Sometimes the only thing standing between man and total despair, when an arthritic premonition of an impending natural disaster prevents him from making any sudden moves, is a totally unromantic truth. A truth obscured by his newfound promiscuity, camouflaged as independence, and disguised by that proverbial brave face. The smug face of the modern man who with lofty nonchalance, will tell you that the internal turmoil, the quivering anxiety which mitigates his every movement, is not the product of anything as unexciting as the oppressive loneliness of an amputated spirit. But instead, the brave faced modern man will manufacture a more sexy excuse for being so emotionally underprivileged. Sexy excuses with tag lines like closure and self-esteem, administered like gel-coated suppositories, compliments of a pop psyche world gone psychotic.
Sometimes the only thing standing between man and total despair, when everything in life takes on an intoxicating and futile picture flow, is a need for a meaningful exchange to counteract the psychic deafness of a world consumed by information overload.
In an age where politically, we are the herd, and the rest of the third world do not even exist, and where polished and civilized men have retreated like shell shocked rodents behind rocks cloaked as institutes of higher learning, we are the incorporated, well adjusted, hyper efficient, over productive, civilized version of a suicide mission with no victims– only volunteers.
We are the demented progeny of anaesthetized culture whose casualty is consciousness. We are the latest and greatest spin-off of an enlightened society where self worth is not determined by what you give but by what you take. From the brand of water you carry around like a security blanket to protect against the improbable contingency of a city wide drought, to the latest psychotropic prescription you had filled, to ward off, either your blue moods, or the blue- blood antibodies of your mother’s milk.
Sometimes the only thing standing between man and total despair are the rebelswho have developed an immunity to the bullshit of false rhetoric designed to do for western hedonism, what the colonoscopy of colonialism supposedly did for eastern heathenism.
Sometimes the only thing standing between man and total despair is a woman. Not the westernized eastern woman who is a visual reminder of all that sucks about modernity in the way of cheap highlights and bare midriffs (which only subtract from the uncommon beauty of an Arabian princess), and not the kind of woman who regulates her hormonal surges with academic excellence. But the eastern woman who understands that the seductive power of a few passionate words whispered with confidant feminine breath is more powerful than anything she can purchase at the cosmetic counter.
Sometimes the only thing standing between man and total despair are the symptoms of his modern neurosis. Whether its his morbid obesity or anorexic frame, his depression or his mania, symptoms are the resistance movement of the refined and cultured man. Symptoms are the sanitized reflex of a very unsanitary spiritual existence. As the famous philosopher and psychiatrist Erich Fromm once cautioned us, “beware of defining mental hygiene as the prevention of symptoms. Symptoms are not our enemy, but our friend. Where there are symptoms, there is conflict, and conflict indicates that the forces of life which strive for integration and happiness are still fighting.”In other words, there IS hope in hopelessness.
Sometimes the only thing standing between man and total despair are the lamentations of women who have not yet been silenced by the commercial opiates of our historys latest mouthwash, marked with instructions to rinse, gargle, gag then repeat. Or the man without the luxury of words; the bygone underdog who defies the formula imposed upon him by the conservative who presumes his condition is a product of backwardness and the liberal who automatically attributes virtue to his poverty, when virtue had nothing to do with it. The man without choice, without reason; the man of instinct who knows by design alone, that oppression has no time for rationalizations only resistance.
Sometimes the only thing standing between man and total despair is a humble prayer for life, liberty and the kind of sanity which comes with the understanding, that life and liberty can never last until they command – JUSTICE FOR ALL!!
Inas Younis is a freelance writer residing in Kansas. She has written for Muslim Girl Magazine and her work was featured in the anthology Living Islam Out Loud.
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