A Non-Trivial Walking in Baghdad

The last lines of Freud lecture were: "If you wish life, be prepared for death". I respect Freud. I imagine him talking with a bitter expression on his face. I liked how he was pictured in the film "A Dangerous Method". I respect what he says. The very bitter truth. But don't you think that this new training shoes are sweet:

"Well it's one for the money, and 2 for the shoes, and 3 to get ready and go cat go but don't you, step on my red train shoes". When my father, in the bitter poor 90s of the previous century, realized bitterly that his economy did not support anymore anything extra but some food, and essential clothes, I stopped my piano lessons. I wanted guitar. I was always good at school and when succeeded in good marks in the 4th secondary class he decided to buy me a guitar. The first tune was played with a single string: a song of Fairouz, and the family was happily surprized. The second was the song "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman and the surprise became applauding. Then it was Elves Presley's "Blue Suede Shows".

"Fast Car" was my mother's favorite. I think she, like all of us, dreamed of leaving Iraq. 

One day I saw a caricature that I still don't believe in: an Iraqi who's roots are like a tree deep in the earth and showing: "We won't leave": 

Well, I think the truth is that , we all will leave if we have a respectful opportunity. Anyway. My friend, who's accompany is not trivial at all, offered me a walk in central Baghdad and we went walking fastely and taking photos and talking. He invited me to have lunch in a Kurdish restaurant: two sheesh of Kabab:

 Central old Baghdad is a very good place to walk in in Fridays. It is almost empty and very calm. And we walked. And we talked.

And I found a book by Erich Fromm entitled "The Art of Being". More modern than Freud but also bitter. He tried to write about the meaning of life, and the meaning of happiness and he wrote well but my concentration was not that intense in the reading and I was not taking notes postponing this to a second reading maybe till I reached the following lines: "The human being is like the Amazigh mythical hero Enti who charge himself from touching the earth who can only be killed by making him suspended in the air for a while"

 I remembered that Iraqi caricature of that man with his roots and shouting: "We won't leave!"
I remembered also Amin Maalouf's preferring  to use the word "origins" instead of "roots". I learned from Maalouf that we don't have roots, we have origins.

The talking with my friend was not trivial that day. My friend likes serious philosophical conversations and adds to me many insuring ideas, ideas that I suspected to be very subjective and non-speech-able but with my friend, Freud, and Erich Fromm, the existence is becoming clearer and less threatening, I hope.