I asked myself, “What is the best use of my time?” A perennial question for which I was hoping to find an answer when I opened Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.
I flipped through the book’s pages and landed on a page with the following short passage:
The Yogaveda will teach me no longer, nor the Atharvaveda, nor the ascetics, nor any other teaching. I will learn from myself, be my own student. I will learn about myself, about the mystery of Siddhartha.
This was the guidance that I had been seeking all along. I will learn from myself, be my own teacher, be my own student. I will learn about myself, about the mystery of Mostafa.
I realized that I had been spending a disproportionate amount of my time learning from others. Reading their books. Watching their videos. Listening to their podcasts.
And not enough time reading my own writings, observing my own thoughts and emotions, and listening to my own inner voice.
It was as if that inner voice – that Mostafa – had drowned beneath all the words coming from the outside world.
The only way to listen to and learn from Mostafa is to give him the time and space to express himself.
Give him time to:
Let Mostafa guide Mostafa.
Let him listen to his own thoughts, feelings, and insights. Let him learn from them. Let them become wisdom.
Sunrise, sunset
There are moments in life that I live for
Holding you in my arms during sunrise is one of them
Sunrise, sunset
Life is fleeting every day
There is always a beginning and an end to every life
Sunrise, sunset
Why are we oblivious to the magic of every day
Night gives birth to day, and day gives birth to night
Sunrise, sunset
We are born every morning and die every night
Blessed am I to spend the moments between my birth and death with you
Sunrise, sunset
Watching the sun rise in all its glory awakens my soul
Watching the sun set reminds me of our mystical encounter
Sunrise, sunset
We might not realize it, but we spend most of our lives inside a box. Whether we are working, studying, eating, sleeping, or just living, we find ourselves in a box. I say this literally and figuratively. Let me explain.
If you stop reading for a second and look around you, you will realize that you are inside a box. Yes, that’s right: the room you are in is a big box. That room is one of several box inside a bigger box, your apartment. And the room and the apartment are inside an even bigger box, a building. It’s like a Russian doll. One box inside another inside another. Some boxes are warm and cozy. Others are cold and bleak. Whether they are comfy or not doesn’t change the fact that they’re still boxes.
We spend most of our lives inside a box.
On some days I feel like a caged animal. On those days, I want to break free and roam freely in the wild like our ancient ancestors.
I am happiest when I am outside a box.
I love the warmth of the sun on my skin, the wind brushing against my face, the sound of chirping birds and rustling leaves, the smell of salty air, and the sight of lush greenery, blue sky, and flowing water.
I love breathing real, fresh air.
Spending too much time inside a box can be suffocating. It is like putting a plant inside a shoe box with no water, light, or air. As time passes, the plan shrivels up and dies.
Like plants, we are meant to be in nature.
We cage ourselves inside boxes. Unlike nature, boxes can be made to be very comfortable. They lull us into complacency. They make us sedentary. They make us forget where we came from and where we belong. They tame and domesticate us.
We are truly connected and alive when we are in nature.
We forget that we are children of the forest, the meadow, the valleys, the seas, the rivers, the deserts… the wild. We instinctively know that nature is our true home and yet we choose to cage ourselves inside boxes.
There are boxes we can see and there are boxes we cannot see.
The invisible boxes are more insidious than the visible ones. They are the boxes of the mind. If we are not aware of them, they can imprison us forever. They can keep us mired in beliefs, mindsets, and worldviews that limit us and hold us back.
Just like the visible boxes, the invisible boxes can stifle us.
We must remain vigilant and notice when we are trapped inside one of these boxes. We must live (and think) outside the box. Better yet, we must completely get outside of the box.
We must set ourselves free.
“I am Alexander the Great, King of Macedon, Hegemon of the Hellenic League, Shahanshah of Persia, Pharaoh of Egypt, and Lord of Asia,” he thought to himself as his ship set sail and he breathed in the salty breeze from the East. At his prime, Alexander sought to reach the ends of the earth to fulfil his dream of becoming master of the universe, to immortalize himself among the gods. He had triumphed against the formidable Persian Empire and now set his eyes on uniting the East and the West and creating the greatest empire in history.
Alexander’s eyes scanned the distant islands of Indonesia as the trade winds filled the masts of his naval fleet. Despite the prophecy of the Oracle of Siwa that he would meet his end at sea, he decided to set sail. He had also been warned by his closest generals that his fleet was ill-equipped to launch an attack against the indigenous tribes of Sumatra. Nevertheless, Alexander was certain that it was his destiny to conquer the last territory known to mankind. He had even suppressed his own doubts. He had never learned how to swim, and his army had never conquered by sea before, but that would not deter him. He would see his dream come to fruition no matter what.
As the fleet of three hundred ships entered unchartered territory, the clear morning blue sky turned grey and gloomy with heavy clouds. Gusts of wind blew from all directions. The ships’ masts rattled intensely, making the white sails appear like giant ghosts approaching from the horizon. What were calm, quiet waters only a few hours earlier soon became raging, wild waves. Bright white lightning struck in the distance behind the surrounding dark grey clouds. Alexander’s ships were in the eye of the storm.
The soldiers on board Alexander’s ship began muttering to each other how reckless their leader had been for insisting on this hazardous expedition. With the lightning reflecting in his eyes, Alexander kept his eyes fixed on the islands that were his next target. He remained oblivious to all that surrounded him. As the ships rocked violently from side to side, it was clear that Alexander’s fleet was in grave danger.
“I am the master of the seas,” he proclaimed out loud to his soldiers. “I alone will see us through this storm,” he roared as his soldiers began to voice their concerns. The more he grew in pride, the higher the waves rose.
Amidst all the commotion, time seemed to pass by more quickly. The storm got worse. Waves crashed against the ships from all sides. Lightening ripped through the sky in all directions. Despite the madness, Alexander kept his calm and would not look away from the islands.
Suddenly, almost half of Alexander’s fleet disappeared. A misty fog enveloped the remainder of the fleet. Alexander could hear faint shouts and screams from the other ships. He ordered a sailor to climb to the crow’s nest and see what was going on. The sailor quickly climbed the ship’s main mast and jumped into the nest. He looked in all directions before descending just as quickly. “No sight of the other ships my lord,” he reported to Alexander.
“Does Poseidon seek to play games with me?” Alexander scoffed. “Does he forget that I am master of the universe?”
Looking around, Alexander saw the look of fear in his soldiers’ eyes. Despite their valour at war, the Greeks feared the gods. They knew the gods, especially Poseidon, could be whimsical and ruthless. Alexander’s men feared that they had invoked Poseidon’s wrath. They blamed their leader for their misfortune, but no one dared confront him.
As the waves continued to hammer the fleet from all directions, ships began to collide against one another, crash, and sink. Soldiers jumped off the ships and into row boats, striving to escape the carnage but it was futile. Hundreds were losing their lives by the minute.
Not even in his most fierce battles had Alexander experienced such a humiliating defeat. He began to feel something that he had not felt in many years. He could not tell what it was. The emotion was foreign to him. As he looked around and witnessed his mighty army of warriors shatter into pieces, his pride gave way to despair.
Within a few weeks of setting sail from the east coast of India, the proud Alexander who had conquered the greatest empires on the planet was at the mercy of nature. For the first time in his life, he realized that he was not invincible. He was fallible. It dawned upon him that, alas, he might not fulfil his dream. As he reflected on the unexpected turn of events, he felt defeated - not by his enemies but by his own blind ambition and arrogance. The moment of introspection ended when he looked up and saw a colossal tidal wave tower over his ship and come crashing down.
***
Panting, Alexander woke up drenched in sweat. When he came to his senses, he realized that he was in his tent. He could hear crickets outside. He was on land, in his camp. It was a dream. A nightmare to be precise.
Alexander stood up, walked to the entrance of the tent, and stepped outside to see hundreds of his soldiers loading provisions and arms on the ships bound for Indonesia.
“The trade winds are picking up. We shall be ready to set sail within an hour”, whispered Craterus into Alexander’s ear.
Without saying a word, Alexander returned to his tent and began preparing for the expedition.
They looked like wild creatures coming out of the water.
With their long hair and rubbery skinsuits.
They floated on their boards, swaying from side to side
as the waves raged around them.
They were waiting for the right moment.
“Surf’s up!” one of them would call out.
Suddenly, they would all begin paddling hurriedly.
Some would be too early, some too late.
The lucky ones would catch the wave and ride its crest from beginning to end.
At the end they would all fall off their boards and plunge into the water.
While it lasted, it was an incomparable high.
They lived in another dimension.
It is on windy days like this, when the surf’s up, can you find the surfers riding Mojacar’s waves.
“So you’re still coming to our wedding, right?” she asked with trepidation over the phone.
“Yes darling. Of course I’m coming.” I responded with all the confidence that I could muster. How else could one answer such a question?
These are strange times and nothing is certain. Marta and I had finalized all of the arrangements for our wedding just the week before. After days of planning, we had booked the wedding venue (a beautiful Tahiti-style beachfront restaurant), bought flights for family and close friends, and commissioned a jeweler to design and cast our bespoke wedding bands. The only problem was that the wedding was going to be in Spain, one of the countries hit hardest by the coronavirus. Little did we know that less than three weeks later Spain would surpass Italy to be the country with the highest number of coronavirus cases in Europe.
We had been waiting for over a year to get approval from the Spanish government to go ahead with our wedding plans. It wasn’t very common that the tiny village of Vera (on the southeastern tip of Spain) received an application for an international marriage. I remember the procedure as if it happened yesterday. After an hour-long interview to verify that Marta and I actually knew one another, and that our request to get married was legitimate, the judge concluded the interview with me by asking me bluntly, “So why do you want to marry her?”
“Because I love her,” I responded, almost defensively. It was such a strange question to ask someone getting married but I guess the judge was just doing her job. An hour later, after going through the same closed-door interview, Marta exited another room. We had completed the last step of the marriage application process and would have wait for several months before finding out if the Spanish government would grant us permission to get married.
We had been through so much in our relationship to get to marriage. Four and a half years of being apart. Thousands of miles of distance between us. Constantly being in different time zones. We had even lived on diametrically opposite ends of the planet at some point. But we never let anything get in the way of our love.
With the coronavirus spreading like a forest fire from country to country and international borders closing day by day, things were becoming very uncertain. Would we go ahead with our wedding plans? Would we celebrate with family and friends? Would we even still get married? And, of course, the question that is always on the minds of two people who are in a long-distance relationship: When would we see each other next?
As you can imagine, we were both distraught by what was happening. All travel between the U.S. and Europe had come to a standstill just a few days prior to our phone call, which meant that my brother, the best man, would not be able to attend the wedding. Travel restrictions were changing by the hour. All of a sudden, Nepal stopped granting Spanish citizens visas which meant that our honeymoon plans went out the window overnight. We needed to make some important decisions and we needed to make them fast. The spread of the coronavirus was accelerating and the situation seemed to be changing by the minute.
On March 13, just one week before we were scheduled to get married, we decided to cancel the wedding celebrations. It was the prudent thing to do. We could not imagine putting anyone’s life at risk, let alone that of our family and friends. We were heartbroken. Not only would we not be seeing our loved ones, but all of the days we had spent planning for the wedding had gone down the drain. We had been eagerly
looking forward to our wedding day since we received approval from the Spanish government to get married back in October 2019.
Amid the uncertainty and flurry of questions that preoccupied us, there was one question that we had still not answered until the wee-hours of March 14, the date my flight to Spain was scheduled: Would the groom show up to the wedding? The answer was obvious: yes. There was no doubt in my mind that I would go to Spain for our wedding. This was a day that Marta and I had been dreaming about for years. I was going to do everything I could to be there.
I was not so concerned about anything happening to me. But then the doubts started to arise:
What if you catch the virus on the trip?
What if they don’t let you into Spain?
What if you can’t return to the UAE to start your new job?
Why don’t you just postpone the wedding until the situation improves?
What if this…? What if that…?
The list was endless. Doubts swirled around in my mind. Concerns shared by loved ones who cared for me. With less than 12 hours before my flight to Madrid, I needed to make a decision and I needed to make it fast. Without thinking twice, I resolved to go. I would not let anything get in the way of my love for Marta.
The next morning, at the break of dawn, I took a taxi to Dubai International Airport (DXB). I had not been to the airport in over three months. This had been the longest time I had not taken a flight in over two years. After flying in and out of DXB every week for the past two years (mostly for work in case you’re wondering), it felt very surreal coming back to this place after so long. It was all the more eerie given how sparsely populated the airport was that day.
One could almost feel the anxiety in the air. Almost everyone was wearing a facemask. Mostly tourists scurrying to catch the last flights back home. An airport was the last place you would want to be visiting these days. It was the main gateway through which the coronavirus was transmitted from one country to the next.
I tried not to think too much even though I could feel my heart beating faster than usual. I just did as Marta instructed me to do. Put your facemask on as soon as you get to the airport. Wear the latex gloves. Minimize touching surfaces. Keep your distance from others, especially if they are coughing or sneezing.
At passport control, I was surprised to see all the smart gates closed and that there was only one line through which all passengers would need to pass. Fortunately, it was a short line given that it was 5:30am (and the likelihood that many wise travelers decided to postpone or cancel their trips). When I finally reached the passport control officer, I was relieved to find that she was a friendly Emirati lady who greeted me with a broad smile.
“Facemask off,” she said. I had forgotten that I still had my facemask on and that she still had the right to see my face. I took it off and smiled back at her. “Where are you flying to?” she then asked. “Spain.”
“Good,” she replied, “Because if you were flying to Italy you would not be allowed back into the UAE.”
I nodded politely.
“But who knows,” she continued, “things might change…for better… or for worse….” Her words weren’t very reassuring, but I felt like she was trying to put me at ease.
After passing the security check, I headed straight to the gate of my flight. Instead of strolling around the airport’s duty-free shops, I walked briskly to my gate. I was in disbelief by how bustling the duty-free shops were. When I first arrived to the airport, I was under the impression that I would not find many travelers inside. But how wrong I was. The duty free area was teeming with shoppers from all over the world. It was as if the world were coming to an end and people were taking their last gulps of consumerism before it was all over.
On the flight, I tried to read the copy of Homer’s Iliad that I had brought along with me but couldn’t. Instead I tried to get some sleep but also couldn’t. The adrenaline rush of this whole experience was simply too strong. To get my mind off the strong smell of sterilizer on the plane, I watched one documentary after another. Fortunately the passengers sitting beside me were a friendly couple from the Canary Islands. Having them tell me about their recent backpacking trip across Vietnam helped me get my mind off the coronavirus – even though it was a bit difficult to make out everything they were saying in their heavy Spanish accent behind the facemasks they kept on for the entire duration of the flight. When I told them that my final destination was Almeria (where Vera is located), they both gave out a sigh of relief. “Good thing your final destination is not Madrid,” the husband went on to say, “Because the situation there is pretty bad.”
And so with those words I landed in Madrid. I could feel the impact of the coronavirus on Madrid just by transiting through Madrid Barajas Airport (MAD). What is usually a dynamic airport was almost deserted. I was the only international passenger going through the non-EU citizens’ passport control section. The rest of the passengers on my flight were either Spaniards or EU citizens returning home. All the duty-free shops in the airport were closed. Only a handful of restaurants were opened. I have a favorite restaurant at this airport where I usually have a tomato and basil soup during my layovers in Madrid, but I preferred not to eat anything. Not only was it not advisable to eat out, I simply did not have the appetite.
As I waited for my flight to Almeria, I passed the time people watching. There were a lot fewer people than there usually are at MAD. It amazed me how those who were there could easily be categorized into one of two groups. The first was extremely careful: facemasks, gloves, and the look of caution in their eyes. The second was quite the opposite: eating with their bare (probably unwashed) hands, letting their kids crawl on ground, chatting just a few inches from one another, and not to mention the occasional hugging and kissing Spaniards are accustomed to when greeting one another.
After a couple of hours of waiting at the gate for my next flight, I finally found the stillness to pick up and read The Iliad. Once I returned to the fantasy of the Greek fleet as it sailed towards Troy for the epic war that would follow, I completely lost track of time and the remaining hours flew by until it was time for me to board my flight to Almeria.
Before I knew it, the plane was landing in Almeria. From the cabin window, I could see the orange sun as it began to set over the navy blue sea. As soon as the plane touched the ground, I let out a sigh of relief. I made it, I thought to myself.
As I waited for Marta to come and pick me up from the arrivals terminal of Almeria Airport (LEI), I watched the sun set behind the palm trees and listened to the birds chirping one last time before calling it a day. It was such a beautiful feeling being outdoors, breathing in fresh air, and feeling the cool sea breeze caress my skin. I took a deep breath, filled my lungs with the crisp air, and thanked God for being alive.
Seeing Marta at LEI is always a delight. I had experienced this moment many times before – she drives her car towards me while I wait on the sidewalk. After parking the car, she comes over to hug me and
help with the luggage. We would then walk hand in hand until we got to her car. This time was different. No hugs or kisses. Instead, Marta greets me with disinfectant spray, a new pair of latex gloves, and asks me to keep my facemask on until she has thoroughly sprayed me from head to toe. Not the most romantic reception but I can understand why: I was coming from Madrid, one of the highest risk areas in the world.
That night, I took a warm shower and felt the anxiety from the trip melt away. I was finally in Vera. Marta and I would be getting married despite the obstacles that stood in our way. I felt so relieved.
It wasn’t until the next day did I find out how lucky we were. On March 14, hours after my plane arrived to Madrid, the Spanish government issued a state of alarm and imposed a nationwide lockdown. A day later, the government closed all borders with the outside world. I was on one of the last international flights to enter Spain. The government also enforced a strict stay-at-home policy for all residents except those needing to go out for essentials like food and medicine.
On March 16, we received a call Vera’s office for matrimonial affairs. She had bad and good news. The bad news was that all weddings had been canceled in Vera for the next two months. The good news was that the judge decided to make an exception and allow Marta and me to proceed with our wedding given our extenuating circumstances.
On March 20, Marta and I sat side by side in front of the judge as she read the wedding ceremony script. “Let’s begin.” The judge said, motioning for us to stand up. “Mostafa. Do you take Marta to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“Yes, I do,” I responded.
“And Marta. Do you take Mostafa to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“Yes, I do,” Marta responded.
The judge concluded by saying, “I then pronounce you husband and wife.” Marta and I exchanged wedding bands and kissed (with facemasks on of course). We had finally made it. The rest, as they say, is history.
