Abdo Khal

How can you live again?

July 23, 2026 - 13:24 | Last update July 23, 2026 - 13:24

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Boredom, or tedium, or ennui – all synonyms that end in the concept of discomfort, and losing interest in what is ordinary and repetitive. All words of consolation dry up without leaving any moisture for the one you comfort. We revolve in a sphere; life ends and we are still revolving in it. Therefore we must get rid of our boredom, for what is happening will happen, and with your short life you will not reach a settlement of the world's troubles. Lest you lose your mind, flee to the fields of art – a sentence I once said and recommended to friends on social media. Art holds the charm that saves you from the harshness of reality. Some of us live a cold, ordinary life, and sometimes we agree to formulate it through repetitive events, and your state is according to the role you found yourself in: a role with responsibilities you strive to perform efficiently, like a lover of his role, a love that grew through intimacy and that bound you with the optimal idealism of harmony and consistency with the steps of your days. It is an ideal life in the eyes of others, and ideal in your eyes as well. And when you resort to art as a lens that gives you the life dimensions of people, every story has different dimensions and circumstances, and the fourth dimension is the difference in people's stories, a dimension that reveals what has clouded your life, dispels the ordinary, and shows you a bright color you are not used to in your previous days. Art is a 'polisher' and may be a tool for changing thoughts or the psychological state you have been accustomed to displaying as a state of balance in the eyes of those around you. We are in a state of conflict between the apparent and the hidden. The hidden is your private treasure that only you know, and sometimes it is absent from us, and appears clearly when you are alone with yourself, or through a novel, a melody, or a film. That happens while you are united with what is embodied as art that touches your depths. Suddenly you find yourself matching the imagination of the creator of the novel or the embodiment of the film's heroes, or merging with a melody that has uprooted the evil repetitions you lived with. Art grants you other lives, so you move from one life to another, and you find those who resemble you and those who differ from you and those outside your thinking, or those who are a window to a life you have dreamed of for a long time and have not reached. And my advice to flee to the fields of art is sincere advice when you discover that you have an imagined life that you have not yet lived, and moving to it requires an additional lifespan. We need additional lifespans to live according to the image embodied readably, visually, or audibly. This reminds me of the dialogue I had with Musa Muharraq (may God have mercy on him). It was a dialogue about the short life that passes while you play a role you found yourself in, and you continued your journey without thinking about the separation of life from what you imagine in your depths.

I am writing this article after watching the film 'Beyond the Curriculum' which confirmed that the trait of lying leads you to a false life that everyone conspired to believe. However, the aesthetics of the film push you to abandon that trait and straighten your life on the tracks of truth. The question: When can you exit the false life to adhere to a life you dream of inside yourself and have not reached because life is too short to suffice for any correction, nor does it suffice to live the imagined life you have not lived. The question becomes: How can I live again?