Intellectual and Emotional Casualties of Arrogance

 

Is the new media a promise or a disaster?  That is the biggest question I ponder about all the time.  Not only I have no answer to it yet, I do not want to discuss it either.  I just want to offer it as a food for thought.  Last night, after I decided to reveal the name of Mr. X in my semi article (The New Meaning of Treason), I felt Intellectual and Emotional Casualties of Arrogance pounding in my head. 

 

This morning, I had a lot of works piled up on my desk, but I had to put my mind at ease first.  Since some readers wonder how a person full of hate could be a poet, I thought maybe I just post an example of his gentle emotions in the past.  I was about done reading a good one when I received another threat from him.  So I start from my reply to his last email:

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Mohamad: Thursday, June 22, 2006 11:38am

Dear Mr. Imani,

 

I just don't want to believe how you keep setting a new record of how low you can become.  I say this; because I know you are emotional, and I want to force you look at yourself.  You know a threat like "You have been reported to FBI." means nothing to a law abiding citizen like me.  I just feel sorry for you.

 

I posted my note on "The New Meaning of Treason" because I thought it would be useful for my readers to see how vulnerable some characters are.  Like I reported in the update, I had to reveal your name because I did NOT want people guessing on writers who had nothing to do with this.  Not only I never lie to my readers, but also I make sure NOT to violate ethical standards. 

 

I knew I had a very good impression of you back in my mind.  So I searched some of the good emails I saved.  I found the following communications we had about 30 months ago.  I think I am emotional too.  I was wiping out the tears from my face when I received your new email.  So I decided to forward you the old emails.  Enjoy it.

 

Peace,

Mohamad Purqurian

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Amil: Friday, January 16, 2004 8:33 PM

Dear Mr. Purqurian,

 

How kind of you to respond to my emotional essay. I am grateful for your well though out comments and I do concur with you. It will be my honor that you share my sentiments with your mailing list.

 

I look forward reading to more of your beautiful and erudite essays in the near future.

 

With my love and respect,

Amil

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Mohamad: Friday, 16 Jan 2004 09:44 AM

Dear Mr. Imani,

 

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and emotions with me.  We certainly live in an unfair world, but the reality is neither depressing nor elating.  We simply get used to our environment.  That is all there is to it, and our characterization of events does not change the backbone of the reality that is history.

 

However, we have come a long way to change the course of the future.  It is not an easy job because past carries a lot of weight on present, and as future turns to become present, it leaves the element of "unknown" untouched deep into the future.  So the present is, in a way, screwed up by both its past and its future!

 

Yet, that is our only share of time.  We may enjoy it, suffer it, or make it to work for future, but we may never be able to use it for changing our past.  I think it is this attribute of the past that is so valuable to the present.  Meaning play with the present any which way you like, but make sure it is what you want to leave behind, because the moment it becomes past, it cannot be changed.

 

I like to share your essay with my email recipients.  Please let me know if it is okay with you and if it is okay to share your name and email address with them.

 

Peace,

Mohamad Purqurian

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Mr. Imani sent the following essay in response to an article of mine “A Tale of Two Beasts”.  I am still indebted to his motivational words in reference to my article “Perhaps you are one of those relentless souls who dares to look, who dares to touch, who dares to write and who goes beyond the heaven and hell. I sometimes wonder about heaven and hell! What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of all things, of all events? Life definitely is a mystery.”

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Amil: Monday, January 12, 2004 1:12 PM

 

"Powerlessness frustrates, absolute powerlessness frustrates absolutely, absolute frustration is a dangerous emotion to run a world with."

 

Sometimes I wonder why I am so restless, why I cannot cease thinking!  It seems like the world we live in reveals incessantly, at certain moments or circumstances, just how little we are and how vast the universe is. We continuously learn something new about this world. This world of ours is a very complex world. Still, what does the expression to be controlled by the elements of the unknown signify? Asking this question should not simply lead us into desperate reflections. The world we live in is a world of many brutal voices. It is a world of heavy blows and delirious trances, but it is the only world we know.

 

The recent tragic and catastrophic event in the ancient city of Bam in Iran has affected me tremendously. I felt a temptation to scream and run to the end of the world and say my prayers with unusual earnestness and a heavy heart. I felt like screaming for the overflowing flood of human blood. I felt like screaming for the weary eyes and innocent moans of the children of Bam. I felt apprehensive, anxious, and fearful. And now, as I take up my pen, my hand trembles and my head swim with horror and disbelief at the magnitude of the human devastation. Yet, the world will go on as usual.  Between searching for meanings and eternal differences and the actual condition of the universe, there is a gap that can never be filled. The confrontation of the irrational, longing human heart and the indifferent universe brings about the notion of the absurd world.

 

Absurdity,

Nothingness,

All these shine before me,

And move in front of my eyes

In a strange way!

 

I believe we all are born to do certain things in this world. I feel as though I were born to suffer and write about it; to write about the moans and groans of many voices, many tormented souls who are searching for an answer. To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking.

 

Perhaps you are one of those relentless souls who dares to look, who dares to touch, who dares to write and who goes beyond the heaven and hell. I sometimes wonder about heaven and hell! What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of all things, of all events? Life definitely is a mystery.

 

Life has many moments. Life has many faces. Life is a universal odyssey.

Life is a garden where the Cyprus trees are beginning to rustle and where the reality is hushed. It's where you feel a cold breeze pass through every bone in your body and you start to tremble.

 

In this tragic episode, life reminds us all how hopeless we really are.  Even with the powers of instinct and imagination, one feels that man does not belong solely to the tangible world. There must be a more profound and secret reality that is the source of this phenomenon. The world appears an obscure and dull place, filled with pockets of disasters in which men are, easily, the victims. Then again, we have given more room to hope and mystic influences, less to reality. The main circle, which always dominates, must be sought in the realms beyond thought and discursive reason. Shakespeare was not wrong in stating:

 

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep."

 

When disasters occur, our minds pass through many stages of inner development. We sometimes speak of other forces that rule the world and apparently man wants to substitute this invisible force for a man-made shelter, called religion. The recent earthquake in the City of Bam has left thousands dead and thousands without shelters. A heavy blow to humanity from the above and we start to doubt everything and struggle for an answer.

 

We struggle against fate,

A painful struggle!

We struggle against life!

A dreadful struggle!

The struggle itself towards,

The heights of calamity,

Is enough to fill a man's heart?

Forever and ever!

 

And so we return to the place from which we started, the land of dreams. In any case, it matters little for what reason we continue to struggle so long as we testify to man's allegiance to man and not to abstractions. Perhaps we would not be wrong in saying that we are in the reality of time and space, filled with a woven veil of dreams. Under this veil, is hidden the real truth of existence, and when the veil is lifted, the essence of things will be discovered.

 

Oh, you earthly angels!

You immigrating birds,

Whose only adornment

Is a bed of white feathers!

The innocent children of Bam,

Are wearing your white glowing robe,

And have left the memories of life,

To others!

 

I see the poor black swallows!

Flying over the ruins of our city!

I see overflowing pain,

Intertwined,

With the hearts of every Persian!

 

My heart stops palpitating!

My breath starts to dry up!

My faith simply fades away,

And my bed falls silent.

 

 

Amil Imani

January 4, 2004

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While thinking about “Intellectual and Emotional Casualties of Arrogance”, think also about thousand of innocent Americans and Iraqis who paid the ultimate and IRREVIRSIBLE price for war profiteers.

 

Peace,

Mohamad Purqurian

06/22/06