Lessons from a little girl

Very recently, I was on a plane, an experience I always enjoy (notwithstanding the process of getting into, and out of, the plane). I always hope for non-intrusive, relaxed passengers to have taken the seats surrounding mine, but this time I found myself sandwiched between the window and a cute little girl of around 5 years.

Unlike a great many number of people, specially around my age, I am always fascinated by, and fond of, children, their behavior a serious food for both mind and soul. Thus, I found myself in a figurative gold mine of observation and reflection.

The first thing that always hits you about kids is the persistent curiosity, because we are all curious about somethings, but when we find an answer we stop right there. We don't think about alternative answers or the question that the very answer produced in the first place. I suppose childhood is the time when you get continuously disappointed by answers that are less than your ambitions of the magic that might be behind the question, eventually just killing curiosity altogether.

Translations: O My Son by Adam Fathy

Do not cry, for the sorrows of the youth
go like a dream with dawn,
and soon you will get older, O my son,
and want for tears, but they will not flow.

If rain stayed up with us,
or the cold covered our streets,
then warmth will build our limbs,
and the flames of the Earth will flow in us.

And if a song is hoarsely sung to you,
or a bare foot groaned,
then the suns of your comrades will come,
and they will rise from the wrath of poverty

Translations: Nothing Pleases Me by Mahmud Darwish

A bus Passenger says:

“Nothing pleases me. Not the radio,
nor the morning papers,
nor the castles on the hills.
I want to cry.”

The Driver says:
“Await the arrival to the stop,
and cry alone all you can.”

The Lady says:
“I too, nothing pleases me.
I showed my son my grave,
so he liked it, and slept,
and did not bid me farewell.”

The Academic says:
“Me neither, nothing pleases me.
I studied archaeology without
finding identity in the rocks.
Am I truly me?”

Translations: Do Not Reconcile by Amal Dunqul

(1)
Do not reconcile!
Even if they offered you gold!
Suppose I exsect your eyes
then in their place fix two jewels…
do you see?
They are un-buyable things.
Childhood memories between your brother and yourself.
Your (both) sense – suddenly – of manhood,
this modesty which suppresses yearn when you embrace him,
the silence – smiling – to reprimand your mother,
as if you are,
still two children.
That eternal tranquility between you,
that two swords: your sword,
two voices: your voice,
that if you died:
there is a master for the house,
and a father for the child.
Does my blood become – in your eyes – water?
Do you forget my bloodstained attire;
wear – over my blood – clothes embroidered with threads (of gold/silver)?!
It is war!
It may heavy the heart...
but behind you is the shame of the Arabs!
Do not reconcile,
nor mean escape!

The Theory of Evolution

When we were younger, the idea fed to us regarding the theory of evolution was that it – quite literally – meant that our ancestors were monkeys (much like the ones we saw in Disney’s Tarzan or National Geographic). We were made to understand that the common as well as professional opinion on the matter was of satire, that the only ones who believed in it were, for their own reasons, people who refused to accept either religion or even God.

As I grew up, I learned the exact opposite: the theory of evolution is the most important theory in all of biology according to most scientists and researchers. It is as important to biology as plate tectonics is to geology, as one man had put it. So what are the misconceptions that have pushed most of the world to reject this very important idea?