Zacchaeus

When I was young, it was visible that I would always be short in stature. While that quality of being short was in my physical stature, it never was in my stature as a character. I had always wanted to please others and wanted nothing but for them to like me. Whether this desire to please and this search for love was due to my own physical deficiencies, I shall never know, but by the time I was old enough to understand other things in life, I was old enough to understand my physical inferiority.

I do admit that being short developed in me an inferiority complex that wasn't bettered by other kids who were around. I dare say they were abusive and unkind to an extent that caused me bitter nights and utter self disdain. I had been shrewd with numbers, and that competence did nothing but add to the discrimination I faced from the other boys in the yard. I was a hard worker and would put myself through hell to give my best to a team I belonged to, but that was never put to the test as no one wanted to have me on their team.

The years passed by and each day was filled with an incident or two where I was rejected and mocked. I remember one time when I had been given many figs by my parents to take to school and I had wanted to share them. Having offered the other kids some, they turned me down, but to top it off, just when I was about to eat one, one of the boys came and snatched it away from me. I wasn't too upset, and I reached for the basket to offer him some more, but I realized that the other kids had already reached for it and taken it. They ate some and played around with others and threw them on the ground. I cried that day, and I felt so much pity for myself, not so much for them taking away my basket but because they would rather fool around with what I offered than to accept it when offered from me.

From that day onwards I decided never to have pity on myself and I decided that I would show them all. The hate I had for myself had surpassed all limits and had turned against the other kids. By time, as I realized I was not going to get treated any better ,my hate spread to all those around me, all those whom I suspected to mock me behind my back. I realized I was never going to be accepted, and I decided I had no need to.

I no longer tried to hide my talent at school and aced all the exams, and I no longer cared for others' mockery or their affection for that matter. I was more and more determined to succeed without the help of others. Even while still learning I had learnt the secrets of trading, I had nothing to lose and so I took big risks and dealt with the buying and selling of many items, till I had more than most around me.

When I'd grown, I became known to be rich and somehow all those who were around me started treating me differently since they were still stuck in poverty. I started lending money to people around me and demand great interest. I was found to be shrewd and so the Roman Empire deemed it fit for me to be a tax collector. I had no problems collecting taxes from all those around, most of whom had mistreated me.

With time I had the power to collect money from everyone around, I would take more sometimes from those who reminded me most of the hatred that was directed towards me and the hatred I felt for them. I plundered, but their sorrow and desperation was never enough for me, for though I wanted them to suffer for what they did to me, what I inwardly wanted was for them to accept me.

I still wanted their acceptance and I wanted their love, but I had not even admitted that to myself. The more I felt the need for others to love me, the more I hurt them and made them hate me. I was alone, entirely alone but it didn't matter because I had always been alone. It didn't matter that they hated me, because they always hated me.

Then one day I heard of a great prophet that was passing through, a man of great deeds and ultimate kindness. When I heard that this healer was passing through, I screamed at the messenger, "yet another one of them who will preach to us our duties and point out our sins." Yet in my heart I had said, "if only he can heal this hatred."

I saw him from afar, surrounded by crowds of people, swarming all over him. I could not see him properly, but I observed the parade as it moved forward. My height denied me any vision of what was happening and even my standing as a rich tax collector would not have any of the simple people give way. I looked at the path they were taking and saw a sycamore fig tree. I decided I must climb up to see who this so called compassionate and kind teacher was.

In my heart I had hoped that this man would show to me or to people the sort of kindness I had only dreamt of as a kid, but in my mind I knew that there was nothing that would change. I struggled hard to get on top of that tree, and by the time I was up the parade had moved towards me. When the prophet had reached the spot, he looked up and said to me, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today."

Despite all my thoughts, my heart was filled with gladness. This prophet had stopped and chose me of all the people. This man whom many swarmed around did not rebuke me and did not choose any of those others, but chose me, someone filled with hatred and darkness. I was overwhelmed with joy despite all my thoughts, this great man had chosen me. How had he known my name? How had he heard of me? I was close to tears but would not let it show. I was broken by his kindness to me, something I was rarely shown.

The people were still unkind, and kept making references to how the prophet had chosen a sinner's house to go to. I knew I had shown them as much unkindness as well, and I had cheated them and hurt them, but they had shown me the same too. In any case, it did not matter, I was accepted by he who they seek approval from. I had forgiven all that had happened to me because I felt love from that man. I felt guilty for having returned their hatred with hatred. The reason I had gathered up all that money was to bring myself satisfaction through revenge, but the more and more I piled up and the more I cheated those around, the less satisfaction I got. I didn't care about money, I just wanted kindness, so I stood up and said, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount."

The man who was called Jesus replied saying, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

The Clanging Cymbal, a Church With a Loveless Creed

First published in DNE on 11 January 2015

“People talk about human rights, but what about God’s rights?” said Pope Tawadros in his sermon on the eve of Coptic Christmas on 6 January. These words, and most others in the same sermon rang hollow, as I recalled the opening lines of chapter thirteen in the book of Corinthians: “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”

Aside from the pope’s continued bashing of human rights, what are God’s rights in a faith that preaches love? Is it not love for God and others? The pope and the church have shown very little of that, except to the regime.

It is no longer possible to write off statements by Pope Tawadros as simply uninformed remarks that ought to be corrected. It is clear that every statement released to the public aims to appease authorities rather than offer spiritual guidance.

In his most recent interview with Sky News, the Pope claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood led Christian youth into confrontations with the army and then fled the scene. This was in reference to the Maspero massacre on October 9, 2011 where the military attacked and ran over unarmed Coptic protesters, and state media incited sectarian violence.

This is certainly his most problematic statement, but perhaps a crowning of his previous work cozying up to the government. This statement is problematic for several reasons; the most important of which is that it extends beyond an opinion you may agree or disagree with. It is a statement that asserts a historic fact. A fact that happens to be fictional.

Earlier in an interview with the Spanish Paper El Mundo, the Pope even said that he did not know the perpetrators of Maspero, because he was not Pope at the time. It is worth noting that the manner in which the Maspero protesters were murdered by the Egyptian military has been documented on their tombstone and that the Muslim Brotherhood’s position at the time had been in support of the military.

So why would Pope Tawadros offer this false narrative? An easy answer is that he was misled by his sources, which leaves us with a misinformed Pope unable to determine the truth of history.

The more likely scenario is that the Pope understands full well what he has said and that his distortions of the truth were deliberate, in which case we may only speculate as to why.

Political rather than spiritual gains are to be made. By falsifying what had happened at Maspero, Pope Tawadros undermines Christian activists and antagonises the revolutionaries, particularly those who participated in the march or had witnessed its atrociousness. He made it appear as if they did not stand for anything, and died for nothing. By doing so, he will have appeased a larger base with a price of clear animosity towards the revolution. The wager is that this entire wave of revolutionary rhetoric and fervour will be obliterated completely, and its remnants will dry out. The plan is seemingly to garner enough support from the regime to make legislative changes that deepen the Church’s control over its own matters and its constituency.

Yet even with cold, calculating practicalities, this wager may fail.  It is precisely because it is cold and calculating and devoid of any spirituality, departing from Christian teachings, that it may fail. But aside from that, it may fail because it is a significant political gamble.

In fairness, the Church is caught between a whirlwind of forces. It must balance its positions against Islamists, revolutionaries, military interests, old NDP businessmen, along with their state security connections. Both Islamists and revolutionaries offer the Church nothing practical, and animosity towards both in favor of the regime is a small price to pay. The revolutionaries’ moral high ground may become a problem later on if their rhetoric survives the current crackdown, but for now they seem incapable of making a dent. Other forces have something to offer Christians imminently, but must fight for the Coptic vote in upcoming parliamentary elections.

The battle for control between different security apparatuses rages on. Thus the regime is no longer a cohesive block you can appease.  Parliamentary majority will be determined by the victor in this internal battle, and since the Pope is playing politics, he must choose which side to support, and have the Coptic community back him up.

Because of such complications, politics within the Church are closer to a gamble at the moment. So far all the calculations and compromises have given the church nothing in return; a surprise visit by Al-Sisi to the Coptic cathedral on Christmas Eve, but nothing tangible that fundamentally addresses the state of Copts.

Christians continue to be forcefully evicted, and imprisoned in defamation of religion cases. Churches still require the president’s consent to build or reconstruct. Damaged churches, which the military promised to rebuild, have not been rebuilt. Copts in Libya are being kidnapped and slaughtered with no serious concern or reaction by Church or state.

Rather than speak inclusively to spread love and tolerance, the Pope went on to support the constitutional referendum, discredit human rights, attack atheism, call for segregation of boys and girls, and jump on the state’s bandwagon of witch-hunts.

The Church turned to a new loveless creed that mimics the state’s in praise of rulers rather than the Almighty. Numerous priests have been reciting it. Anba Bola declared Al-Sisi as the Christ he saw when he visited the church on Christmas Eve. Father Makary Younan has also claimed that Al-Sisi was a saviour, prophesied in the book of Isiah. Much earlier, a priest called Boules Ewaida declared his passionate love for Al-Sisi and excused the women for being in love with him. Besides bordering on the delusional, these statements can be regarded by many Copts as blasphemous.

As an effect of political calculations, the Church has wandered its farthest from Christian teachings. Appeasing the regime in every way may cost the Church leverage over politicians, and if it is done at the expense of Christian beliefs, it may cost the Pope control over the Church’s constituency. The Pope will need to stand for something other than the state, because by standing with injustice, he betrays his post and his Church’s denomination. It would be far better for the Pope to stand up for Christian principles than to continue these political manoeuvres.

It is unfair to single out the Pope, because a majority of the Coptic community stands in line with his positions. It is also important to recognise that this is a community that has much to fear, having been discriminated against for so long. It is a community trying to survive, even at the expense of justice. Yet in a way, this survival has cost the community its soul.

How can we give credence to a Church that has lost its spirit? There is nothing spiritual in excusing injustices and propagating false narratives. In the same chapter of Corinthians the closing lines read: “These three remain; hope, faith and love but the greatest of these is love.”

In Pope Tawadros’ Church, this love cannot be found, replaced by self-interest and survival. The words of the church become a clanging cymbal. These are not motivations to blame, yet they have caused the Church to drift from church teachings and Christian faith. This faith preached the value of love above all others, even faith, so much so that it boldly claimed that God is love. I look before me at a community devoid of love, worshiping a brass calf, and full of fear. And if love, praise and glory is what you give God, why does the Church give to Caesar what is God’s?

She Taught Me to Love the Moon

She taught me to love the moon. Every time I look up to the sky and admire its beauty I think of her. But how can I enjoy such beauty on my own? The moon was beautiful because of her. I urge myself not to contact her in attempts to share the beauty. What good will it do to try and share it with her if she doesn't want to anymore. No, I cannot share this happiness and beauty and in a way it ceases to be happiness and beauty.

The beautiful sky outside the city with beautiful formations in the morning clears up at night to paint the night sky with stars. I look up and see the moon shining upon the water and sand, I see each star and feel I’m in a painting. I want her to be here, but  that’s not possible and even if she were here, she wouldn't be. If only you could be here for this beauty, but would you find it beautiful too with me now? She has decided to share the beauty with someone else. I will not be the one she wants to point this too as she smiles and sighs.

I open my eyes wider to observe the scene around me. The simple huts and the hammocks around, all immersed in a dark blue color that I have not seen in any painting or photo. I want to capture it but I know others have tried and the paintings and photos do not do it justice. The sea and the sky melt into one dark blue color as soon as the distant land and ships disappear. I cannot capture this image with its deep colors flooding my eyes and that’s why I open them wide, to take the moment in, knowing it is fleeting, just like my time with her. On many nights I did not take it in, and that is what I regret, but I’m grateful that before it was over I enjoyed the moments and took them all in, knowing that they cannot be captured, only remembered.

The moon’s reflection on the surface of the water captivates me. This giant beacon of light overshadowing all other lights changes the color of the water making it look like a pathway to a magical land. The scene looks like a movie set. No. Better than a movie set, all the magic without anything false about it. The water looks as though one could walk on it.

Attempt to capture the moon's reflection on the water

She is the moon reflected on the surface of the water, but the part of the water upon which the moon’s rays are reflected shift depending on where you’re standing on the shore.

Still I cannot but look at nature and think of her. The beauty around me seems incomplete. But that person I want to share it with is not there anymore. There was something real about the whole thing, but it’s not there anymore. Just like a shooting star in the sky, momentary and passing yet beautiful for the brief seconds it may last. There’s no point running to where the shooting star fell or looking for it. It was just like the waves. She was the sea and our time together was like the waves that hit the shore to form a splendid sound, but then the waves were there no more even though the sea remained. She is still there but our waves are not, and I look upon my sea and remember my waves. The sea still moves me because for a brief moment the waves were mine.

Sometimes I want to send these thoughts and more to my waves, the moon’s reflection on the water, but I keep them to myself. I would be sending them to a place worse than nowhere. I would be sending them out to the sea, but they would never find her. It is a sea that I thought was mine but never really was.

The waves are gone and yet every time I look upon the sea I long for them. I must move on and come to terms that there will be no more waves for me, no more waves for me.

She taught me to love the moon; that I cannot unlearn. I have lost the waves, the shooting stars and even the sea, but I’ll always have the moon.  Sometimes I  long for her and sometimes I see her before my eyes but she’s not truly there. I close my eyes then search for the moon. I am comforted when I look upon it for that is the love I have left. But difficult are the days when the moon does not shine across the skies.

Listen to me in the background

Open Letter to My Oppressors

To my oppressors,

I am the oppressed. I am one you’ve trampled upon and think you own, but I am not one that will stay silent. I am the voice you want to suppress, kill, torture and imprison. I am the voice calling for liberty against your desire to keep enslaved. I am the voice you loathe that dares ask to be treated as an equal, the voice you despise for rising up because you think yourself the master. I am a voice part of a repressed generation whose lives you stole, whose wealth you hijacked whose freedom you took and whose eyes you’ve blinded. I am the voice that screams your ugly deeds to be muted to whispers amidst your rowdy lies. I am the voice that speaks a truth merely stumbled upon in books, streets and dominions beyond your control. I know this voice is one you want to silence forever.

I write to you forgetting your ugly horrible deeds of torture, murder, treason and manipulation. I write to you forgetting that you do not listen and cannot listen. I write to you forgetting your hatred of my very existence and your thirst to destroy me. To you, I am an expendable waste of space but a nuisance nonetheless. I write to you forgetting that such words will never reach you whether you read them or not.

My message to you is this. Stop what you are doing. These are real lives you are destroying, these are real people whose lives you are taking. These are real people you’ve imprisoned, these are real people you’ve hurt. I know that they seem remote to you, like enemies or lesser beings, but think upon them with the love you may have for your children or your families. Have you not that much love in you to see how they too can be loved? Do you not see the extent of the damage you have done and are doing to other human beings? Have you become too selfish and too self-involved to have any kind of sympathy?

I do not ask you to consider your acts before God. Men like you are beyond any to moral derivation of any sort. I ask of you to think of the little love you have left inside you in order to relate to humanity. You are beyond redemption perhaps, but even men who are beyond redemption have some sort of humanity inside to battle this hatred you have for others.

Look beyond your selfish love for your own and understand it could be your children in those jails or your friends run over by armored carriers. Understand that it could have been your daughters stripped and humiliated by soldiers. We are bound to one another as human beings and there is no room today for the illusion that you own another human being.

You old men, what will you reap but your deeds? Your grave is near and your days are numbered. No one knows if the next world brings nothing or retribution. But even if there is nothing beyond this life, you will only leave behind an evil legacy.

My oppressors, my killers, my wardens, I forgot your titles and addressed you as human beings. I send those words out to the human inside you that ceased to exist. I send them out with love, a concept you’ve long dismissed. I dropped my resentment for this brief instant. Why have you built a wall of hatred between us? I would tear that wall down instantly if it were up to me. This wall of your making and the choice has always been yours. The hatred you sow, you’ll reap.

Never yours,

The Oppressed

A Love that Died

People accuse me of treason when I say that I don't love Egypt anymore. The reality is that I'm just being honest. I've held on to that so called love for as long as I could, but I ended up having to decide between lying to myself and fitting in with the rest. There is too much demand that the love for my country be unconditional. It isn't an unconditional sort of love though. The one condition is that the country I love exists, and Egypt does not exist anymore. This may come as a surprise to some, but it's true. Egypt has been lost and we're not even aware of it. It may have left, but the more likely explanation is that we buried it.

The quest for the missing Egypt is undermined by the fake love given to its proxy. As the real Egypt sinks, we keep smothering the fake, evil replacement that we have with so much love. The more love we give to the fake Egypt, the more the real Egypt sinks. I said I don't love Egypt anymore, but what I mean is that I don't love the fake Egypt anymore. I love the old sinking Egypt that was full of kindness, full of beauty. I don't like this new one that's full of ignorance, poverty, injustice, hate, extremism and disrespect. I don't like this Egypt that turns a blind eye to hatred. I don't like this new Egypt that turns a blind eye to the sexual harassment of its women. I don't like this new Egypt that breeds hatred amongst its citizens.

I do not fool myself by giving love to this evil replica. Surely this is not my country; it's not a country that I want to be associated with. It's a country of thugs, thieves and murderers. To bestow upon it my love is to accept being a part of them, and I'm not. I'm not a liar and I'm not a hypocrite. I accuse all those who demand a sick love from me of being traitors, complicit in the evil doings of an enslaving country. To love Egypt you must first be honest and hate it. This is a country that we shape, not a person that we have to accept.

I do not love the misery that comes with the country, nor the shape of what it has become. We are not invaded by a foreign power so that I can claim to hate what has been done to the country. I hate the country because its cells have become cancerous. The bad cells are spreading and there is no fixing them. I will fight off this cancer, and because I do, I'm accused of treason. It is the country that has betrayed itself, and those asking me to love it are asking for its destruction.

Having said all that, I burrow through the rubbles for the Egypt that once was. Once in a while I see a glimpse of the real thing, but it is quickly overshadowed by something unreal, something contrived, something forced.

I fear that the time for salvation has long passed us by. While we busy ourselves pretending that Egypt still exists, and fighting for a fake love, the real Egypt sinks, and to make matters worse, we're pushing it deeper into oblivion with our dishonest zeal.

Relationships Not a Destination

Why start a relationship if it’s going to end we often ask. If people aren’t right for each other, why even bother. To tell you the truth we have a point. What use is going down a dead end path, where the end is near and you can see it from a distance. Why take an unknown road that leads to the same point. Why be with someone you can’t be with forever.

The reason is because there is no forever. Nothing lasts anyway and every relationship is temporary. What makes 10 years more permanent than 2 years is because we choose to label it so. For some, 10 years is temporary and 25 is permanent. But the point is that it all ends sooner or later. It’s understandable that people want things to end later rather than sooner but the point that people miss out is that it’s not about the end.

Relationship ends make no sense, it’s all the in between that makes all the difference, yet the way people analyze it is as if the journey doesn’t affect you, as if the quality of the relationship has nothing to add to you and nothing to give you. They skip forward in time and see its demise and judge a relationship based on that, but by the end of a doomed relationship you can actually come out a better person, bettered by the person you were with or by the experience. The real question isn’t how long this relationship will last, but how much it would give me while it does.

To shift the paradigm, is it better to be in a bad relationship that would last or in a good one that won’t? Ideally one would hope for a good one that lasts. For sure a bad relationship is not worth anything no matter how permanent it is. The good relationship needs to be assessed. Will it give me more than it’ll take? Would the journey through it give me something, give me joy.. as permanent as the volatile things in life?

Being with someone is very dynamic, it changes everything about yourself and about the other someone, you get entangled and you take a piece of that someone with you as you go along and they take a piece of you. The worst relationship is when you lose parts of yourself without gaining anything of worth. Good people are hard to find, those who share a good part of themselves with you, but should you try and grab a part of them even if it can’t last? If people give you a lot you can always win, and the reasons things don’t work out could very well be external reasons beyond your control. Why give up on something good if you can’t have it for longer? The entirety of life isn’t long anyway.

A relationship doesn’t exist for the sake of the relationship but for yours. What I mean is that the purpose of the relationship isn’t where it’s going to take the relationship itself, but where it takes you. You may see the end from a distance, but you can’t know the route you’ll take to reach it and much more, you can’t foretell the person you’ll be when you reach it.

The Human Problem of Modern Capitalism

The Art of Loving is the title of a book by Erich Fromm, a social psychologist, and is certainly one of the sappiest titles for a book that I've ever come across. At first glance it appears to contain some mushy bullshit about love and what have you, but after inspection, it contains some deep psychological and philosophical analysis of humans from a lot of different angles. It covers many topics I've often thought about and has expressed in words a lot of thoughts that were in my head but never made their way to paper.

This is an extract on one of the issues of the modern capitalist society that I've observed, and this was written in the mid fifties! How far along have we come along from then? Note that because the book was written in the mid fifties, I forgive its really sappy name. At that time the name would have sounded better I suppose not having been distorted by all these chicken soup for the soul and power of positive thinking corny crap.

The human problem of modern capitalism can be formulated in this way:

Modern capitalism needs men who cooperated smoothly and in large numbers; who want to consume more and more; and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated. It needs men who feel free and independent, not subject to any authority or principle or conscience - yet willing to be commanded, to do what is expected of them, to fit into the social machine without friction; who can be guided without force, led without leaders, prompted without aim - except the one to make good, to be on the move, to function, to go ahead.

....

Modern man is actually close to the picture Huxley describes in his Brave New World; well fed, well clad, satisfied sexually, yet without self, without any except the most superficial contact with his fellow men, guided by the slogans which Huxley formulated so succinctly, such as: ‘When the individual feels, the community reels’; or ‘Never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today,’ or, as the crowning statement: ‘Everybody is happy nowadays.’

Man’s happiness today consists in ‘having fun.’ Having fun lies in the satisfaction of consuming and ‘taking in’ commodities, sights, food, drinks, cigarettes, people, lectures, books, movies - all are consumed, swallowed. The world is one great object for our appetite, a big apple, a big bottle, a big breast; we are the suckers, the eternally expectant ones, the hopeful ones - and the eternally disappointed ones. Our character is geared to exchange and to receive, to barter and to consume; everything, spiritual as well as material objects, becomes an object of exchange and of consumption.

~ Erich Fromm

Egyptian Love Song

This is a love song for Egypt,
And I hope someone sings it too,
but to tell her I love her I must be honest,
and tell her that I hate her too.

But no one's going to sing this song,
because everyone wants a fantasy to live,
With words majestic and thoughts so deep,
and nothing but lies and lies to give.

So when I tell Egypt that I love her,
You'd guess it's just for show,
And when I don't tell her that I hate her,
you'd then, absolutely know.

Egypt..You know Egypt, you've hurt me,
you've hurt everyone that's loved you too,
you've been raped and battered,
and you are us and we are you.

So a song to a fallen woman,
that's made us bastards all the way,
and yet we choose to sing for her,
songs with nothing much to say.

No woman, I won't live for you,
nor will I die for your land.
Nor will I tell you how beautiful you are,
You no longer understand.

2 Boys 2 Thoughts

On my way to football, while heading towards my garage I was munching on an apple. I looked for somewhere to throw the remains after I was done eating it. As is usual in the streets of Cairo there were no bins, and the only one that was available was tied to a pole and its bottom hinged downwards making it like a basketball hoop that cannot contain anything. I moved towards it and I saw a little boy moving at the same time, as I looked at the dysfunctional bin, I saw the boy fixing the bottom by attaching a hook that should hold the bottom in place. The cute little boy looked very worn down and he looked like a mechanic, with an air of grease and oil about him. I was very pleasantly surprised by his gesture, he had nothing to throw in, but the image of all the garbage underneath the bin provoked him to do something about that. I also felt sorry cause this good gesture is what we will definitely kill in him if he continues to live in this country.

On my way back from football I saw a young family. Young man, young wife and a little boy walking along side. He stretched out his hand to hold his mother's and she refused and gave him a slap to the shoulder as well as a very aggressive look. The boy looked very disappointed and his eyes were so meek pleading his mom to hold his hand, but to no avail. I'm not sure what could have happened to make the mother react this way and I won't judge. All I will say is that moment seemed like a moment of utter cruelty. I cannot judge because with those we love we have those moments. We have this air of cruelty and disregard when it comes to those we supposedly love most. We pass through moments like these when we hurt those closest to us and if a snapshot were taken we'd recognize the extreme cruelty we display to our loved ones that we dare not bestow upon strangers.

It's very easy to be cruel to people we're close to and sometimes love really is blind, it blinds us from seeing who we've become and how we take others for granted. It is on the account of caring and loving that we give ourselves rights to mistreat those close to us. Any stranger on the street would have smiled to that kid at that moment rather than slap him across the shoulder, but the mother didn't. That's why I think it's better if we sometimes treat each other as strangers.

Diary Entry #976

To a friend.
This is a diary entry as I would imagine someone to have written:

I arrived home to a lonely, empty flat. Not just void of other people, but also void of any furniture that gives warmth to a place. It was a cold spacious and empty apartment that reflected how I felt inside. The coldness of the walls and the uncarpeted floor made their way directly to my bones. To make matters worse, I found myself facing a mirror and staring at an almost entirely separate person from the one looking through. So I asked this person, “ Are you all that I am?” and I couldn’t stand that the answer was “yes.”

I felt like I couldn’t bear my own skin, there was a beast inside itching to claw its way out of my skin. “How can anybody stand me if I can’t stand myself?” I thought. I was trapped inside myself and I wasn’t happy.

Coming home I’m faced with the usual simple chores like taking out the trash, changing my clothes, preparing something to eat and brushing my teeth. On any other night, these simple things would not have been burdensome or even significant in the least, but tonight I was with the worst kind of company; myself.

Being unable to bear myself, each simple chore, every simple move felt lonelier than ever and burdensome as ever every second they were prolonged. I felt as if I was imploding and the beast inside me was tearing my insides.

How can I bear myself and how can others bear me; I am nothing, a big nothing and I’m trapped. There’s a cage I’m in called me and there’s nothing I can do to change me and nothing I can think of to change me.

I’m filled with irritation with myself, anger, disgust and low self esteem. Those mixed feelings that even words can’t describe run through my whole body from top to toe as if they were running through my veins along with my very own blood. I can’t bear this, I feel like I will implode or explode from the pressure of these poisons flowing through my system.

The feeling never stops, and it grows and it takes a hold of me and I’m dying to get out. The cage is closing in on me and fills me with so much negative energy that begs of me to stop existing altogether. Only trouble is that the cage itself is me. I scream out loud with all my lungs can afford but to no avail. I pull out my hair and give myself a few slaps, something shakes, but the rage inside doesn’t go.

The pressure inside my head keeps building and my veins seem like they are about to explode, the irritation is unbearable and I must do something to take it all out and end it all. I grab a knife and slash my arm with it, dark blood flows and I feel some of that rage shaken, I slash it again and I experience more pain and more red blood gushing out relieving some pressure… Through these cuts some of that horrible negative feeling has been vented out and I’m too exhausted to feel the rage with the same vehemence.

I don’t feel less alone or more loved. I feel the same abandonment and I feel the same low self worth. The only thing is that I’m now too tired and I can bear myself another night. Who knows what tomorrow may bring, but I don’t suspect it will bring me anything better; I’m condemned to being me and to a life of misfortune.