs, or perhaps your guesses. If I ask you for solid proof, as bright and unmistakable as the sun, you will confidently present your evidence: certain, clear, decisive, sharp as a sword and radiant as daylight. Why are you so certain? Why should your evidence be so obvious that no argument or discussion can be allowed?

Have you seen the proof with your own eyes? No. Have you witnessed what you claim to have witnessed with absolute certainty? No. Have you seen, heard, tried, tested, and verified it? No, no, no. Then you are like the witness who testifies to something he never saw: a witness who witnessed nothing at all. Would you believe or respect someone in court who testified to what he had never seen? Would you accept his word when he had no firsthand knowledge, simply because he inherited the role of witness? His evidence is invisible, metaphysical, hidden from the eye—and yet it is presented as proof. How? When? Why? You have only one answer: this must be the definitive answer; this must be real, conclusive evidence. It is real, you insist, even though it is unseen and concealed from view.

What decisive, certain evidence indeed! I know you have no other option, that you must either accept such evidence or declare it evidence even when it has not been demonstrated. It is the only guarantee you have found to quiet your fear and anxiety about an uncertain future. Is that not so? I understand. I can see the tears falling from your eyes as you read these words. I can see confusion forming on the faces of others whose thoughts I know, or whose minds I can read, as they wince and grow tense at my words. Yet all of you have forgotten one thing: truth is always expensive, because it is both one of the greatest sources of happiness and one of the greatest causes of pain.

How difficult it is for the person who discovers the truth alone—or at least uncovers a substantial part of it. You may never reach perfection; arriving at it may be impossible. But possessing even a fragment of the truth, or moving a few steps closer to it, can make an enormous difference to your life. At least then you will not be deceived, nor wounded by the same pain, nor devastated by misfortune in quite the same way, because you possess a portion of the truth. Now you know the secret of the game.

But always remember that possessing the truth, or even an important part of it, can be an honour and a source of happiness—and, just as easily, a curse. Those of you who possess the truth live concealed, hidden, and afraid, barricaded behind walls of fear and anxiety. You wrap yourselves in layers of cover, hiding what you know from prying eyes. What you have is more precious than treasure. Yet, in the end, you still revolve in the same orbit and play the same game on the stage of life. Only the roles, the script, and the dialogue change. The difference may be great, but the play continues without end. If you know the truth and lack the courage to act, that is a calamity; if you do not know it at all, the calamity is greater.

 

The Missing Truth

Have you ever considered living by the principle of the carrot and the stick? Are you one of those who put self-interest above everything else, building your hopes and your life on the wreckage of that principle, on the accumulation of time, the passing of years, the length of distances, and the shape of the spaces between people? Whatever the outcome, you make sure that your interests come first, in the service of your highest goal—or of the purpose you keep hidden beneath the surface.

If that is how you live, then what a loss for nobility, and how naïve your idealism must seem! What foolishness, what excessive kindness, what a waste of human dignity when set against a material gain. Do you know why, dear reader? Because true giving—and true generosity with one's money—asks for nothing in return and waits for no reward. That is, at least, if we assume that some reward is waiting for you somewhere, at some future time. You may die while many things inside you wither away as you wait for a reward that will probably never come. It is only your own conclusion, your own personal illusion.

In pursuit of that reward, you may trample truths that are noble and worth defending. The promise of compensation may make you forget lofty principles and refined feelings, all while persuading yourself that you are doing the right thing. So let me ask you: which is better—to give and show kindness to someone in need solely to make that person happy, expecting absolutely nothing in return, knowing full well that nothing awaits you but extinction, and yet choosing to bring happiness to another? That act, too, is a kind of reward in itself. But look at the difference between the two kinds of return: giving without fear of extinction, or giving for your own benefit, anxious to survive at any cost. Can you see the difference, or do you deliberately look away from it?

Let us return together to the reward—the source of affliction, misery, and exhaustion, the hiding place of danger and the wellspring of confusion. Perhaps the story of a poor donkey will serve as a warning and a lesson, and make you reconsider your judgments about many things. You may deny its meaning or turn away from it, but doing so will only cast a shadow over the truth, or a significant part of it. There may be no absolute truth at all—or so science has said and documented.

On some day in the brief or seemingly endless span of a life, beneath a scorching sky and a sun blazing like a furnace in an immeasurable universe, a poor donkey trudged on. His owner was relentless in his cruelty, as sharp as a sword in his decisions and blind to the foolishness of his own actions. Still, the wretched animal kept walking and running, hoping to escape the burning rays that flogged his back. His owner was not satisfied with the sun's torment. He poured his anger into the whip, bringing it down again and again until its lash seared the donkey's skin. No mercy, no compassion. What could one expect? It was only a donkey, a stupid animal that understood nothing and could feel nothing—or so the boy seemed to believe.

The reckless boy drove the cart and insisted that the donkey move, convinced that no result could be achieved any other way. As the whip scorched the animal's back, the donkey tried to console himself. Easy, easy, he told his tormented soul. Soon we shall reach home, and you will rest beneath the cool shade. And you, wretched carrot, I will have you whatever the price. I must get you; then my suffering will be over.

Yes, I am certain I will rest. I will feed on you and delight in your taste. You will give me the nourishment and strength I need. I know it; I know it. And so the poor donkey ran and ran. Before his eyes, the carrot gleamed like a fleeting, dreamlike glimmer. The faster he ran, the more the carrot danced and swayed in front of him, coquettish as a woman letting her golden tresses fall loose in the sunlight. Each time the donkey grew tired, the carrot's golden strands seemed to shine even more brightly. Its teasing allure only intensified his longing. He plunged deeper into the sea of its charm, panting and racing after it, dreaming of just one bite of its beauty and sweetness.

But that day would never come. The donkey was a living creature: he could fall ill, grow exhausted, and suffer. At last his aching body groaned for rest. He cried out for a moment to recover his breath, for his lungs were spent from chasing the lovely carrot that seemed to take pleasure in his agony and delight in the music of his sighs. He stopped running, forced to answer the anguished protest of his own body. Yet before long he found himself running once again, compelled by the sharp edge of the sword and the hateful whip in the reckless boy's hand. The boy wanted him to run and run and run, caring nothing for the animal's excruciating pain. The donkey was caught between two millstones, ground mercilessly between them.

He began again, amid the din of his groans and the wailing of his wounded soul, comforting himself with the promise that he would reach the carrot in front of him. Round and round he went, back into the same closed loop, the same vicious circle, without benefit or end. It was all false promises and wishes that would never come true. The donkey would go on dreaming of a carrot he would never get. Why? Because neither the donkey nor the carrot really mattered. The carrot was merely a trick, a means of deception. Its only purpose was to keep the donkey running, pouring every hope and dream into something he would never possess. It would remain a dream, a mirage, a flash of lightning that called to him and lured him onward.

It reminds me of the old rural tale of the Naddaha, the mysterious caller whose voice lured people away. Grandparents told the story to children, and even adults believed it: someone heard the caller's voice and answered it, then spent the rest of his life chasing the sound from afar, whether the voice was real or merely imagined, until his years were squandered. Do you not see the resemblance between that person and this pitiful donkey? The animal could do nothing except run; if he stopped, the burning lashes awaited every inch of his body, feeding on his thick hide. So he consoled himself with the one thing he had been promised: the stubborn reward he would receive if only he ran harder and faster to catch the carrot. In doing so, he would also escape the punishment of the reckless boy's whip.

And what was the final result? Nothing. The one certain outcome was that the boy achieved his aim: the driver kept the creature beneath his power and at his beck and call. The donkey moved wherever the driver directed him, terrified of punishment and tempted by a reward that always seemed just beyond reach. Have you ever asked yourself, you who are tormented by life, which of you is better off: you or the donkey? Or, more precisely, which of you is less constrained? You or the donkey? If you ask honestly, the answer stands before you, stripped of makeup and ornament, naked truth in its simplest form: despite all his suffering, the donkey is better off than you. He is less bound than you are.

You may be astonished by that answer, so let me say it before anyone else does: you have not even managed to become a donkey—not even the equivalent of one. Why? Because the donkey does not need money to live. He need not exhaust himself and deny himself the pleasures of life simply to eat, drink, and stay alive, as you do, living as though merely avoiding death were your only purpose.

The donkey, dear reader—you who are not a donkey—is not shackled by official documents. Nor is he a pile of papers, unlike you, who may count for nothing before the authorities without a document proving that you exist. You are a piece of paper. Do not forget it: you are a piece of paper. The donkey does not speak, write, or read as you do. He does not need to spend years at school, paying vast sums for education, only to find himself eventually deposited in some office, government department, or bureaucratic warehouse, earning a meagre wage. He simply remains still and silent—or, to put it more accurately, you are the one who has been programmed and trained since childhood to follow this path.

If curiosity drives you into the sea of confusion and mystery and you ask me how this happens, and why, I must tell you, with regret, that from your earliest years you have been taught what to think by everyone around you: home, family, society, the street, the neighbourhood, and even the media. You are a vessel into which others pour whatever they wish. You are a blank page on which they write whatever they please. It is their will, not yours. It is not some other power, nor even the blazing supernatural force they invoke, that has chosen for you. They whisper these incantations into your ears until they sound like magic spells.

You are directed like that donkey. Your options are limited—more limited than you imagine. You think you are acting, but you are not; you think you are choosing, but the choice has already been made for you. You are allowed to hesitate, but in the end you must choose from a narrow set of possibilities inside a frame others have built. They have filled that frame with everything you dream of and cannot find—and will never find.

Remember the donkey and the carrot, my friend. You will keep panting after the hopes, dreams, desires, and wishes others have stuffed into you. The tighter the noose grows around your neck, the more fiercely you will long for everything you have been denied: relief from your torment, an end to the chase, the chance to stop running after the carrot. You ask yourself, When will I get it? When will I rest? They have taught you that when lies in a distant, almost eternal future. It is hard to reach, they say, but not impossible. The faster you run and the harder you work, the greater your chances of finally getting it. So tire yourself. Struggle. Suffer.

What you are enduring now, they tell you, is unimportant. The result is what matters: the outcome, the final reward. Your current misery is only a passing stage; tomorrow, what you want will be yours. Do not pay attention to your feelings now; they are temporary. When your body grows weary and groans for help, when it asks you to show it a little kindness and compassion, remember that it is exhausted. Does it not deserve to rest, if only for a moment, beneath the branches of the tree of life? But wait: how can it rest when the whips of the days beat it daily with fear, anxiety, and the threat of a dark future if it does not toil and strive? How could your body relax? How could you surrender to the desire for rest and enjoyment?

How? You will lose. You will suffer. You will end up with nothing, and, worst of all, you will never get the carrot. Look what will happen if you let your body loosen its grip and ask for rest. You will be denied the great reward. And that is not all: blows of torment will rain down on you from every direction, and even the small portion you used to receive will be taken away. You sold so much and exchanged it for so little. What an irreparable loss! Nothing can make up for it, and nothing is worse—because by then it will be too late. The fire, you are told, has turned to smoke and ash. No: the fire will flare up, its light reaching farther than you can imagine, and its flames will tear at you and crush you without mercy.

You have barely heard those grand, ringing phrases before you leap up in panic and resume your chase, panting once more from fear and greed. You keep making promises to yourself while tears of pain drip from your eyes into the volcano of silent anger inside you, an anger that dares not erupt. Is this not what they fed you from the time you were weaned? Is this not what they inscribed on the blank page of your mind from your earliest childhood? You are promised the carrot, and threatened with losing it if you fail to do this or that. What if the very thing you are told to avoid is the thing that harms you?

You have no choice, they insist. You are tied across the iron rails of life, and the train will inevitably pass over you. You wait for the carrot to rescue you from your suffering, but it will never arrive. You want it to heal your wounds and cure your pain. I am sorry to say this, dear, respected reader—you who are not a donkey—but if you removed the enormous halo that has been placed over your eyes since time immemorial, you would see the truth standing naked before you, brazen and shameless, concerned with nothing but subduing you and getting its way. If you removed the veil that has obscured your sight for so long, you would realize that you have been used as an instrument of control, a tool for carrying out other people's desires, ambitions, and interests.

You have always been, and remain, a bridge for others to cross on their way to their own ends. Through agreements and exchanges of interest, the beneficiaries—mosquitoes feeding on your blood—set their traps and deceive you with hope and honeyed words so that you will do the work they want. They have drawn their own road map over your exhausted body. It leads only where they wish to go. If you falter in carrying out your assigned tasks, woe to you: you will get neither the dates of the Levant nor the grapes of Yemen.

Dear, unfortunate reader—you who are not a donkey—if you could wipe away the haze of that halo which has blinded you throughout your life, if you could think honestly and use your mind just once, you would see everything clearly, without that veil, and understand it in full. What would you do when you discovered the truth? I wish I could know, or witness your reaction before it is too late. By then, you will no longer be anything; you will no longer be the being you once were. If only what once was had never been. Dear reader, you who are not a donkey: if only you had been the donkey.

The Lost Paradise

Some disappointments do not burn or hurt so much as they remind you, for the thousandth time—or perhaps the millionth—that you have been foolish. Nature is not cruel; it is simply indifferent to what happens to you or to me. It is chaos made flesh, playing its grandest roles in the universe and in life. Life revolves in a world of regulated disorder—or, if you prefer, organized chaos. Say it without fear. Why are you afraid? Is this not the truth? Why do you keep avoiding it, as though looking at it might infect you with shock? How strange that you are always protecting yourself from being startled, yet you do not hesitate to plunge into a vast sea of illusions: the sea you created for yourself, or the one others created for you, perhaps to help you endure what happens around you and even accept it willingly.

I know it is difficult. I would go so far as to say that if you swallowed the naked truth, steeped in the bitterness of gall, all at once, it might kill you. Truth would ambush you and tear into you with the ferocity of its fangs. You would be shocked, startled, bewildered. You never imagined things were like this, or that they moved in this way. In a word, you are a plaything in the hands of fate, while absurdity runs riot everywhere.

Do not be fooled by what they packed into your head long ago, only to cast you afterwards into the depths of a bottomless pit of mythical metaphysics, persuading you that it was a bridge to the land of bliss. What bliss? They will abandon you on the difficult journey, halfway along the road, at the first hole they find large enough to accommodate you. Someone else will take your place. What does it matter to them? That person will meet the same fate. You may call out for help as much as you like, but no rescuer will come. Do you know why? Because even your hope of uttering a wounded cry for help will fail you. The wound of disappointment has killed the very voice that might have cried out.

The hopes that died at the threshold of your life have silenced it. Nothing will surround you now but extinction on every side. Yes, nothingness will be your only companion on the road to annihilation. And then you will have no chance to ask—or perhaps no way to ask—where they are, and where the destination they promised you has gone. Where is it? Where? There is only nothingness, my dear; nothingness and nothing else.

Perhaps nothingness can hear the thud of their feet as they rampage across the earth, treading on you with steps like whips cracking against its back. But nothingness cannot utter even one word. How could it, when it is nothing? The sound of their laughter gnaws at it like woodworm. Nothingness nearly cries out as it hears them celebrating above ground, apparently delighted to have rid themselves of you, you fool, so they can continue along the path they began. They adore this absurdity, this chaotic rampage that respects no one and takes no account of anyone's wishes or aims, however noble those hopes may be or however deserving they may have been of a chance to come true.

They love deception; they are intoxicated by it. What a wonderful business it is, if illusions produce a profit—an enormous profit. There is no finer trade than selling a mirage. How magnificent it is to steal your years and your life while you walk along the path they drew for you, worshipping it until you are swept into their current and accept it as your only principle, your creed, your solitary law. What a profitable business! Perhaps you are asking now—or perhaps I can hear nothingness asking you, tears of regret and astonishment falling from its eyes like blood and fire: Where is what they promised you? Where is the thing you chased all your life to win at last? Didn't they tell you that life had been made for you?

I can almost hear—or feel—the cold knife in nothingness's voice as it breaks the news with sorrow, as though afraid of shocking you: I am sorry, my dear, but life was never made for you. Not once. It was never prepared specifically to welcome you. It had no intention of laying out a red carpet beneath your feet when you arrived, as if to receive an honoured guest. All that time, you imagined you were special, preferred, more deserving than every other creature. You soared through a sky of illusion, with no firm ground beneath you to support your landing. So do not be surprised when you fall into the deepest hollows of the earth, without mercy or reprieve. This is the fate you cannot escape, however hard you try or whatever you do.

Your mistake was believing in the business of illusion and surrendering both mind and heart to it, as a mother might hand her two children—and all that she holds dear—into the hands of a terrifying unknown, thinking she is sending them to a paradise of lasting peace. What a trick! What a strange, contradictory, astonishing irony! Who could believe such despicable merchants and expect a different fate?

Understand this, my dear reader: life is a sealed box, closed around everything it contains. You may probe its depths; you may reach inside, rummage through its innards, and pull out whatever you think you want or need—or whatever you merely imagine will serve you. But you will obtain nothing beyond your own guesses and illusions, and whatever the box happens to yield. You will never emerge with anything final. What you thought you extracted from its depths is only a drop in an ocean of mirage, mystery, and nothingness. You will keep swimming and sinking in that ocean without ever reaching a clearly defined shore. You will never know the beginning, no matter how hard you try; only a fool would claim to have discovered it.

Know this instead: one ending always waits for you—nothingness, extinction, the absence of all things. Once you become nothing, you will revolve in the same orbit and complete the same circle, only now as nothingness itself. The universe's box was never made specifically for you, as you once believed. You are one number in a chain of numbers, one member of a herd, one drop in a sea of the unknown, a feather in the wind—or in violent storms—tossed wherever the hands of fate choose to send you. It is always absurdity that chooses, and nothing else. They deceived you, and you believed them.

Everything inside the box is enclosed within everything else. Each thing follows another; each piece seems to have come from the piece before it. Each forms its existence from the existence of something that preceded it, in an endless succession. It is a circle that spins around itself. Each part completes the others and is completed by them, drawn onward by the magnetism of survival, continuity, and being. Each builds its existence from another's existence—or from another's survival and another's extinction, travelling in the same direction and along the same level. One thing must remain so that another may perish; one must survive so the wheel may turn and the procession continue.

But that procession is indifferent to you. It does not care what happens to you or what you endure. It tramples everything beneath its coarse feet, moving with arrogance, cruelty, and power, unconcerned by the pain, torment, or suffering of anything in its path. Would you like to know what the box contains? Absurdity within absurdity; pain within pain; indifference within indifference; then extinction, nothingness, and absence within absence.

Now that you have looked inside the box and learned what it contains, is it not time to stop arriving with clever philosophical patches and desperate explanations, trying to dress your wounds and soothe your aches? You may say confidently, My friend, I can build my own paradise and bliss with my own hands in this life, before I die. You may imagine that you can create your own heaven here on earth and enjoy it as if you were living inside one of the tales of One Thousand and One Nights, waking and sleeping in pleasure.

But you forget—or choose to forget—that this sealed cosmic box, which always hides its secrets, has a thousand hands reaching out to tear at you with their claws. Time and reckless, drunken fate stagger around, intoxicated by their own frenzy, careening in every direction without calculation or regard. Like a violent storm, they may uproot you, or tear away some part of you, roaring without concern for what they have done. They will not even mourn your suffering. Their fierce winds arrive without warning, wielding a sharp knife in every direction, like a madman who has no idea what he is doing. You remain at their mercy, pushed wherever they choose, with no right to choose or determine your own fate. You have little freedom; your options are few.

Now answer me: amid all this chaos, are you truly enjoying the paradise you built for yourself on this earth, on this planet? I doubt it. It seems almost impossible. Yet let me offer you a small dose of hope, something that might soothe a body exhausted by absurdity and indifference. Perhaps, if you truly wish it, if you are determined and persistent, you can leave behind a good mark in this reckless universe and this heedless life. You might leave a memory that endures after your departure and extinction, a reverberating echo in the ears, minds, and hearts of those who hear your name. You might even become a guiding light, an example for those who seek your thought, your principles, and your way of life.

Still, the question remains, suspended without an answer—or perhaps its answer is buried beneath the ruins of nothingness. When that time comes, will you feel this bliss? Will you enjoy the pleasure of your undying memory and the praise that survives here and elsewhere? Will this paradise you wanted to create for yourself before you died surround you, after extinction, with a halo of happiness and an eternal glow of contentment? Will you cry out in joy at the pleasure of your own bliss? Do you believe that, at that exact moment, you will feel anything at all?

We pass through life under compulsion; we do not truly live it. And that is the painful truth.

The tear that falls from you while you remain utterly silent with anguish—believe me, dear reader, dear reader who may be a woman as well—we do not forget the truth we have reached, or a portion of it. We never truly forget it. We merely close our eyes for a while so that we can go on living. The most important thing I must tell you is this: complete truth is a mirage, a fantasy, and you will never reach it. Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar or a fool. You may reach part of it, and that portion may offer some comfort to your reason and satisfy your logic and knowledge. Perhaps it is a temporary solution; perhaps what you have found is a fraction of certainty. But never—never—will you attain complete, perfect certainty.

The beauty and value of truth lie in your endless pursuit of it, in the fact that you keep running after it without ever stopping. If the apple were to fall from the tree and land in your hand once and for all, your longing would die; your yearning would be extinguished. So keep hanging there, apple of truth, above the tree of life forever, while our hands continue to dream of reaching you. Remain the goal, the motive, the driving force—even if you are nothing but a mirage, a wave in eternity. You will remain a dream, rising and falling in the sea of mystery, forever crashing against rocks that lie peacefully on the shore of absence.

 

The Device Is Broken

The bells keep ringing, their echoes scattering into nothing. It is the sound of the alarm: one repeated clang after another, beating inside my ears. The echo keeps returning with storm winds and whole seas of tempestuous noise surging beneath my eardrums. Those wretched rhythms pound away like a hollow drum announcing bad news, with the arrogance of a messenger who does not care who must hear it. They remind me of the appointment—the time when I am supposed to call that miserable repairman. Confusion hammers at my head. Should I rush to silence this irritating noise, or obey the instructions and make every effort to secure the services of this repairman?

Both choices are clouded. I have made an appointment with a man who brings me confusion and torment. Should I ask for his help? Should I call him? Or should I simply put up with my broken device and leave it as it is? What harm would come of leaving it broken? Perhaps that would be better for it. Perhaps work and movement are its source of pain and bewilderment. Is it not more comfortable this way, doing nothing at all? But then, it would make no effort. Perhaps it needs a holiday. How long would that holiday last? Would it be a short break before the work resumed, or would it be an eternal rest? Or perhaps I would be better off calling this dull, insensitive repairman after all.

Questions creep through my mind and wander without end, like a mirage with no horizon. There are questions but no answers. What a tedious, numb man he is—cold as a statue, hollow as a deaf idol. My device barely works before it breaks down again. It malfunctions as soon as it has been repaired. He is a failure, a complete failure. Even when the device is in his hands, it often comes back more damaged than before. And yet people praise him. They speak at length about his skill and talent. I have heard stories about him from relatives and acquaintances, even from my grandmother, who tells me his craft has been passed down through generations, from father to grandfather. His forebears, they say, were masters of the trade; he has inherited their knowledge and must learn through hardship.

I laughed—though the laughter stayed in my mouth. What mastery are they talking about? How can they fill their mouths day and night with praise for his artistry, his ability, and the importance of having him in every home to repair whatever time has ruined? I listened to them for a long time. Their words gnawed at my ears like woodworm and slipped inside, but I could not believe them. Doubt rose like a wave in a sea of uncertainty. Their praise turned my world upside down. My doubts carried me far into oceans of mystery and anger, deep into myself, until a wave cast me onto the shore of blame. I even began to blame myself for not believing what they said.

Or perhaps that is how it seemed to my ears—perhaps I wanted to hear it that way. I still remember the day you first came to my home, dear repairman. You entered quietly and approached me, and I offered you my device in the hope that you could fix it. As I held it out to you, my hand trembled as though I were carrying a traveller's burdens after a journey across the longest distances.

It was the first time I had felt a distance so short and yet so impossibly long. What stood between us when you came close made my body shake in my hand like a small child weeping, terrified of being offered up as a sacrifice to the gods. It cried and begged me not to do it. I had no idea that this short, long distance could be so meaningful. It seemed to stretch between earth and space, between the seed and the season when rain falls from the sky. For the first time, I felt that half a metre—or even less—could be right before my eyes and yet farther away than the farthest distance imaginable.

Something sank deep inside me as I reached out to hand you the device. You, meanwhile, extended your hands impatiently, hungry for the object and silently yearning for the words that would come with it. You took it, and happiness knocked at my heart's door. My broken device would work again, and I would be happy.

How terrible waiting can be; how heavy it is to be the one who waits. What burden is greater than waiting for a light at the end of a dark tunnel? What weighs more heavily on those waiting for news that might lift the darkness and injustice from their lives? And what could be uglier than waiting for an imaginary love? My feelings tightened inside me, holding my breath, begging me to let it out. Perhaps I was the one who had built the waiting room and locked myself inside it. The hours dragged, each minute and second moving with deliberate slowness.

I waited for you, thinking of you. At first, excitement raced toward my heart and knocked eagerly at its door. Gradually, the knocking faded until it was barely audible. Your features blurred like an old photograph eaten away by time, while boredom celebrated its victory—the victory of the passing hours and the yawns they brought. I loved with eagerness and desire, until everything seemed to sink into sleep, an endless sleep from which nothing would awaken. Through all of it, I watched you toy with me.

These are my feelings—my feelings, not a game for you to play with. You have destroyed them many times before, and now it is time to leave. My device belongs to me alone. My feelings belong to me, too. Your stupidity and stubbornness may ruin them, so forgive me, repairman. I am sorry, sir, but I have made my decision. I will not hand you my device again so you can tamper with it. This time, you will not come. I will not let you inside again. I can no longer keep confusing my misery and my broken device with my freedom and my will. I have chosen my own path, and I will walk it away from you.

My device cannot bear any more damage at your hands. You tell me to wait until you arrive, but how can you ask me to wait for you when I no longer know whether you will ever come? Since I left you behind, your next move has ceased to matter to me. I learned to do without you through disappointment alone. I have become so afraid that I anticipate every step you might take toward me. You taught me that. You made me, and I am the product of what you did to me. Even disappointment became my teacher, teaching me how to live without you. Thank you, my thorns, for the lesson. You have been a brilliant instructor.

You forgot that I could learn to keep things from you. I have simply stopped telling you. I am too busy even to remind you. How hard it is to be someone who knows the truth alone! They did not believe me. All of them stood against me in the battle. They held a trial in which I was both the accused and the judge. Do not imagine that I reached this decision easily. It came after a thousand battles inside my mind and a thousand breakages in my device, after your hands had damaged it so badly that even my feelings grew tired and exhausted.

Blood was spilled in a battle against forgetting, while those around me forgot what you had broken and destroyed. I said so, too. Instead of blaming you, they blamed me. I was always at fault: I had misused the device; I had rushed things; it was always me, me, me. You were never blamed. You were the skilful repairman, your reputation passed from one generation to the next. How could you make mistakes? In their eyes, you were always right, while I had to bear every consequence and every loss.

Nothing was ever your responsibility. Yet you had done me the favour of coming again and again to fix what your own hands had damaged, and with each visit your luck, your stature, and your reputation grew. In their eyes, you were a patient fighter. I swallowed one cup of patience after another, until its bitterness burned through the walls of my insides and set them ablaze. The fires consumed everything, leaving wreckage behind. God knows I have endured enough fires while trying to put out the embers of every passing minute.

I had to step outside the frame in which I had imprisoned myself. Then I was astonished to see the world beyond it—and even more astonished to realize how much of my life I had wasted sitting before you, waiting for the wonders your unique genius would supposedly perform on my device. How many days, months, and years did I squander waiting? All for nothing. I regret the time that fell into the pit of my patience with you. Life, after all, offers the possibility of choosing. As for the waiting room, or the path toward the light, I have chosen the light, far away from your suffocating darkness—the darkness that harms my device instead of repairing it.

My feelings are not a toy in your hands. They have been hurt too many times. My device belongs to me alone, and my feelings belong to me. Your stupidity and stubbornness may spoil them. So, forgive me, repairman. I am sorry, sir; I have made my decision. You will not be allowed to tamper with my device again, and you will not be allowed inside. I have chosen between my misery and my broken device on one side, and my freedom and will on the other. I will walk away from you. The device cannot survive any more damage at your hands. You tell me to wait until you come, but why should I? I no longer know whether you have even taken a step in my direction. It no longer matters to me.

You taught me to predict your next move because I had become so afraid of it. You made me, and I am the result of your handiwork. Now I close the door in your face, repairman. You will not enter again. I have learned my lesson, and I will repair my own device with my own free will. I shut the door behind me, my breath still burning after our conversation. I stand there, on the other side of the closed door, looking around, breathing in short, hurried bursts. The minutes and hours I spent near you had moved like a slow tortoise, bitter as aloe and gall.

Now I understand that solitude can be a homeland for an exhausted, tormented soul. Some people think loneliness means staying away from others. But loneliness is being alone while surrounded by people—or being trapped beside the wrong person.

Gaps

I am no longer who I was. Pain has changed me; more than that, it has numbed me. I trust less, think more, and withdraw for longer periods whenever I can.

Any number divided by infinity—or any number over infinity—equals zero. I wish I had another answer to offer you, but this is the language of mathematics: logical, precise, and not open to alteration or substitution. Dear reader, will you accept my friendship? I want to be your friend. I want to open a door to intellectual conversation and the exchange of ideas. I wager that you will agree. Now let me ask you a question. I am sure curiosity is already pushing you forward, waiting for it.

Imagine that someone placed before you a dark, worn-out garment, torn and riddled with holes, so threadbare that its fabric had almost dissolved. The empty spaces have been covered with dark patches, each an attempt to repair the damage. Would you agree to wear it, or even keep it? Of course not. I already know your answer. But what if that garment were the life you live, day after day and night after night? What if its holes were the emptiness in your thoughts, the exhausting nights and days you spend panting after the missing truth—or even half the truth? Perhaps you would be willing to accept the tiniest fragment, if only to give some rest to your anguished, breathless mind, which has kept knocking at truth's door until exhaustion nearly killed it.

At last, that mind finds no path except confession and disclosure. It has grown weary of needing, of pleading, of the humiliation of asking. So it decides to abandon the mysterious truth because the truth seems impossible to reach.

Sadly, we human beings have no mechanism by which we can discover the whole truth. No matter how hard we try, we cannot fully grasp its essence or plumb its depths. Science and logic, however, can establish certain facts through evidence and proof. Now you know that complete truth does not lie within our reach; what we have are signs and indications of it. You are left with one option: cover the gap, fill the hole, patch the tear with a covering that hides the flaws and conceals the emptiness beneath.

This is no ordinary garment. It is your life, of which you are a part, revolving in its orbit and turning around its axis like the hands of a clock. So, then, commit suicide. Yes, dear reader, kill yourself! What? What are you saying? Do not be afraid. I can hear the cries of astonishment and see mouths hanging open. Do not be alarmed by my words. I am speaking of philosophical suicide.

Albert Camus described it as the act the human mind must perform: it must, in a sense, kill itself and stop thinking, just as the hands of a clock stop turning. You must accept life as it is—empty of any ultimate meaning—and be content with your own intellectual emptiness and philosophical void. Carry the burden of your disappointments and failed attempts to understand, then depart quietly, reconciled to the comfort and ease of an idle mind.

I know you will not be entirely honest with yourself. It is hard to admit the absurdity, the emptiness, and the meaninglessness that throb through your life whenever your mind asks what is happening and tries to explain or analyse it. The furthest the mind can go is curiosity, questioning, astonishment, analysis, and interpretation. Then, finding no way forward, it must stop asking and settle for easy, simple answers—answers that are rarely convincing. Human beings grow accustomed to asking questions, but there comes a time when they stop. That is what I mean.

The mind dies by its own hand, poisoned by passivity, by the desire to take the easy way, and by contentment with inherited beliefs, spiritual doctrines, and ideas. These may soothe your racing mind for a while and extinguish the flames inside it, keeping them from catching fire again. Your body continues to function, its biological systems intact, yet your mind has died and ceased to think. It has done so to spare you—and itself—pain. Why else would inherited customs, traditions, and beliefs exist? They are there to give your mind comfort, to indulge its laziness until it rusts, perhaps to the point of death.

Applause! What a soothing painkiller for the mind and its aches. The appetite for clarity, the longing for solitude, and the insistence on familiarity are what gradually push the mind toward its own demise, lulled by a fever of comfort and idleness. They also fuel the human drama: people go on endlessly patching that wretched garment, whose empty holes keep crying out for their emptiness and demanding to be filled. Those holes remind you of your disappointment and the betrayal of your ideas, which return again and again to the starting point, dragging the tails of defeat and tasting the bitter consequences of regret.

One of the most profound kinds of philosophical, intellectual suicide, dear sir or madam, is to accept the metaphysics of your beliefs and the myths and ignorance of your spirituality without thought, revision, scrutiny, or examination. You sit back, happy and secure in the comfort of your mind, convincing yourself that a higher power directs and arranges everything, punishes the wicked and rewards the good. Bravo! What an easy and comfortable solution. Why should the mind think, then? Why exhaust yourself analysing everything? Settle down into eternal rest, luxuriating in a velvet laziness, and let your companion—the mind—be spared its pain and suffering, even if that rest comes at the cost of the mind itself, eaten away by rust and gnawed like bone by woodworm.

The important thing is to remain inside your own circle of comfort. There are plenty of people with interests of their own who benefit from this principle and from keeping your mind at ease. Is that not so, dear reader? And if one day you ask yourself where you came from, what your fate will be, or what the true essence of existence is, do not trouble yourself with such questions. Do not tire your mind with these thoughts. Leave them to that higher power, about which you know nothing except that it is supposedly real. Why? How? What evidence is there? None—only that it must be so, and must be so because you believe it. Is that the certainty you have reached through faith?

How absurd, how astonishing this certainty is! How can contradictions coexist? How different the two things are! Yet you will be shocked again and again when you discover that material facts can reach beyond the world you know, desperately trying to wake your mind from its slumber and bring it back after its death. You question yourself and your absent mind, hoping it will awaken from its long, supposedly eternal sleep. But no one answers. Life offers no response to your questions except an ominous, unsettling silence.

Believe me, dear reader, you will find yourself running breathlessly, trying to cover the holes and fill the empty spaces in the fabric of your life, hoping they will soothe your mind or let your heart rest against the fixed beliefs planted in you since childhood. But let me ask you this: what if you made this method your rule, your dictionary for interpreting life and easing your suffering? Would you fill every kind of void in this way? Would you fill the emotional emptiness of your life and patch the fabric eaten away by moths? Would you use this comfortable shortcut to seal the gaps in your social relationships—with neighbours, parents, brothers, sisters, and family—so that you would not have to tire your mind?

Damn you, worn-out garment! Patching has almost melted you away. With so many empty spaces, you have become ugly, unruly, and nothing but a patchwork. Do you always go to the supermarket of life to buy questions and answers already wrapped and canned? That supermarket never moves from its familiar address: it stands on the Street of Inheritance, Customs, Beliefs, and Spirituality. Its goods are always ready for instant use. They need no inspection or close examination; they come at a cheap, comfortable price.

Does such a life satisfy you and your lazy mind? Have you convinced yourself that the dark, threadbare garment of your life now fits you perfectly, and that someone designed it especially for your comfort—or have you merely persuaded yourself of this from the beginning? You ignored its holes and kept patching them until the end. But here is the question that insists on being asked: can your conscience be at peace? Let us assume that your mind has settled down and accepted the patches, satisfied that they fill the hunger of its emptiness. Will your conscience rest, too? I will leave you to answer, dear reader. Know only that the faint outline of truth, the shadows of your former mind, and the mysterious essence of your life will keep pursuing you in your dreams, disturbing your sleep. None of them will rest until you offer a satisfying answer and a full explanation.

 

What If...?

A Literary Essay

What if the price of happiness were to become stupid and ignorant? What if the price of your happiness were to become vile and unjust? What if the cost were to be mindless and without feeling, so that you could be happy and keep misery at a great distance? What if you had to build your house on the ruins of other people's homes, or plant crops in land that did not belong to you? What if the days and months demanded, and the years held you accountable for, forgetting—or pretending to forget—everything that disturbs your life and keeps you awake, just so that you could be happy?

What if peace of mind required you to put your brain in your shoe? What if refusing to ask questions were the best possible answer? Or what if every answer passed over your head like a cloud and disappeared, never to return, as though it were a mistake, a passing whim, or a sudden lapse, only to give way again to its natural state: nothingness? What if nothingness were everything? What if you became a zero, empty-handed and empty of everything except one thing—nothingness itself?

What if the only road to contentment were to accept your misery—and not merely accept it, but sing its praises, kneel in its sanctuary, and chant hymns to its glory and splendour? Yet another question would still lie in wait, like a hungry lion eager to devour your mind and your feelings, no matter how diligently you ignored it or pretended not to know it. What if the price of knowledge and awareness were resentment toward everything and everyone? What if it cost you the most precious thing of all? Do you know what that is? Peace of mind—the very thing that may be impossible to attain.

What if the price were to watch the light in your days fade all around you? What if the only currency were absence, loneliness, loss, and longing—the loss of everyone and everything around you? What if the radiance disappeared from all you experience and live alongside, as though every minute, hour, and second rang the bell of extinction, disappearance, and vanishing? Pleasure, exhilaration, delight: all of them have left and may never return. One disappearance follows another, one extinguishing follows the next, until a desolate loneliness spreads through the desert of your life and stays with you until death. It is a wound of loss as agonizing as that of a grieving mother who has lost a son or daughter.

You seem surrounded by all of it, awake and asleep alike. Are you not always losing something? Perhaps your inner calm. It is as though the pickaxe of life were demolishing you from within, day after day. But remember: everything has a price, every loss contains a gain, and every gain comes with a corresponding loss. To become the person you are now, you received something in exchange—and paid for it.

Now you know everything, or at least more than half of it. You have moved closer to an important fragment of absolute truth, though certainly not to the whole of it. I see you examining things more deeply, looking beyond the noise and groans of fools and foolishness. You analyse and interpret more clearly, more profoundly, putting each dot over its letter. You are like a free bird now. You have done everything in your power to become so, and you have not cared what else you might lose in the process—assuming we should even call it a loss.

I see you now, informed and certain, your head held high. You have sacrificed much for this knowledge. But pain has taken its toll; you have been left with loneliness, anxiety, and age. Your wounds cry out, yet grief and silence are the best things your mouth can contain. Your greatest concern and most valuable possession is now the hope that the pain will lessen—that pain will be satisfied with feeding on you and finally move on, leaving only your remains. Your greatest wish is for your suffering to become smaller.

Now let me offer you some advice, if you wish to be happy.

First: To be happy, you must be stupid and ignorant.

Second: To be a true believer, certain and sincere without evidence or proof, you must place your mind beneath your shoe. Otherwise, your mind will be the disease, and getting rid of it will be the cure.

Third: To be happy, loved, and accepted, lie. Be a hypocrite. Go along with them. Always follow their lead and march in their ranks. Sink into their embrace and you will live peacefully beneath their roof. In their eyes, you will be the wisest of the wise, and they will elevate you beyond your worth as though you were the noblest of the noble.

Fourth: To be happy, get rid of that cursed mind of yours and belong wholeheartedly to your accursed human species.

Fifth: To be happy, never try to understand anything in its full truth. Murder the logic inside you; kill it deliberately and in cold blood. Poison your mind, too. Make it commit suicide, again and again, every time it tries to wake. If you want to preserve your happiness, peace of mind, and mental comfort, pamper your mind and never tire it. Serve it ready-made answers, neatly wrapped and canned, answers that save it effort. Convince yourself that they are credible. Never forget: that is pleasure and luxury for both you and your pampered mind.

Sixth: You must understand things incorrectly! Yes, why are you surprised? Once you discover the strange charm and attraction of being wrong, you will no longer find it surprising—especially when you convince yourself that your mistaken understanding is the only true understanding, and that it is not mistaken at all. What a remarkable allure! Misguidance and delusion can often soothe the soul and mind, acting as painkillers.

Seventh: Stay away from the mind of the eagle, and always follow the mind of the herd. Yes, the herd. Keep warm in its embrace. The freezing cold and icy chill dripping from the eagle's wings as it makes a bed of freedom beneath the wide sky, rising on the strength of its own reasoning, will never offer you the warmth of the herd. Do not forget: the herd's warmth is sweeter and more comfortable. What harm is there in not understanding, in never putting your mind to work? Is not peace of mind, and going along with the group, far better? For the sake of your comfort and your pampered brain, never forget this. Never tire yourself—not ever. What is wrong with staying with the herd, that sleeping herd of beasts?

And last but not least: abandon those lofty, foolish, ridiculous pains. Always chase happiness, even when it is vulgar and cheap. Those noble pains offer neither comfort to the mind nor lasting contentment.

Now, look at what you have gained. A significant profit, is it not? Leave behind that wretched eagle's mind and follow the powerful, secure warmth of the herd. Look into my eyes and hold my gaze. Then compare the two paths and ask yourself: what is the value of what I gained beside the value of what I lost? One value confronting another, one meaning confronting another. Is truth, knowledge, and logic worth the suffering? Is it worth exploring what lies beneath appearances and plumbing the depths of the unknown? Does the knowledge you have gained equal the value of what you have lost?

Perhaps this is the hardest equation in history: the value of gain against the value of loss. Which deserves the pain and struggle? Which deserves to be abandoned, and which deserves to remain? What did you lose, and what did you truly gain? Which is worth risking everything for? Who, in truth, is the winner and who is the loser? Who has genuinely won, and who has genuinely lost?

I know the matter is relative, which makes it all the more complicated. Which came first? Who has priority? The egg or the chicken? And still the question hangs there, insisting on an answer: if the winner really won, what did they win, and why? If the loser truly lost, what was lost, and why? What the winner gains is precisely the height of the loser's loss. What the loser loses is, in turn, the height of the winner's gain. Each sees it according to their own belief and claim, measuring the horror of loss against the splendour and worth of gain.

Is it loss and gain, or gain and loss? Which one do I care to win, even if I must lose the other? Which loss would hurt more? Which gain would matter more if it came into being? Which would enrich me, and which would leave me poorer? Which absence would kill me, and which presence would bring me to life? Should reason and misery stand side by side, or should ignorance of what lies beneath appearances walk hand in hand with happiness?

Know this, dear reader: the price is always steep when set against the magnitude and value of the prize. The loss can be devastating, and only those who possess a great deal—an extraordinary amount—can afford to pay such a price. The truly rich are rich in what they understand, not merely in what they own. These are the great ones, the truly great, and they alone may be able to bear it.

Now the picture is complete and the symbols of the equation are clear. Remember that you did not choose your beginning, nor did you draw the boundaries of your end. One day, you will be taken by surprise at a turn you never expected. At that bend, everything will end—and you yourself will end. The answer will remain suspended between earth and sky until the judge delivers the verdict and fate carries out its sentence.

Under the Guillotine

A Literary Essay

“Who are you reciting your psalms to, David?” It is a rhetorical question we have heard countless times. But have you ever tried, even once, to find a deeper meaning in this saying, to feel its precise and profound significance? I know what you will tell me: its meaning is obvious to everyone. It means that there is no point offering advice where no one will listen; that the benefit, the purpose, and the life of the message have been lost on those who hear it.

But that is not what I mean. Had I intended that familiar, superficial interpretation, there would have been no need to write this essay at all. Forget it for a moment. Place your mind and feelings in the presence of the situation itself, in the shadow of its gravity and the terror of its tragedy.

Have you ever experienced that feeling of standing before everyone, trying to keep your feet on firm ground, drawing strength from your will, the soundness of your reasoning, and the integrity of your position—while every eye follows you, watches you, and tracks your whispers, your glances, and your smallest movements?

Some may show a little sympathy, murmuring something barely audible, as if to say, “Poor soul.” Others do not care; it has nothing to do with them, and their attitude says, “He got what he deserved. If this is how it ends, he must have deserved it.” But the largest group—the crowds, the masses, the gathering multitudes—shout and cheer, delighted, even gleeful. Call it what it is: gloating. They take pleasure in your plight. They enjoy seeing your head bowed before them, the pride of your dignity reduced to humiliation, the grandeur of your defiance bent beneath their gaze.

Their unspoken message reveals the hatred they have kept hidden: “Your heroics are useless now. What good is it to be a rare hero, a creature who breaks the rules, someone who dares to stray from the rest of the herd in a direction you chose as your companion and guide?” By now, perhaps you have guessed who they are. They are the overwhelming majority, the epidemic spreading through the body of society. They are the ever-followed danger, the force to which people bow in reverence, offering submission, loyalty, and excessive respect. They are the fools and the ignorant, filling society's body until it screams from pain. Yet life keeps calling to those who will not listen. That is what I mean: the terror of the moment, the scene as it appears from within, not from the outside.

What if this danger drew closer to you? You would flee, cry for help, and try to escape with your dreams, your ambitions, and everything whose truth once shone before you like a flash of lightning across the sky of your life. They see those things as mirages, myths, frauds, lies, and slander. They see you as guilty, as a criminal deserving the harshest punishment, and insist that what you have already suffered is not nearly enough. You deserve torture from head to toe.

The truth will not help you explain your position. You know perfectly well that truth does not visit the crowds—not even as a passing stranger, and certainly not for the first time. These scattered groups, divided even among themselves, will not welcome the truth, not once. And now it—or even a part of it—stands at your feet, pleading in your own sanctuary, right there before you. You might beg the heavens for mercy, sweeping your eyes across the vastness in search of compassion, justice, reason, evidence, and proof. You might hope that the bird of truth will snatch you from the teeth of their hatred and the flying sparks of their malice, or that the desperate voice of their own conscience will finally hear you.

But you know they will not listen. They will not understand what you have to say, no matter how you defend, explain, or clarify your position. Injustice has blinded them; tyranny has shut their eyes and their inner sight. The sun of truth has disappeared into the corridors of oblivion. They have become moving machines, circling like the hands of a clock, all travelling in the same direction without a question or a thought, down a dark tunnel in one of time's gloomy passageways.

You stand there watching, your heart pounding and gasping. Your mind empties itself of every idea, word, phrase, fact, and scrap of knowledge, racing to save whatever remains of the truth after it has been torn to pieces beneath their feet. But it is too late. Be careful. Take heed: they want to destroy you, to erase you, to bring you to an end. Run. Escape. They will show you no mercy if you remain among them. If you stay where you are, death will approach you slowly. You will die while still alive. You will expire while your heart continues to beat. What could be more terrible than being dead while living, or living merely because death has not yet arrived?

That death feeds on you. It lives off you day after day as you remain among them. You see it constantly in their eyes and hear it in their words. Their foolish shouts tear at your sense of self and your feelings; each passing moment drains you, melts you down in a crucible outside time and space, and kills you before you can be the one to strike. You tremble between fear and hope: fear of a cruel ending, hope that some merciful understanding might descend. Tears fall as you beg them to understand you, to show compassion. Yet your path carries you toward its end, casting you into the depths of a dark, bottomless well. Its blackness is absolute. There is no use crying for help. The sword has already been drawn, and the verdict is past appeal.

Remember, though, that solitude is the destiny of great souls. To become who you are now, you paid a terrible price: your nerves, your years, your desires, and your whims. For me to become the woman I am today, I had to kill every man inside me and crush every scoundrel beneath my feet. To become the woman I am, I had to rid myself of them. Some say all my failures are because I am too emotional. Another claims my shock was not real. To become who I am, I had to kill the swindlers inside me one by one. I had to recognize that my head was filled with voices that did not belong to me, and I had to cleanse it every day of their falsehoods.

Those voices always had a plan, a dream, a vision, a goal. They shouted, demanding that I find them and make them real. Was I wrong to cast them out, to kill them all, so that they would not kill me through their stupidity and ignorance? Was I wrong to refuse to be classified among them, or to revolve within the orbit of their unjust beliefs? This is my life, my own life. I will not rub my face in the mud of submission and surrender.

And you, dear reader, must do as I did. Take care. There is always a way out, a glimmer of light somewhere. It may not be strong enough to illuminate everything, but it can scatter the darkness that draws closer every moment to drink your blood drop by drop while you stand frozen, astonished and trembling, merely watching. Be careful. It is your life. Do not rub it into the dirt of their stupidity, dullness, and mythical thinking. It is your life. Run with whatever strength remains in your legs and carry yourself away from them.

Take care: fate may offer you one opportunity after another, and the universe may shower you with gifts, provided you do not let time slip away. Time is moving quickly. Recognize your chances and hold on to them; do not let them slip from your hands. You cannot overcome death, but you can overcome being dead while alive. The more skilfully you do so, the brighter the light will become, scattering the darkness around you and, perhaps, saving you.

Take care. Your life is yours. While it belongs to you, you are powerful—provided you remain alert. Always remember Charles Bukowski's words: “Nobody can save you but yourself. You will be put into nearly impossible situations time and time again, and they will try again and again, through every trick and every power they possess, to make you submit. You will surrender and die quietly inside. Nobody can save you but yourself.” It will be very easy to fail. But do not—do not do it. Just look at them. Listen to them. Do you want to become a being without a heart, without a mind, without a face, like them? Do you want to experience death before you die? No one can save you but yourself. You are worth saving. This is a war, and winning it is not easy. But if anything can crush victory, it is you. Think about it. Think about saving yourself.

 

Eagles Fly Away

Have you ever thought, dear reader, about living far above the earth? You may find my words strange or astonishing the first time you hear them. But once you understand what I mean, I am sure you will feel the opposite: you will want to leave the earth's surface behind and fly toward the highest heights.

Do not be surprised. Mountain life has many advantages, as he discovered. He did not care about what surrounded him or who was around him. All he wanted was a dim patch of light where he could be left alone, far from other people. To him, the world close to the ground was a vast factory of foolishness, where fools mingled with fools. He never wanted to be one of them—or, more accurately, one of the herd. He had always felt that he was not, and never would be, one of their number. He had long hated their inherited beliefs and stale ideas. He knew he had to leave the herd mentality behind, and he did. He chose the mind of an eagle. To get away from the herd, he found himself a patch of light in a mountain village perched high above the world. There, surrounded by green nature, he would spend his life rediscovering himself.

In distance and solitude, he often found his true self. His isolation revealed things others could not see: a remarkable strength and insight unavailable to those who were always immersed in society. All he wanted was to be left alone with a book, reading until he could feel himself becoming someone else. He was forever expecting attacks, criticism, rejection, and exclusion from the herd. Whenever he stood among them, he felt as though he were beneath a guillotine, facing death and rejection at every moment, submerged in the crushing weight of their worn-out customs and mistaken beliefs.

Have you ever known that feeling? You stand before everyone, trying to keep your feet on solid ground, drawing strength from your will, the soundness of your reasoning, and the integrity of your position. All the while, eyes follow you, tracking your whispers, glances, and smallest gestures. Some may offer a little sympathy, muttering something vague like, “Poor thing.” Others do not care. It has nothing to do with them; they tell themselves that the person has got what was coming, and that if this is the end, he must deserve it. But the majority—the crowds, the groups, the herd—shout and cheer. They are not merely happy; they are gloating. They take pleasure in your humiliation and delight in seeing your head bowed before them, the pride of your courage bent low.

Their contempt says it all: your heroics no longer serve you. What is the use of being rare, extraordinary, or different from the rest? Yet the eagle's mentality was his fortified castle and protective shield, enough to help him withstand their foolish stubbornness. The eagle is quiet, but its will is strong; it is determined to touch the sky and fly higher. He studied carefully the seven ways of thinking he had learned from eagles.

First, eagles fly alone toward the highest peaks. So did he. He distanced himself from narrow-minded people who had always discouraged him.

Second, an eagle can focus on something no matter how far away it may be, and it pursues its target with determination. He, too, learned to fix his attention on his goal and keep going until he reached it.

Third, an eagle does not know fear and does not surrender easily. Eagles can fall ill, but they do not die without a struggle; they resist until the very last moment. Successful people are not afraid of confronting problems. So he decided to face his own problems by rebelling against the life imposed on him and trying to change it—but only after he had first rediscovered himself.

Fourth, eagles are stubborn and love storms. When clouds gather, they become exhilarated and use the storm winds to resist and rise higher. This was what he wanted, too: to elevate his thinking and rise above whatever obstacles he encountered. He would not weaken or tire of the challenges thrown at him. He climbed and made his home at the summit of the village hanging among the mountains, determined to preserve his spirit of adventure and take pleasure in what he had achieved.

Fifth, eagles do not feed on dead meat; they eat prey they have killed themselves. In other words, he would never rely on past success. He would leave the past behind and open new horizons for the future.

So escape with whatever strength remains in you—enough to set your legs running and carry you far from them. Be careful. Fate may offer opportunity after opportunity, and the universe may shower you with gifts, provided you do not let time run out. Time passes quickly. Be alert; recognize your opportunities and hold on to them. Do not let them slip from your hands. You may not be able to overcome death, but you can overcome being dead while alive. The more skilfully you do so, the brighter the light that disperses the darkness around you will shine, perhaps saving you. Take care: this is your life. While it belongs to you, you are great—if you remain alert. Remember Charles Bukowski's words: “Nobody can save you but yourself.”

Sixth, eagles cannot bear to remain in the nest. They prepare themselves and then fly away into the open sky. You, too, must leave your comfort zone, because growth and development cannot happen if you stay frozen in place. He chose to fly high, searching for himself, for growth, for change, and for life in its true, adventurous, and exhilarating sense.

Seventh—and most important—eagles possess a deep instinct for renewal. When an eagle grows old, its feathers weaken, and it can no longer fly as before. It retreats to a remote place high in the mountains. There, it removes its weakened feathers and strikes its beak and talons against the rocks until they bleed, leaving itself entirely bare. It is a bloody and painful process. The eagle remains hidden until new feathers, a new beak, and new claws grow. Then it emerges and soars high again.

That is what he did when he rose far above the earth's surface to rebuild his strength. He had to rid himself of old habits that added nothing to life—his life or anyone else's—and learn to reconstruct himself and regain his strength whenever he felt weak.

Red Lines

I want nothing more than to silence the pain inside me, as though I were a fish searching for a river that dried up long ago. Do you know what that feels like? Do you know what it means to keep living because you have to? There is no choice, no alternative—except death. And even death will not obediently come simply because you wish for it.

You know, sir—and you too, madam—what it means when someone asks how you are and you answer, “I am living. I breathe the air every day, every hour, every minute, every moment.” Do you know what it means to wish, with every passing moment, that the days, months, and years might swallow the bitterness that devours you? You hide in every corner of the universe, trying to escape something, some grief or burden that weighs on your heart until it makes you ill.

The truth is that I still ask myself the same question, and it keeps pressing upon me. It returns inside me with the stubborn insistence of a beggar pleading for alms to satisfy the most urgent need. Then floods of confusion and questions overwhelm me with thirst and longing, and I ask: which is better—crude happiness, or noble sorrow that rises above pleasure and delight? Is it better to accept every cheap and degrading thing, even if it is the only path to happiness or ecstasy?

I know for certain that such pleasure is false: temporary, fleeting, and always low. It is too expensive a price to pay for something worth so little. No matter what effort you expend or what price you pay, it remains cheap. I know, too, that I have lost the radiance of things. That sparkle has left me without compensation. I remember exactly the last time I met that radiance, that passion. It promised to return. Yes, I remember it saying that it would not be gone for long, that it would come back as it always had whenever it left me.

I waited. The waiting went on and on. At first, I refused to believe what was happening. I lied to myself; I lied to my feelings. Surely my feelings had deceived me this time. Has my life been extinguished? Has darkness changed its nature? I can see, yet I cannot see. I feel, yet I cannot feel. Where are you, radiance? Why did you leave? Perhaps I wronged you one day without knowing it. Answer me. Tell me: did I hurt you? Why did you let me down and walk away? Why did you promise to return and then never come back?

The question remains without an answer. And answers, as always, are carried away by the wind, disappearing like a mirage, blown in every direction and scattered wherever the wind chooses. Yet on the far side of life's shore, I see something else: a noble sorrow, lofty and steadfast even when you are alone. It stands with the courage of a brave fighter, resisting the cheapness and deception of false happiness.

Tears fall from you in the act of giving—a kind of giving that demands great effort and even greater sacrifice. They are pure tears, white as snow and transparent as raindrops. This is noble grief. You are too pure to be stained by sin, too dignified to be troubled by guilt or wrongdoing.

Pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice. Some people turn to suffering and settle into it, believing they will earn everyone's sympathy and attention. Others take pleasure in their pain. They may even celebrate it, willingly and gladly. There is a reason for this, at once simple and difficult: the person wants to purify himself from within. I find myself wondering whether I must suffer all the way to the end.

I have grown accustomed to surrender. Even if happiness were to visit me, or radiance were to knock at my door one day, I would not believe it. Is it because I want to cleanse myself of something? Does pain purify us from within? Am I buying the happiness hidden beyond distant horizons with my suffering? It seems to me that pain cleanses everything.

I have endured the solitude of anxiety and old age, with wounds filled with blood. Grief and lonely silence have become the best things for my mouth to hold. My greatest worry, and my greatest hope, is that the dose of pain will be reduced. Now that your grand hopes have dwindled, perhaps your pain will diminish, too.

So tell me: which is better—to be happy through vulgarity, without reason or thought, like an ignorant fool, or to bear magnificent pain and noble sorrow, in a way that is logical, scientific, and disciplined? Look at me. Keep your eyes fixed on mine. Ask yourself: which one did I lose, and which did I win? Perhaps this is the hardest equation in history: the value of gain weighed against the value of loss. Which deserves the struggle? Which should be left behind, and which should remain? What did you lose, and what did you really win? Which is worth the risk?

Who is the winner, and who is the loser, truly? I know that the answer is relative, which makes the question even more complicated. Which came first? Who has the advantage? Who arrived before the other—the egg or the chicken? Still the same question hangs in the air, demanding an answer. If someone has won, what did they win, and why? If someone has lost, what did they lose, and why? What the winner gains is the ultimate loss of the loser. What the loser loses is the winner's greatest prize. Each person sees it according to their own belief, and each makes their own claim. The ugliness of loss stands against the value and beauty of gain.

Is it loss and gain, or gain and loss? Which matters to me enough that I would accept the loss of the other? Which would hurt more to lose, and which is most important to find and bring to life? If you could remove the haze of the halo that has blocked your sight throughout your life, and if you could use your mind honestly and logically, even once, you would see everything with complete clarity.

When you discover the truth, what will you do? I wish I could know, or see your reaction before it is too late. By then, you will be nothing; you will no longer be who you once were. What if the very act of moving away from what hurts you is itself what hurts you? You have no choice. It pains me to say so. But if you continue to inherit the false beliefs packed into your mind from birth, if you surrender to everything that has been used to frighten you, intimidate you, command your worship, tempt you, threaten you with punishment, or promise you rewards, without engaging your own mind, you will become a victim of inherited ignorance and stupidity.

Your body will become a map they have drawn on your skin, to exploit you in the worst possible way for their own goals and interests. They will keep playing the game of the carrot and the stick with you. Unless you put your mind to work and save yourself, you will be like someone tied across the iron rails of life, waiting for the train that will inevitably pass over you. You will wait for the carrot to save you from your condition, but it will never arrive. You want the carrot to heal your wounds and relieve your pain, while fearing the punishment and torment that await you if you disobey.

So which is better: reason standing shoulder to shoulder with misery, or ignorance of what lies beneath appearances walking hand in hand with happiness? Remember, dear reader, the price is always steep when measured against the grandeur and value of the prize. Only those who possess a great deal—those who are truly rich—can pay it. And real wealth lies in what one understands, not simply in what one owns.

Now the picture is complete and the symbols of the equation are clear. Remember that you did not choose your beginning, nor draw the boundaries of your end. You will be surprised by an unexpected turning point. At that bend, everything will end, and you yourself will come to an end.

 

The Foundling

A Literary Essay

What is the boundary between the deepest place inside you and the greatest defeat waiting outside you? It is a bewildering, mysterious, unsettling question—especially now that you have been left alone.

You wake one day and are told that you are on your own. You look around, but you cannot find him. You search everywhere. There is no trace of him, and it seems you will never find him. You cry out in astonishment: Where is he? Where has he gone? Your tongue nearly fails you. He was here beside me—right here. I spoke to him. I felt his presence. I was certain he could see me even though I could not see him. He sensed my pain; when I fell ill, he would extend a helping hand. When I was sad or wept, he would draw near and comfort me. He was my guardian, the one who took care of my affairs. Where has he gone? Why? Is he punishing me by disappearing and leaving me alone? Did I offend him? Have I done something wrong? Did I commit some terrible sin in the barren wilderness of life and deserve his anger, his wrath, and his abandonment?

Dear reader, this is the maze in which we are all trapped—and perhaps you are one of those caught inside it. You fall into its depths, beneath the roof of the sky or deep under the earth, because you can find no support on which to lean. The hopes you had built upon him have vanished. Your support is no longer there. Your dreams have evaporated and become the scattered fragments of dead hopes and broken wishes. You are now an orphan. Your father is gone, disappeared from existence forever.

Do you feel the orphanhood, the loneliness that splits you from within and feeds on the very fibres of your nerves, your anxiety, and your terror? He did not leave even a message explaining why he had gone, why he might be angry with you, or what had prompted his departure. You suddenly discovered his absence. I know what you feel: betrayal. But before you are astonished by this revelation, let me add another betrayal, an even sharper nail in the coffin of your soul. Your father, as you imagined him, was never there at all.

Things were never as you thought they were. He was not responsible for you. He had never known anything about you, had never sensed your existence—not for a single moment. You have been alone since the beginning, all by yourself, without realizing it. He was never your father, though you believed he was. I can see the tears falling as you weep, burning with grief at the loss of someone whose presence you long for. You are shattered by the shock, deceived and betrayed. I hear the pounding of your cries in my ears as you call for the missing presence, imploring the object of your worship to hear you, to feel the rustle of your desperate breath as it crawls like a spotted snake through the scattered fragments of your being.

I see you asking, hungry and deprived, in a defeated voice: “He once held me in his arms. Do you remember those warm embraces? They were the breeze I breathed in the scorching heat of a barren life. His touch was a tender warmth that wrapped around me, protecting me through the freezing, stormy nights of winter. Have you forgotten his embrace?” Now you are drowning in the sea of its burning absence. Your pleas slip into my ears like a thief, while confusion fills you from head to toe. “Should he leave me alone like this, with no one to guide me, no one to manage my affairs? Who will protect me? Who? Who?”

You continue to ask, caught in a storming maze at the dividing line between victory and defeat, submission and rebellion, love and hatred, loss and discovery, anger and calm. I watch the truth I have slapped across your soul make you recoil. You argue with me, suspended between belief and disbelief, fighting inside an arena where the battle grows ever fiercer. Your wounded voice falters as you repeat: “How? When? Where? He exists. He has not left me and never will. He is surely there.”

Then, suddenly, the storm of your own voice carries away your hopes and dreams before your eyes, like a feather seized by the wind. “No,” you say at last. “It seems he does not exist. Perhaps he never existed. I alone was deceived; I was the deluded one, devastated by my own misfortune.” You cried, but he did not answer. You called, but he did not respond. You searched everywhere, but no one replied.

It is not easy, despite what others may think, to learn and to become certain, through all the evidence and proofs, that you have been left with no one to turn to. It is not easy to understand that, from this moment on, you must face your problems alone. You must confront your fate without anyone to depend upon, without anyone to yield to your tears or heed your prayers. You must stop waiting for him to take revenge on your behalf. The hidden truth has come to light; what was concealed has been revealed. The matter is settled.

You will go to bed at night weeping, but no one will hear your pleas or your cries. From now on, you will begin each day alone and live through every detail of it by yourself. You must depend on yourself now. You must grow up. At first, facing this reality may be difficult, but in time you will grow accustomed to it. You may even learn to love it.

You will come to hate your own weakness, your submission, and your obedience to an imaginary, chaotic, irrational, sadistic, narcissistic being. He deceives you with sweet words, making you believe that you are safe beneath his protection, when in truth you have been—and perhaps still are—deceived, willingly surrendering yourself in the hope of pleasing him. So pay no attention to what people say about you now.

You can see the resentful looks of those who hate you, the ones who have always waited for a chance to gloat over your humiliation. Now they believe that their moment has come. Before you collapse while struggling to face life on your own, let me suggest a question you could put to them—one that might shock them or leave them perplexed. I know there are more apologists than anyone could bear, more abundant than the salt dissolved in the oceans. Nevertheless, your question will remain a thorn in their hearts and a bone in their throats.

When they sneer at you with foolish confidence, arrogance, and blind pride, they will tell you that you abandoned your guardian, your benefactor, your protector. They will claim he does not exist merely because you searched for him and failed to find him, because you called and received no response. They will act as though you wanted him to be absent all along, perhaps without even realizing it yourself.

Tell them, then, that you truly did search for him—with seriousness, sincerity, and dedication. Tell them, as tears of pain run from your eyes, that you wished with all your heart to be wrong in your certainty or suspicion. You wanted to find him standing before you, smiling with pride and dignity, yet also with tenderness and compassion. You were thirsty to quench your longing for his warmth. You dreamed of falling weeping at his feet, begging for pardon and forgiveness. But, alas, he disappointed you. He never came, and he never will.

You even searched among the starving, displaced, suffering children, listening secretly to their groans and cries, hoping that perhaps their pain might soften his heart. Surely he was merciful, was he not? Surely he would hear them. But you did not find him there. At first, you were stunned. You had trusted in his greatness, justice, and mercy for so long. Yet when you found those sick and hungry children, you told yourself that you would not give up. You continued searching, finding explanations and excuses to patch over the storm of denial, to deny what his absence might mean.

You went to the poor, those dying of hunger, those writhing in pain. Perhaps you would find him among them. But once more, your hopes failed. Astonishment cut you to the bone and filled you with bitterness, so you rushed out before your thoughts were settled and before making the decision that might change the course of your life. You stopped at the doors of prisoners—people who had harmed no one, yet paid for a crime committed by someone else simply because they were weak, poor, helpless, or unable to buy the proof of their innocence.

Why had no one defended them? Why was judgment in their favour postponed indefinitely? Was there a just judge who settled cases with honesty and conscience, only to defer these cases until a date no one could reach? Where were justice and mercy in that? You screamed for an answer, but there was no answer and no one to answer. You did not find him there either.

That was when you became certain he was not there and had never been there at all. How astonishing! Is it possible to deceive a human being so completely? Can a person misunderstand reality to such an extent? Can someone stand like a statue while an entire lifetime is stolen in plain sight, remaining unmoved and unaware, watching the years slip away with passive resignation?

Now ask your question. After all this, what answer could your mockers possibly give? Do they have an answer, or do they hate the truth and remain devoted to lies? I can hear your inner voice now, telling yourself that he never opened the door when you knocked because he was never there for you—or for anyone. He did not leave your life; he had never occupied it. He was not a book at all, but an imaginary page in the book of life, now turned forever.

I add my voice to yours. Remember: some stories have ended because your real story has not yet begun. Some pain has lasted a long time, but it will pass. Some opportunities have been lost, yet those who strive may still find a way. Your coming happiness may have to be purified by pain and carried through a dark tunnel lined with the bitterness of aloe and gall. Do not be consumed by this betrayal; it will eventually fade into the passage of time and the forgetting that follows.

As Mark Twain is said to have remarked, “The more I learn about people, the more I love my dog.” And, as Osho observed, the majority consists of fools—utter fools. When many people follow a particular thing, that alone is sufficient reason to suspect danger. Be wary of the majority, of the crowd. Truth comes to individuals, not to multitudes.

The Last Resort

A Literary Essay

I have so much to say. Often the flames of my words roar inside my chest, only to turn suddenly into scorched ash. Before long, though, they catch fire again of their own accord. Do you know why? Whenever I remember that day—or the beginning of those events—and all the nights I have spent asking myself how it happened, why it happened, and when, I find no answer except what the details of that particular day and night bring back to me.

That day, I had been feeling a little tired after a bout of illness. But the following morning I decided to carry out an idea I had been considering. I resolved to spend the day at the public library. I woke up feeling unusually energetic, though I had only just begun to recover from the illness that had afflicted me over the previous two days. I love writing; I adore stories, novels, and essays. I decided to write a book in which I could express my opinions about life and people, their mistaken beliefs, and the assumptions they inherited from society. I also wanted to explore questions that had long troubled me, especially lately: strange beliefs and religions in general, questions that pressed on me relentlessly and stirred my curiosity, astonishment, and confusion.

I wanted to express all of this in a distinctive collection of essays that would reflect who I was. So I went to the public library, a place full of the books to which any researcher, reader, or lover of knowledge and writing might turn. I entered and stood before a huge shelf, crammed to overflowing with books packed tightly side by side.

The shelf seemed to me like a gigantic ogre, or a mysterious ghost stubbornly hiding among its surroundings so that no one could discover its riddle or expose its secret. It was like a magical talisman, waiting for the hand that would reach for it and set its spell in motion. I took down one book and began leafing through it, then a second, then a third. All the books dealt with the myths woven into our lives and their influence on every aspect of existence, whether social or religious.

In those books I found my last resort, the means by which the veil might finally be lifted from much of the mystery that had begun to wrap my mind in a dark cloak, blocking the light of reason and thought. I plunged into a sea of words. The waves of the printed lines drew me in one after another, sometimes casting me suddenly onto a hard rock on the shore between the covers, sometimes pulling me back into the depths of that vast sea. I felt myself drowning until I could scarcely breathe.

The words struck me like a blow; my sighs burned my chest. I remembered the time when I felt like a fish searching for a river that had dried up long ago. At that point, I wanted nothing except to silence the ache inside me. I did not know what made me weep so fiercely, with breath burning hot in my chest. I was drowning in my own tears, yet those tears seemed to pat my shoulder with a tender warmth, like a soft wave running through my limbs and melting the winter ice inside me—even though the weather was hot. The cold was coming from within, from the place that trembled inside me.

I remembered the first day I met him. One day became the next, then the next, until the days passed before my eyes like a black cloud crossing a stormy sky. I kept turning over memories, persuading myself they had been real, or at least worth keeping, because I needed to keep loving him. That love had exhausted me and almost drained me of all strength.

He was exactly like the god whose nature I was reading about in the book in my hands. I do not know why the book reminded me of him—the man who had played the hero in my life for so long. Yet he was a hero without a role, without a present, and without even a past: a hero made of paper. Yes, that is what I discovered, or what gradually revealed itself to me, as I read the book exposing the truth—or the illusion—of this god's existence.

This was a counterfeit god, with no scientific evidence and no sound, real, logical proof of his existence. As I read, the shadow of that man rose before me. I asked him: “Did you ever answer me when I prayed to you, O God? Did you ever give me what I hoped for, what I used to hope for? Did you ever understand my needs and desires? Did you ever try to understand what I needed?” The answer was no—no, and no again.

When every false mask falls, when every goal collapses and every hope withers in the pit of an endless maze, the last fragile strands of air to which you clung begin to dissolve, like a lump of sugar melting in muddy water. You find yourself sinking gradually into an abyss of crumbling thoughts, falling toward the farthest reaches of despair. Your goal never draws any nearer, no matter how hard you try or what you do. Perhaps your goal does not want you as much as you want it; perhaps it cannot give you what you are prepared to give it. It has not fallen in love with you.

And so I spoke to the god who never answered, who never responded. How often had I called to you? How often had I begged you? How obediently had I followed you? Yet you offered no benefit and received none. I began to ask: do you really exist? Are you a real being? If so, why did you not grant me what I longed for?

Do not try to lure me again with the false splendour of your authority and majesty, pretending that everything is for my own good. You could have made what harmed me work in my favour. Let me put you on trial, O God. This time, I will hold you accountable. You are the one who should be judged, not the one who judges. You are the one who deserves punishment and must answer for the suffering you have caused.

I have long feared the ageing of time, the ageing of life, the wrinkles that spread through my being—not merely across my face, but throughout my life. Yes, my life has grown old, O God, while you sit and watch. Does my pain bring you joy, as it brought joy to that wretched man whom I imagined to be close to me, though he was farther away than the farthest distance? Both of you betrayed me: the man who played god, and the god who seemed a man. How alike you are in the way you imposed power and control over my life and over me as a woman. Both of you sought to destroy me and the life I once had.

If you, the male god, were truthful in what you claimed, why did you create human beings and bring them into existence? To worship you, you say. Only to worship you—to serve your comfort and pleasure? Then let them go hungry so that you may feast on their prayers and submission. Let them go naked so that you may cloak yourself in your might and dominion. Let them suffer for your sake, so that you can enjoy your glory and power. That is exactly what the man-god did to me.

I no longer worship you. I no longer believe in you. I have let you go by my own choice and conviction, just as that man has also become absent from my life. I have abandoned that state of mind; its presence inside me has become impossible. I have stepped outside the orbit of your desire and his. I know now, with certainty, that illusion, deceit, and lies blinded you just as they blinded him.

Written by Manal Khalil