Taste of Ulcer, Joy of Pain and Silence of God

Photo by Cosimo Filippini 2008

When Insomnia is no more a new thing, there are other new things ahead to come to you. This time, could this be a pain from a wound inside you, not a moral wound itself, but a physical wound caused by moral wounds and sufferings. Wounds which are sometimes necessary to have them as navigators of life, as determiners of the directions and as warning lights of limitations of our actions. Wounds that bring you pain, and pain that would let you suffer as much as it wants and then it is you responsible what to do with suffering from those pains; whether to free you from the pain forever or let you be in it and experiencing a kind of strange joy given by it. You may then have a joyful experiment with it.

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Well, simply saying, the case is “ulcer”, a disease that is common and many can have it very easily, no price to pay to have it, it is enough to be careless and to have a little bit more stress in your daily life, that is it, you could have it!

Disorder in your meal time, not having good meal, repeatedly made meals, using a lot of conserved meal etcetera could be one part, then you should have many other problems as well to have a nice “ulcer” the best possible way.

You have to be far from you family, remember them all days, miss them a lot, be single and have no girlfriend for a couple of years, then you must have problems at your work, problems with working hours, irregularity in what you eat during your working hours etcetera could also help you get the “ulcer” much faster.

Good to be concerned about your people, the innocent ones who are being killed all days back home like sheep in an abattoir without any guilt, this would also help your “ulcer” grow better.

But one big thing that is very necessary for the process of having a nice “ulcer” is your preoccupation for a future that you do not know about; especially when you apply for a school and then you do not know what would happen with the results. These expectancies can ease the process of the “ulcer” and you can have a perfect “ulcer” without a doubt.

Once you got it, it is the time to relax, forget everything else in your life and just spend all your time to coup with it.

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It’s been now, a year and half or a couple of years that I coup with “ulcer”. Years back, I had heard about it especially during the holy month of Ramadan, the people who could not fast, were entitled to have “ulcer” but then I laughed on them and thought, “what weak people they were”, for a small stomach problem, they avoid fasting. Although later it revealed that many others just were using the name of “ulcer” as an excuse for avoiding fasting, however I could now feel very well, the people with real “ulcer”.

And finally years after it came to me during this year’s Ramadan. The same thing happened to me; I could not fast as I could not resist without eating or drinking for up to sixteen hours. The other bad thing, I’d always hated was the to have a big abdomen, since my childhood, I’d always wondered why people have big abdomen and whenever I saw fat people, they seemed to me funny, I laughed on them whether on my face or just in my mind. And now with the “ulcer” I myself have a big belly. It is almost always inflated and I feel shameful about it. In Afghanistan, once it used to be a “bella figura” to have a big belly, the men with big abdomen were mostly the rich Hajis, who were so proud of their big stomach and were thought to be respectful in the society. And now, I, with an “ulcer”, an invisible point of pain inside my stomach, see how things could come to people who never expected them. Now I remember very well, my mom’s saying to me; “do not laugh on people, so one day they won’t laugh on you, because the world is round and things are gonna go and come back to you in this circle”. That is my mom’s most valuable advice and lesson for me.

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Time is tough when you have an “ulcer”. It is hard especially when you are ordered for a long list of diet, but no matter with it though, it is worse when you have to wake up in the middle of night and have something to eat so stop the pain of your stomach. And when you live in a kind of “students shared room structures”, you’ll have to disturb room mate(s) and every one else.

Having an “ulcer”, you are most of the time by yourself, you do not have the sense of socialization, you lose the sense of humor, you like to be alone, isolated and within your own world which in long period may hurt you mentally and psychologically.

People or friends who do not know from inside you, think, you are selfish, or you have changed much by time, but who knows you are in conflict with yourself, with a part of your body, with a small invisible wound that is meaner than any other enemies of you.

But who can see and feel it to understand you? No one!

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Apart from its negative aspects that you feel you are isolated or abandoned by the others, with an “ulcer”, life is very different as well. The “ulcer”, as a turning point in one’s life, works as an awakening alarm to show the fragility of life, especially when you have big dreams, many plans and programs to accomplish and then you see only a small wound that you have never thought of, threatens you from inside your stomach, so you have to be fast in your actions and be very careful with your timelines; before something happens to your life, do your best with your accomplishments to leave a good trace behind you as you’ve always thought about and dreamed of.

It leads you to a trip on a different path. On this path, you feel a kind of burning pain inside you that no one else could feel or see what is going on with you, but on the other hand, this burning pain is what keeps you awake until late nights to think, to feel and to understand the world through the silence and darkness of the night the importance of which is not discovered yet by the people. This feeling, this wound and this pain lets you be so free from many useless materialistic stuff in the world, lets you be deep, and leads you towards the stars in the sky each of which tells you a story by blinking to your eyes.

You may become irresistant and cry to the sky, seeking the answer from the creator that has created you; you may ask Him/Her why He/She had created you if He/She can not guarantee you, a painless life?! Why has He/She created you when He/She can not protect you against a small wound that is inside you?

You may shout aloud and cry to the sky, what is the purpose of your life that you’ve passed most part of it with wounds and pains?! You may shout aloud to the sky and ask “Is this the humanity?!” You cry and shout so loud to wake every one else saying; “Where is justice of God?!” But nothing happens.

With all your cries and wails, you get no answers and God is still silent as ever. He/She is silent as He/She has been all the time. You cry, cry, wail, shout and hit your head to the wall but you don’t get any answers yet, God is still silent!

He/She is still silent, as if, no one has ever suffered, as if no one has ever cried or wailed for justice.

He/She is silent as if there has never been injustice and sufferance in the world He/She has created. He/She is silent as if He/She has no eyes to see what His/Her creatures do on his created globe.

The silence of God disappoints you and you have to stop asking Him/Her again and again!

The grandeur of late night silences, the loneliness, the openness of your heart late at night, and the meaning of God, all and all helps you feel humanity and the value of mankind better. It helps you turn to yourself, to know you better, to think, question and seek the answer about your own existence from yourself, what you are for, why you have come and what you have to do.

At the end, without receiving any kind of answers from God, you thank that is the little wound inside you “ulcer” that has forced you at least to think about all these things and seek an answer for them.

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Sometime ago, I heard in her interview, that Sussan Taslimi, Iranian-Swedish Actress said that an artists should have a burning soul which would lead them in their artistic directions. Then a few months ago, actually in last winter when we were shooting in cold weather, a colleague asked “Is it not that we have to suffer for art?!” And finally a few days ago, when I met with the Iranian Film Director Asghar Farhadi during his film premiere in Milan, I learnt one thing from him and that is “it is him who has something inside that leads him make such films, so if he changes his working place or if he works on a multi-million budget film with Hollywoodian facilities, his films would still be the same, because he is grown that way and the force that is inside him, pushes him to make only such films.” He answered it to an audience’s question saying this.

Sadegh Hedayat in his famous book, “The Blind Owl” talked of existence of incurable wounds that remain for the whole life with human beings and eat their soul calmly in isolation; some people try to cure it with alcohol and drugs while they do not know that there are no cure yet for such wounds and these substances are only temporary remedy and then worsen the situation.

For him could these wounds be, not in a physical form but moral, however the case is the same at the end; eating yourself from inside with moral pains, you are finally led to physical wounds.

For the first time, I heard about the Silence of God in Ingmar Bergman’s beautiful film “Winter Light” where the protagonist, a priest is complaining for two things: the pains he has received in his life after the death of his wife and the Silence of God he has faced with in spite of praying and praying.

And then after all, I’ve always asked me; well, what is it that hurting thing inside a human being? What is it that would burn one and makes him/her reach nearly to the end and then return to a new beginning? But I haven’t found the sharp answer for it yet. Could this be a wound, any kind of wound; a moral one or physical one!