Two days before the end of the world, he suddenly realized he had never truly lived.
His calendar was full, except for two untouched days.
He panicked. Restless and furious, he went to the angel of death to ask god for more days.
He shouted and cursed. He raged at the heavens and the earth. He screamed and made a scene.
The angel remained silent.
He clung desperately to the angel. He blasphemed and threw away his prayer rug. Then his heart broke, he wept, and he fell onto the prayer rug.
This time, the angel broke the silence and said: “Know this, you have just lost another day! Only one day remains. Come, at least live this one.”
Through his sobs he whispered, “But with one day… what can anyone possibly do in one day?”
The angel said: “The one who tastes the joy of living a single day has lived a thousand years. And the one who does not understand today, a thousand years will not help him.”
Then the angel poured the share of one day’s life into his hands and said: “Now go. Live.”
He stood there, stunned, staring at life glowing in the hollow of his palms. But he was afraid to move, afraid to walk. What if a drop of life slipped through his fingers?
He stood still for a moment. Then he thought: “When I have no tomorrow, what is the point of saving this life? Let me spend this handful of it.”
And so he began to run. He splashed life over his face, he drank it, he breathed it in. And he was filled with such ecstasy that he felt that he could run to the edge of the world, step on the sun, and beyond…
That day, he did not build a skyscraper. He did not own land. He did not gain status, but…
In that single day, he lay on the grass. He watched a ladybug.
He lifted his head and saw the clouds. He greeted strangers. He prayed sincerely for those who did not love him.
In that one day, he reconciled. He laughed. He felt light. He enjoyed. He overflowed. He forgave. He loved. He let go. And it was complete.
He lived that one day.
But in god’s calendar, the angels wrote: “he passed away, the one who had lived a thousand years.“
Erfan Nazarahar
Asides
Interesting stuff about various matters! Often not suitable to be posted in other categories.
Decision making in hard situations
During the internet blackout , one of the main sources of entertainment for me was watching movies. Between sounds of bombs near our house and being completely cut off from the world, one thing that could keep me sane was starting to watch movies and series I had on my hard drives.
This way I could still feel connected to the world. I can experience the same culture, the same feeling, and the same events and happenings some person experiences in Canada or Japan or Nigeria. This is amazing. I see the same pictures, I wonder about the same thing, and feel the same emotions as anybody else who sees these movies.
Recently, I’ve been watching the series From and I couldn’t be more excited about it. I like everything it does. The story, the mystery, the graphics, acting, sounds, from start to ending of each episode, there’s no single moment I can miss. This is one of those series that I can talk about after each episode ends. One of the series I want to discuss and have conversation about.
One thing I usually enjoy about series like this is that I get to ask myself what would I do if I were there. How would I have been reacting to the same events if I was in their shoes. It keeps me thinking whether I am strong to make the right decision in the same situation? It’s easy to judge a character when he or she does something bad or makes mistake, well because we’re seeing the whole picture from different angles, but if I were them, would we be able to make the same mistake and avoid making even bigger one?
It’s like watching football (the real one, not the American one), looking at the players it’s easy to mock them when they fall or make a mistake, it’s easy to blame them when they miss a shot or penalty kick, but could we really do better than them? Not even be better, could we make the same mistake? Or perhaps we’ll do way worse.
I’m not comparing myself to a TV character of course. It’s all scripted, all of their decisions are made by the writer, I know, nevertheless I still keep thinking about how strong would I be in a bad situation. How effective would my decisions be. Will I be a main character in the same situation, being able to lead people, taking care of them, and share wisdom, or will I be the weak character who makes the situation worse?
And I always reach the same conclusion. It’s easy to decide what would I do when I’m sitting in front of my TV or laptop, sipping my fresh coffee in my pajamas and decide what would I do. I wouldn’t know the answer until I’m really trapped in the same situation as them. It’s easy to criticize them while I know I’ll have a good night sleep. I wouldn’t know for sure what would I do under the same pressure those characters experience.
That leads me to another question for myself. The kind of question I usually ask my friends. How much money would you take to be trapped in the same situation? Or, would you accept to spend one year in the same situation for $500M? The answer for me is still the same. It’s easy to say yes when you’re lying on the couch in front of TV, eating your lunch. The real answer, for me, will be when I’m really presented with the question, with real opportunity. It seems too easy to do right now, but will I really be that person who can endure all that?
I doubt that I can be any better than the weakest character I see on these movies and series. To think about the amount of pain and suffering they’ve endured and still standing? That seems impossible to me. I can just hope I wouldn’t be in their situation.
Yet, we’ve experienced some stuff here most people in world can’t even imagine. So maybe I’m wrong, maybe I can be the hero if I was in their world.
This is just a notice that this blog is moved to a new URL. Everything has been moved. I plan to keep the previous domain forever so there won’t be any broken links. If you’ve linked to this blog, please update it.
Regrets
I regret a lot of things. Small and big decisions. It’s part of growing up. I try to keep an open mind so with new evidence, my ideas change. There’s no shame in that. I change my ideas because I’m not just another hard-headed person who sticks to what he believes in forever.
Something I do regret for a while, now that it’s more than two thousand hours that the internet is shut down in Iran, now that it’s the 85th day of the digital blackout, is helping and contributing to all those projects and organizations in the name of digital and software freedom.
I believed that a free society needs free software , but I now believe that those who promoted this idea didn’t really care about people’s freedom, if they did care they would’ve protested the current situation in my country. With my limited unstable slow internet connection that I barely have access to after weeks, if I’m lucky, I browsed through some of those projects I used to contribute to and not a single word.
It was a sad yet awakening realization.
Still offline
This is an scheduled post, written when I had a slow internet connection during the nationwide internet shutdown here in Iran. You’re reading this post because I didn’t have internet connection to delete this, meaning we’re still living in digital darkness.
It should be the 60th day of the blackout and I wrote this post because I felt it’s necessary to remind everyone how important is their life. How we sometimes take stuff for granted, such as the internet connection you’re enjoying right now.
I may not be alive by the time this post gets published. If I’m not I hope I be remembered as someone who fought for freedom and liberty, openness, human society, and making life a little better. If I’m alive, then maybe I get more chances and more opportunities to fight for what I believe in.
It’s the 22nd day of complete internet blackout here in Iran and I just could get connected with a help of a friend for some time. Never thought we would experience such situation. Just hope everything ends well for the people.
Happy Nowruz everybody.
The Witcher
When I was a child, I used to be influenced by movies I watched. Pretending to be a superhero with a cape, a gangster smoking a cigarette, an old wise man drinking beer and living happily with his family, an army guy who saves the country and wins the war. I believe a lot of kids were and are this way.
Later when I grew older, this changed a little. I still were influenced but I wasn’t playing the character anymore, rather I tried to imitate that person and act like him. I tried to behave like him. I was a young man (not that I’m old now) and my personality was still shaping.
Lately I found something new about myself. Now when I watch a movie or a series, I don’t try to become anyone, I don’t try to act or behave like them, rather I try to learn from them. Now when I watch a movie, I think more about the reason behind their attitude, the logic of their acts, the story they’re telling, and the message they carry. I feel more grown up right now.
I’ve been watching The Witcher series recently and what I’ve learned from it was that no matter how much you’re hurt, no matter how much damage you take, physically or mentally, your mission and purpose is more important to give up. It doesn’t matter how lonely you feel you are, doesn’t matter how many people come and go on your route to destiny, you can’t give up.
In these times, when we feel we’re alone in this world, when we feel that our mission and our purpose is impossible to reach, the most important decision to make is to just take another step forward and finally we’ll succeed, in our way. Disappointments come and go, we may get exhausted, fearful, feel broken, and hopeless, but we shall continue because stopping is never a wise choice. You may slow down, you may have to take the longer route, you may have to get some rest and take some time to recover, but you must always get back on your feet and continue forward until you reach your destiny.
For a long time, I used to write my name as Ali Reza, which I believed was the correct way and form of writing it. Now I switched back to Alireza, which is the current standard of writing it. I updated my blog and every online presence I could think of. Please, if you link to me anywhere, update it to this form.
Update: my passport writes it as Ali Reza, so it’s Ali Reza.
Not that it matters but I needed a distraction from what is happening right now in my country.
Living behind firewalls
The internet censorship and filtering in Iran is now in another level. We’re now living behind a firewall. Not long ago, before the 20-day full blackout, we had a blacklist-type internet filtering system. If you’re not familiar with it, living in a normal country, a blacklist filtering system means everything is open to people unless the regime decides you’re not supposed to access something. But we’re passed that, moved to a whitelist system.
Now instead of deciding whether you’re not supposed to see something, it decides whether you’re supposed to see. Meaning everything is down, filtered and censored, and every access is restricted unless the regime decides it’s OK for you, the peasant, to see it.
Us the serfs and slaves are now behind the firewall. Internet is now a class system. Not everyone is equal. Those who are trusted may access a wider range of web sites, services, or internet-connected applications while the rest of us are lowest class, accessing the minimum when our owners decide so.
We’re now dogs, not humans. While our masters and owners are sitting at the table having a feast, we’re sitting under the table waiting for a bone thrown at us so we don’t starve to death.
With the shadow of war now hanging over us, we only wonder, is there any future left for us? And what can we do except hoping for brighter days?
Mental health with no internet
Aside from being unable to contact your loved ones abroad, updating your computer programs and operating systems, getting new or needed software, or simply getting music and videos/movies, being disconnected from world makes you mentally unstable.
It’s the 20th day of internet blackout here and the frustration is making me crazy. It’s some new feelings I’m experiencing. Anger on top of them.
I have to try hundreds (no exaggeration) of VPN configurations just to be able to load this blog, refresh and wait for more than an hour to be able to enter the “posting” page and then try hundreds of times again to finally post something. Just to get a feeling that we’re not North Korean yet.
I’m telling you. It’s driving a lot of people crazy.