Via Basel: To Chris

Art by Suzanne Stryk, Passing Time

To Chris on this 15th Anniversary: Past is not past

Audio version here

The past has not passed. It lingers on, it informs us, it haunts us, shapes us, through our memories as we disassemble, then reframe them again and again. It can be repressed but never eliminated.

The future is always being assembled and transformed presently by our actions, individually and collectively, on a moment to moment basis. Other natural forces uncontrolled by humans may also affect it. How it manifests can never be accurately predicted.

Thus the difficulty of being in the present: it is elusively compressed between them.  An extraordinary degree of clarity is necessary to stay in the present moment. We try and fail, only to try again: Sisyphus like. A few glimpses or fleeting insights may be experienced by the lucky and persistent few. For the rest an illusory task. So we fake, compensate, deny, or a combo of them. A sad reality then? Or is it a distinct characteristic embedded in our DNA, all the way back to our beginnings. 

Going back and researching recorded history of the last 5500 years at least, we find that externally things have changed dramatically, labeled as progress by most observers and challenged by a few. However, a closer look into the internal mechanisms of the human mind by probing into these old written stories, myths, and concerns and fears, preserved on clay tablets, papyrus, or parchment, etc., and studying the effects of our ancestors’ actions on nature including us humans shows me that hardly much has changed. By that I mean our ignorance, avoiding dealing directly with our problems, lack of learning from mistakes, our arrogance and inflated sense of self and importance in the much larger picture of reality and the universe at large. By ignorance I don’t mean a lack of intelligence and creativity, which we humans have in abundance. I define ignorance here by its counterpart, that subtle quality that you sense in a human but is difficult to pinpoint and referred to tangentially as wisdom, balance, goodness, equanimity, and other imperfect descriptions. We know that precious gem is lacking in the vast majority of us in these modern or postmodern times. I suspect the same, going back as far as we can in time, as I realistically discern, doing my best not to be caught in a pro-human species bias.

As I have struggled with the above-stated depressing conundrum in my later years, unconsciously early on, becoming  clearer as time passed by, I found myself returning repeatedly to my past. Probing stories from my childhood and recording them, collecting photos of my family stretching back a century ago, organizing, digitizing, and archiving them. Then going back further into my family’s traditions, culturally and spiritually, and exploring my DNA ancestry using new technology. That quest for the Aramaic Jesus of my tradition is still ongoing. And lately because of my interest in writing and its origins going back further to Sumer, Babylon, and Nineveh 5000 years ago. All very familiar to me because of my origins in Mesopotamia (Iraq today). I was born and raised in Baghdad, only a short distance from Babylon. My parents and their parents were born in Mosul, the modern name for Nineveh in the north. I spent a year during my military service in Umara, near the marshes of southern Iraq and not far away from Uruk, the capital of the Sumerians, a civilization that started it all. Basically I feel I have a vested interest in it all, rational or not as that may seem.

Bridge by Suzanne Stryk

Viewing the uncomfortable present state of affairs through the long prism of time stretching way back, provides a measure of solace and continuity, while at the same time highlighting the slow or even lack of meaningful progress in humanity’s quest for a higher ground in values, ethics, morality, and equality: areas we all idealize in theory, express in speech but lack in action: a hypocrisy and inauthenticity on a major scale. Before we even can envision practical solutions to our present dilemmas, severe and existential as they may be, a deeper, more balanced, and less judgmental and biased study of our origins and what makes us tick as Homo sapiens is essential. 

Chris, on this occasion, the 15th anniversary of your escape, I dedicate this column to you, as your impact stretches from my past, into the present and continues through my actions and writing well into the future. 

With love and remembrance,

DAD

Basel Al-Aswad, father of EIL founder Christopher Al-Aswad, is a yogi trapped in an Orthopedic Surgeon’s body. His loves in life include reading, writing, hiking, enjoying nature, meditation, and spending time with his large Iraqi family; now, semi-retired, he is exploring new avenues in medicine, education, public speaking, teaching, and social engagement.