Our Lives

Look at this city, the one you are visualizing right now. See that 15-story building? Now you see it. I let you give him a color, but I impose this man at the top. Approach him from the right and watch his hesitant gaze. He trembles, for he hesitates; I jump, or I don’t jump? If I let myself slip, I will have no more holds and no chance of catching myself. The real question he should be asking is, “Do I want to live or not?” Merely. His tremors betray him because he wishes to give up pursuing his existence. Why exactly? He thinks he missed his life and never achieved anything. At first, it kept him from sleeping, but then the anxiety went from the nocturnal phase to the daytime phase. He thinks that because he’s a compulsive perfectionist. Nothing is perfect enough for him. He sets the bar so high that he gives up trying to gain momentum to do what he really loves to do and what some expect of him. From his hands were born wonderful prose, beautiful stories, but to move to the longer format, it blocks. He is afraid of disappointment. Fear is the primary emotion that can block or protect us. It all depends on how it is received.

Question: Who is unanimous?

God himself is not worshiped by all his creations. So a human can’t either. Perfection is divine, imperfection is human, reasons why we make so many mistakes, are to mark out our projects, to correct the situation, but above all to improve ourselves and become better than we were yesterday. We advance by doing, by making mistakes, and by stumbling. We don’t lose, we learn.
The distance that separates our man from the end is the height of this building and the duration of a few minutes. What does he want to perfect? Has he unwittingly taken on a divine figure that no human can have? Does he really want to end it?
Our man has just become aware of it. There he is, stepping back and exhaling as his body moves away from the edge. He releases his breath. He realizes what he was going to do and what he really wanted to do. Furthermore, he wants to live all at once and try to do what he loves to do. He will start by having fun and loving himself. To want to please the world is to dissolve in enemy mouths. To please oneself is to win the support of sincere and benevolent souls. Sometimes, dormant souls begin to sparkle as soon as they are stimulated. Stimulation is done by the discovery of a pen never read before. Our writings survive us, as do the souls. Both are immortal.
Why wait to write eternity?

No limit insight so forward. Our man descends from the roof with a feeling of shame to have fallen so low, then an immense joy to be alive rises and moistens his eyes. He’s a little confused and still shaking. His first objective is to return to his home, then to see his family and then the others. He wants to feed on others in order to then feed them.
He has just realized the beauty of his existence and that the first person to satisfy is him.

Abdelhamid NIATI

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