Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

With The Other, Op-ed


Sun 12 Jul 2020 | 01:54 PM
NaDa Mustafa

Who is the other? An exciting world in itself, full of ambiguity, secrets and maybe contradictions, a necessity, and dangers, hopes, and frustrations, pleasure and misery, life is difficult with, and impossible without, stable relations or so they seem, and others temporary, some we are seeking and others we are avoiding.

Is he that inferior, so we falsely rush to vanity and unfairly to superiority, doubt, and aggression? Or is he who shares with us the inferiority sentiments, so we see the world depressive with dark horizons and each of us sad and lonely? Is the other that who is mostly the better, the more intelligent, lucky, and powerful, so we lose self-confidence and feel the frustration, despair, and misery? Or is he that whom we see mostly and realistically sane, happy, and as good as us?

At any rate, we try to discover and understand to achieve our goals through him, to defend our selves against him, to enjoy connecting to him, or to know how to avoid and neutralize him; as realization is a power and a need to draw the road map, the plan details and to identify the risks of relation and the dangers of involvement. But understanding requires integrity and neutrality; an honest effort to search for reality, courage that accompanies the pain when we know about ourselves or him what was previously comfortable to ignore, deny, or minimize.

If understanding requires experience, then it is accumulated by suffering and maybe the frustrations of failure; and if we were new to life and others we have nothing except relying on our feelings and intuition, and we may have to venture if we don’t possess a balanced mind, true and deep vision, otherwise, we would project our tensions and errors on him if it was convenient to ignore or deny them.

We live in a world full of deals and interlinked interests, and we need to understand and feel the way, so what is the solution?

Understand yourself. Enjoy discovering your defects and mistakes. Change the pain of admitting reality to the virtue of practicing, courage, and self-criticism and to the pleasure of learning to acquire power, immunity while correcting mistakes.

If you have insight, how easy is it to see others objectively, the right information about the other is the power to win the game and to achieve interest.

If you have deep insight, it will fill your heart with affection, harmony, tolerance, and forgiveness, you will realize that instead of condemnation and anger, you can win hearts and search for the basic truth, moreover extend a helping hand with a psyche dwelled by certainty, peace, serenity, and love.

With this self, you can live through the other, so you feel with him that you are parts of a whole one, that you suffer for his pain and get pleased by his happiness. You serve him so you enjoy your giving. You can then live, treat, be friends with an open heart, a conscious mind, and a manifesting present soul, as they fill your life with deep feeling, noble aims, and pure spirit.

A life like this is characterized by deep awareness, marvelous sensations, far vision, and true inner feelings, where the moment is a world in itself and a full exciting time, and existence does become a value and delight, and harmony with the other, creatures, nature and life realities a natural result and a great reward.

So happy you with the other… if you know the way.

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