Saturday, June 28, 2008
Ordinary PeopleI had a lot of time to take a stroll around the city, and so I keep journeying. after many long, tense hours, I reach the heart of the city, where some even tenser people are waiting for me. They said that we're heading off to a cathedral as a part of the city tour.
To begin with there was the city wall. The wall remained, but one part of it was used to build a chapel. Many years passed,and the chapel became the church. Another century passed, and the church became a gothic cathedral. The cathedral had had its moments of glory, there had been structural problems, for a time it had been abandoned, then restoration work had distorted the whole shape of the building, but each generation thought it had solved the problem and would rework the original plans. Thus, in the centuries that followed, they raised a wall here, took down a beam there and added a buttress over there, created bricked up stained-glass windows.
And the cathedral withstood it all.
I walk through the skeleton of the cathedral, studying the restoration work currently being carried out: this time the architects guarantee that they have found the perfect solution. Everywhere there are metal supports, scaffolding and gran theories about what to do next, and some criticism about what was done in the past.
And suddenly, in the middle of the central nave, I realize something very important: the cathedral is me, it is all of us. We are all growing and changing shape, we notice certain weaknesses that need to be corrected, we don't always choose the best solution, but we carry on regardless, trying to remain upright and decent, in order to honor the walls or the doors or the windows, but to the empty space inside, the space where we worship and venerate what is the dearest and most important to us.
Yes, we are all cathedrals, there is no doubt about it; but what lies in the empty space of my inner cathedral?
Red, the Zahir.
He fills everything. He is the only reason I am alive.
For 8 years, I had unconsciously preferred to believe that he was the one. oh yes, he is.
Some people appear to be happy, but they simply don't give the matter much thought. Others make plans: "I'm going to have a husband, a home, two children, a house in the country". As long as they're busy doing that, they're like bulls looking for the bullfighter: they react instinctively, they blunder on, with no idea where the target is. They get their car, sometimes they even get a Ferrari, and yet they think that's the meaning of life, and they never question it. Yet their eyes betray the sadness that even they don't know they carry in their soul.
Happiness is mandatory, Are you happy?
I don't know if everyone is unhappy. I know they're all busy: working overtime, worrying about their children, their husband, their career, their degree, what they're going to do tomorrow, what they need to buy, what they need to have in order not to feel inferior, etc. Very few people actually say to me: "I'm unhappy."
Most say: "I'm fine, I've got everything I ever wanted." Then I ask: "What makes you happy?" Answer: "I've got everything a person could ever possibly want- a family, a home, work, good health, wisdom, large sum of money, car, beauty, suitors, fans, etc."
I ask again: "Have you ever stopped to wonder if that's all there is to life?"
Answer: "Yes, that's all there is," I insist: "So the meaning of life is work where you can get fired, family members that will eventually die, large sum of money that will soon be gone , beauty that will tarnish, suitors that come and go, health that may deteriorate, a wife or a husband who will become more like a friend than a real lover. and of course, one day, your career will end too. What will you do when that happens?"
ANSWER: There is no answer, They change the subject.
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