Myth or Imagination

We all, like miracle beggars, look every day for the return of Noah with his ark to rescue us from the turmoil and enmity of the tyrants of our time and lead us to Shangri-La. Alternatively, we search for the Simurgh to illuminate the tale of the thirty birds for us. This is because we are still left with the task of nurturing our human conscience within ourselves and our society. When we hear the trumpets of war, revolutions, and the slaughter of others, we grow despondent as we stand in the queue to buy bread, meat, and poultry, but we consider our hunger more important than the death of another at the hands of oppressors.

We criticize politicians because each of them beats their own drum. Then, we support one candidate and consider the other flawed in a place where all of them will become tyrants, as we have kissed their hands.

We have learned religion from our forefathers, and because they prostrate to biases and superstitions, we follow suit, handing our guidance to clerics for a path to paradise. Or we have grown weary of superstitions and the futility of being entangled and locked at the shrines of unknown imams. We seek refuge in the unstable philosophies of Marx and Lenin, who view the human spirit as nothing more than a mere collection of material thoughts.

We till the land that has been there for thousands of years and will continue to be, claiming it as our own out of the love of being landowners. We consider its crops as our own in a world where millions desperately need a piece of bread, seeking refuge from the grip of power-hungry tyrants from one land to another. Then, we strike them with sticks so that they become subservient to us as tiny tyrants.

We have become blind and deaf by our own pain, considering it incurable, and we fail to see the pain of others. We are not even content with equality with others because we see ourselves as superior. Our pain is one and the same; we suffer from the ailment of “self-superiority,” the very affliction that plagues the world’s great tyrants. We allow the small snakes of ego, pessimism, jealousy, the lust for superiority, and more to engulf our entire being and swallow our conscience and soul.

Noah’s ark has dropped its anchor in the harbor of the world for years, waiting for visionary travelers to find the path to the pier. The Simurgh also whispers the tale of the thirty birds to those who listen, and Lut has been inviting us for years to leave the decadence of Sodom. Yet, we continue to lament our incurable pain and remain blind and deaf, trapped in the same cycle.