On the philosophy that falls before a drone and the cold of the sidewalk

A few years ago, I was in Dubai… a per­fect life par excel­lence on every lev­el. My life in Dubai was the embod­i­ment of a con­tem­po­rary utopia. I used to think of bore­dom as an ene­my, until I wished I could return to the bore­dom of Dubai’s meet­ings while I slept next to the dogs.

I met peo­ple from New York, from Swe­den, and from Japan… I used to tell them that Dubai is more beau­ti­ful than most glob­al cities… Some of them would tell me they came here for a new expe­ri­ence because they were fed up with their lives in their cities… a monot­o­nous life, they would say over there… They came to Dubai and were also suf­fer­ing from bore­dom even though every­thing was avail­able to them… an ide­al life, a leg­endary month­ly salary, and excel­lent hous­ing… What more do you want? And in abun­dance… more than one indi­vid­ual describ­ing their lives as bor­ing… I would ask them: “How so? How is your life bor­ing?” One says: “Today’s meet­ing is bor­ing and tomor­row is anoth­er meet­ing… I am bored of the com­pa­ny man­ag­er… I am bored of my col­league at the com­pa­ny who wears a type of per­fume I do not like.” Some of them were deep­er, say­ing: “The worst thing a human faces in his life is empti­ness.”

The Paradox of Modern Emptiness

In the words I once heard from a friend in Swe­den, he was telling me he does­n’t know what to do with his life, and he would ask me for advice even in his deci­sions, to the point that he did­n’t know which major to enter and asked for my opin­ion on that. I did not give him any opin­ion; I mere­ly said: “Enter what you want… what you love and nat­u­ral­ly lean towards after you read about the rest of the majors.”

But let’s return to the top­ic; why do they all suf­fer from bore­dom and psy­cho­log­i­cal empti­ness even though they are in the most pres­ti­gious areas of the world… New York… Stock­holm… Tokyo… Dubai? I began study­ing the lifestyle of some peo­ple in the most pres­ti­gious areas of the world, for exam­ple, and ask­ing them: “Why do you feel bored?” One of them says some­thing about Niet­zsche’s nihilism and that there is no pur­pose to life, and that he drowns every day in watch­ing movies and series; he tem­porar­i­ly for­gets him­self inside them, then bouts of depres­sion return to him after the end of every very beau­ti­ful series, mean­ing he returns to real­i­ty after com­ing back from the land of imag­i­na­tion.

Philosophy from the Safety of Cafés

I could­n’t under­stand that… I mean, why is real life so bor­ing in the eyes of oth­ers? Even Sartre… they used to cri­tique life, look for exam­ple at his book Nau­sea… you find him feign­ing flaws in real­i­ty while writ­ing from the finest cafes of Paris, eat­ing the best type of fil­let steak. Hei­deg­ger talks about anx­i­ety to a degree that makes you actu­al­ly feel anx­ious, while he is the one spend­ing his time in his seclud­ed moun­tain “hut,” con­tem­plat­ing exis­tence far from any real dan­ger threat­en­ing this exis­tence. Aure­lius… this man I respect… I do not know what he would have said to me, but he demands that we face the bore­dom of life. But what bore­dom, peo­ple? You do not know the par­adise you are in because you have not expe­ri­enced hell; thus spoke Par­menides about dual­i­ties, for the poles of life can­not be com­pre­hend­ed except by expe­ri­enc­ing the oppo­site.

One day, every­thing in my life col­lapsed. I lost my home, and I slept on the cold side­walk on one of the cold­est nights of Decem­ber, with noth­ing around me but the bark­ing of dogs. An ambu­lance passed, they saw me—a young man thrown on the side­walk but with life in him. The ambu­lance stopped to take a look then moved away; as if to say, “This one is still alive,” for ambu­lances at that time did not stop except to take the dead or those on the verge of death… Nat­u­ral­ly, as I am a res­i­dent of the Mid­dle East, this was the prod­uct of the tur­moil of the events of 2023.

And while I was on the side­walk… “Was I think­ing about the cold?” even though there was bit­ing cold… No. “Was I think­ing about hunger?” even though I was tru­ly hun­gry… No. I was think­ing about the words of those peo­ple, I was think­ing about the philoso­phies of Sartre and Aure­lius. I had lost every­thing, even my baby girl whom I was wait­ing for with pas­sion and love, dream­ing of play­ing with her, but she was abort­ed at months old in her moth­er’s womb because of the war.

The Ambulance Does Not Stop for the Living

The ques­tion was­n’t: Why did I leave Dubai and go to my home­land in the Mid­dle East? Even though the answer to this was: for the sake of my chil­dren. Which is what many fathers would do. But the real ques­tion that was hov­er­ing inside me in a semi-dark street with a preda­to­ry cold and a rot­ting side­walk while I was stretched out there, with the red and blue lights of an ambu­lance tem­porar­i­ly light­ing up the street every now and then: “What else have I lost?”. And that I had lost the large part of my mon­ey since the banks were destroyed too. The ques­tion was: “Is life deceiv­ing us? Does it make peo­ple think they are in bore­dom while they are in par­adise, but because they have not lived through hell, they had no def­i­n­i­tion for the par­adise they live in?” Or I mean they did not real­ize it was par­adise since things are known by their oppo­sites, and that it is one of the dual­i­ties of Par­menides.

Dystopia in Physical Form

I real­ized the mag­ni­tude of the com­fort I was in, here every­thing is dif­fi­cult. Even while I was think­ing about all that… I was hit with a severe urge to uri­nate. This lit­er­al­ly hap­pened while I was think­ing about the above… I first need­ed a light to see where to uri­nate… Of course, I would­n’t wait for the next ambu­lance to light the way… I mean, I was­n’t in the Stone Age but in Decem­ber 2023.… I want­ed to use my phone, my phone was off. I sighed and said lit­er­al­ly: “Damn, we real­ly went back to the Stone Age,” at least the cave­man did­n’t have to wor­ry about a drone film­ing him while he uri­nat­ed to decide whether he was an ene­my or just a liv­ing crea­ture emp­ty­ing his blad­der. I need­ed a place far from the dogs or from the drones that might see me mov­ing at night and think I am an ene­my to them from among those armed men, or I even need­ed to uri­nate in a place where none of the armed men would see you mov­ing at night while you are not one of them, so he would think you are an ene­my too, and it would be impos­si­ble to con­vince them oth­er­wise then. The urge to uri­nate increased as I decid­ed I would stay as I am.. I did­n’t know what to do and real anx­i­ety began to seep into my blood and the tips of my hands.. I was even used to clean­ing my hands after uri­nat­ing, and now, there is no water.

I was think­ing of those who were com­plain­ing about the bore­dom of their lives, how they are sleep­ing now in warm beds, their wor­ries being the bore­dom of the next day. And as I drift­ed in my thoughts and had­n’t got­ten up to uri­nate yet, though about an hour had passed.. a dog came sniff­ing my hat.. it moved away when I got up star­tled.. and I took anoth­er look around me.. a dystopia in a phys­i­cal, mate­ri­al­ized form before me. I knew it was a dystopia com­pared to the oppo­site I used to live.

I had­n’t told any­one that I trav­eled to a hot zone on the plan­et for the sake of my chil­dren… They still think Ghas­san is in his library in Dubai, com­fort­able… while Ghas­san was sit­ting in the bit­ing cold.. home­less.. lost his child daugh­ter.. lost his mon­ey.. his house.. around him is a real dan­ger to his life.. he could die.. at that moment if I died the ambu­lance would come because I would be an ide­al corpse, and corpses are the only ones that get a free, safe ride in this city. Sud­den­ly, as I was sigh­ing and clasp­ing my hands.. I auto­mat­i­cal­ly thought of one per­son.. Edgar Allan Poe; I remem­bered that he was sit­ting on a cold, lone­ly side­walk with no one ask­ing about him. I don’t know why my thoughts inter­twined, was I at that moment liv­ing a trau­ma and my mind entered into delir­i­um or what.. I did­n’t know.

The Meaning Found in Details

Lat­er and after years… I mean now, I met anoth­er mod­el who com­plains of bore­dom in his life and that he escapes from life by read­ing books because real life is bor­ing, nihilis­tic, and caus­es exis­ten­tial anx­i­ety. “What exis­ten­tial anx­i­ety, world?”. Read books on diverse top­ics.. watch your favorite series.. prac­tice a hob­by you love.. live with your chil­dren, play an enter­tain­ing game with them.. walk in the street, you and your child, and tell him about every­thing he has curios­i­ty about. If you are reli­gious, thank your Lord, learn new skills that suit you.. after­wards do the same thing.. actu­al­ly you won’t do the lit­er­al same thing because you will have changed the series you watch.. and read anoth­er book… and walked with your child in oth­er places and explained new things to him and learned a new skill.. and this for­ma­tion, in addi­tion to the fact that life itself moves, gen­er­ates in your life oth­er diverse pat­terns with oth­er details.. these details of life are what cre­ate mean­ing.

For exam­ple, recent­ly, my son and I were sit­ting dur­ing the day, and by chance, a crack in the win­dow cast an image onto the oppo­site wall. It was a sig­nif­i­cant detail, and although my son is only three years old, I explained to him that the images mov­ing on the wall were noth­ing but the street and its con­tents, pro­ject­ed upside down on the wall. So, I told him, “This mag­ic light trick is actu­al­ly the super secret, ancient grand­fa­ther of the cam­era in my phone! A long, long time ago, peo­ple saw this and fig­ured out how to build a box to cap­ture those upside-down pic­tures. And that’s exact­ly how the very first cam­eras, and even the ones in our phones, were invent­ed!” This hap­pened in a dystopi­an place; so what about the new options avail­able in the rest of the world? We must not close our eyes and say the world is absurd and bor­ing. It is not the world’s prob­lem if you fail to see what is in it and instead deem it bor­ing and absurd.