Tripping down memory lane
November 2006
Cultural pie and
civilisational mash
Between the reel
and the surreal
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©2006 K. Diab |
Multiversal man
During such occasional visits to former lives, I find myself speculating on what life would’ve been like if I’d stayed in this or that place, rather than moving away. I had a similar sensation upon returning to Cairo last November for the first time in four and a half years. The intensity of the reunion with that intense city, with family and friends, was emotionally recharging, draining and exhausting. Over the years away, I was gradually becoming disconnected from that increasingly hazy past, and returning helped anchor me, in contrast to the splintering, the culture shock, the alienation the same move south caused in me as a teenager. Since that time, I’ve grown to feel like a native stranger in Egypt, both comfortable and uncomfortable there, both a foreigner and a local.
When coming back to the scene of the crime, I
sometimes wonder whether there is another me – an alter-me – leading one of
those discontinued lives somewhere in a parallel dimension. At such times, the
idea that we do not actually inhabit one unique universe but one of an infinite
number of ‘multiverses’ seems plausible. Are my alternative selves in other
multiverses happier or sadder, more successful or less?
These reflections make me realise just how
fragile our identities are and lead me to ponder whether there is such a thing
as a core, recognisable ‘me’ – or am I purely a creature of circumstance.
Deep down, we would all like to think that
there is something that makes us uniquely and undeniably who we are, regardless
of the surface gloss, but is that the case? Do we have some essential identity
locked away somewhere deep in our soul or are we shaped largely by the
environment around us and how we react to it and it reacts to us? Read on...
ã2006 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website
is the copyright of Khaled Diab.