Change

Marwan stretched across a couch in the lunchroom of the Al-Wasat daily, pen and notepad in hand. On that day following the Eid holiday, there seemed nothing more serene than the silent rush of traffic as observed from a double-glazed window. The setting sun poured down its golden light in bucket loads across the road to Budaiya.

I began writing my column in this daily with the idea that I could say something that might, or might not change the world, he wrote_. I then learned that changing the world does not begin with a barrage of ideas. Changing the world is not in the realm of human possibilities. It is an illusion that we chase, one that we fool ourselves into accepting just to give ourselves hope about the future. An uncertain future._

Little by little, Marwan slipped into the past, into the memories of a childhood spent running under the summer sun in palm gardens, stepping on rich, moist soil. Into a time when he went to the hafez, learning and memorizing the Quran.

“The objects of nature change very slowly. A palm tree remains a palm tree, it remains what it is and will not change for a very long time, unless it is very young and immature. The more mature, the more set in its ways an object is. All that changes then is what we think of it and how we appreciate it,” Sayed Ali Al-Qudsi said one day at the hafez.

“It is the same for everything else. Most mature things are constant. The change we observe in them comes from us.

“What changes most in this universe is what we, the vice-regents of God on this earth, do. Our free will, our choice and reason is what makes us different from other creatures and objects. We can change in an instant.

“Yet the older we get, like the mature palm tree, the less potential for change we have and the less potential for change we see in others.”

On remembering what Al-Qudsi said, Marwan continued writing:

_Everyone is the same, it is only our inherent subjectivity that makes us appear different to each other. It is a subjectivity formulated by our presumptions and conceits, our judgments and suppositions, our culture and traditions, and our religion and faith. It is that subjectivity that makes you and I different to the same person. Perhaps I’m being sardonic, perhaps not.

_

Sometimes maturity means understanding why we’re heading somewhere before we know how we’ll get there. It is the reason why people stipulate and postulate, sometimes with regards to what they see as right, other times with regards to what they see as wrong. And sometimes, with regards to what they see. Simply see.

I’m afraid there is no better way to end this column than with an age-old cliche, that which says change begins with oneself. Ergo, change in others begins with oneself.

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