by Amr Moneib
Exodus of the chimp
So, he lived all his life among his fellow humans. They look like him, the same hair, nose, eyes, ears, arms, they walk on two, eat with their hands, cover their bodies with clothes and communicate with others using vocal sounds also known as speech.
He always felt normal, they look the same he thought, they are more similar to him than these hairy creatures, with pink naked butts, who only make sounds hoo hoo hoo for conversation, also known as chimps.
But lately he started to doubt it, he started to feel the familiarity with his hairy neighbors with whom he never shared a word. As hard as he always tried it, he never got to understand the hoo hoo language they speak.
What a bizarre thought! What a weird idea! this guy must have lost it. He must be crazy to see himself more of a chimp than a man. Not to me.
I totally understand him, that's why when he came to me last night and kept telling me about what he has been through. I felt lost for a bit too. But I gave him the advice he decided to follow now. I am not sure I can take my own advice and practice it. But he did.
He kept telling me about the humans he has met, who kept telling lies and acting innocent, who kept killing people and then named saints, who kept forcing people into their own ideas and yet never practice it. He told me about this man who acted like a savior, but ruined everything. He told me about this man who acted as the one who'd save them from the last savior and ended up a cunning gangster.
What really bugged me the most; were his stories about the people who called themselves men of science and knowledge, who turned out to be phony. They never practice either and they deprive others from it. They want to use it just for the sake of power and wealth and never to help others.
He also told me about those who were being judgmental. Who kept saying these belong to heaven and those belong to hell. These are believers and those are going to rot in hell. What is heaven? What is hell? He kept saying. They keep allocating people in heaven or hell as if it was their inherited lands. They act as if they know some secrets that God won't know. As if they tell Him where this belongs and what the other deserves.
The funny thing is that he kept telling me about someone who kept accusing him of killing 10 cattle. When that person was just condemned in absentia of murdering 100 human civilians.
I was laughing, my laughter bothered my friend. Who started shouting, I tried to persuade him to relax and cut himself some slack but he wouldn't. He started telling me that the naked chimps have nothing to be ashamed about. We do.
So I said with a hysterical laugh, " OK, dear go live with the chimps." I said it and kept laughing. What he did afterwards was pretty amazing.
He stood silently up and started taking his clothes off. "What the hell are you doing?", I said. He kept mumbling some words, they sounded like the hoo hoo sounds for me. He was butt naked now. I felt disgusted. But not for long. He got out of my flat and went straight to his car. I've never seen him since.
That was what I wrote into my diary 2 years ago, and I never heard about my friend again, until I read in the newspapers that an insane person has been living in the jungle for 2 years now and that he has been married with children to a chimp.
When a hunter who first saw him tried to help him out of the jungle, my friend and his wife the chimp attacked the hunter and cut his hand off. The hunter survived the incident to tell us this incredible story. Yet he was considered crazy and is set for trial for the possibility of falsification of this story in what is known as the "Chimp-Man Hoax." But you know what? I totally believe the hunter.
My Prayers Rewritten
The serenity prayer has always taken me. How it says it all. It always led me to a peaceful state of mind and soul. I felt comfortable, peaceful and sometimes content.
The prayer which I come to know now it was written in a 20th century sermon by the Protestant American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, came to my knowledge for the first time six years ago while I was reading the book Lucky Man by Michael J. Fox. The Canadian actor who developed early onset Parkinsonism yet found happiness and gratefulness and most of all serenity in life.
The prayer says: " God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference."
How powerful yet peaceful and merciful, How impulsive yet wise, how bitter yet grateful, I always thought.
Isn't life about experiences, about its happy moments and its sad moments? Its jubilation and its grief? Isn't life about tasting both the sweet and the sour?
To appreciate the sweet we have to try the sour. Not just try it I'd say, but enjoy it. Enjoy the hardships of life, the loneliness, the separation, the injustice, the inequality, the lack of tolerance, the stupidity, the ugliness, the obscene and the departure.
Finding the serenity within, so we can go on, knowing deep down inside that one day, may be not right now, maybe not in this lifetime, maybe not on this planet. God will give us justice.
If we look around, you might find the lead, your way to the Almighty's lit path. His way to justice and compensation. He says to you He'll never forsake you, just look around and you'll see it. It is in the eyes of those who cherish you and love you more than anything in the whole world.
You just lost your way looking for the unachievable, not because you can't but because you were not meant to. You were misled by the phony lights, when you had the beautiful crystal lights within your reach.
So after a recent experience, that I consider a failure. Where I tried to please the unpleasable and fix the unfixable, I decided to rewrite my beloved prayer.
" God grant me the courage not to pursue what I cannot change, the wisdom while I am changing what I can change, and the serenity while I am looking delightfully knowing the difference."
One last word
No matter how bad the situation might seem in Egypt. We are still a proud nation. We are proud of our ancestors who built up the oldest civilization in the world, they built the pyramids that stood here for 5000 years. We are proud of our heritage that got to accept the cultures of the Romans, the Persians, the Greeks, the Arabs and the Turks to give the world the unique civilization that we are.
Egypt was the mixture of cultures and the refuge of many great minds through out the centuries. It aches us that some people don’t see that and they try to put off Egypt’s light. Sometimes we are in despair. We see all these negative sides. Yet, I believe that once we know all these bad things by heart. Once we teach the youth that these things are not meant to be and most of all shouldn’t be held under Egypt’s name. I believe that light will show up at the end of the tunnel and new pyramids will be built.
“Requiem” will never be played in Egypt. History taught us that. We should do our part. Dear Egypt, sometimes we have to leave you for a while. But we will never let go.
-THE END-
The author is Amr Magdi Moneib. Born and lives in Cairo, Egypt. He is a practicing doctor and he teaches medicine in Ain Shams University. He writes about Egypt, the revolution, the people he meets and practicing medicine when resources are almost close to nothing. “Requiem: Cloud of thoughts that rained ink unto paper” is his first published work.
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