Adel was a simple man with a simple living style. Often, when he was surrounded with personal problems and felt himself battling within, he would pick up his son and visit the nearby park to distract himself.
That day, Adel was sitting in the park enjoying the evening breeze with his son, Zartosht.
Zartosht was a very interesting boy. He was also somewhere the source of annoyance for his father. He could not bear to be left alone. He always needed attention. He would start throwing tantrums if ignored even for a second.
While sitting there with his father, Zartosht was happily busy playing with his toys, while Adel was assisting him in making a small castle.
After a while, a little boy, in shabby clothing came and stood nearby. His eyes spoke of unsaid desire to come and join them. Upon noticing the boy, Adel gestured him to sit with them. Murteza, the little shabby kid joyously walked up to them and sat timidly near Zartosht. At first, Zartosht seemed happy. He shared his tools and motioned him to help him construct the castle. Murteza reluctantly joined.
Murteza's hands seemed like that of a craftsman. He began crafting detailed windows on the castle of sand, making the foundations stable even amid the thick grass. Adel was very impressed. He started talking to the little kid. They spoke of his orphaned life, how his father died, where he lived and what he did for food.
All what Murteza spoke was seemed to vanish Adel's pain. Murteza's each word seemed to dissolve Adel's problem, bit by bit. Even if it was for just two hours, it was worth the liberation Adel felt from himself, his inner battle.
Adel was so engrossed in listening to Murteza and somewhere secretly feeling guilty over his petty problems, that he forgot all about his son, Zartosht. Suddenly, he heard Zartosht crying. He got up and frantically looked around for his son, who was now standing in the middle of the road alone.
He ran, picked up his son and brought him back to where they were sitting. Upon asking where he had gone and what was he thinking, Zartosht replied how he just felt sad and ignored by Adel and decided to go and talk to the kids standing near the bus stop. However, the kids began bugging him and pushed him on the road where he felt stranded.
He hugged his son, smiled at Murteza and resumed chatting. The trio then made the castle together while Zartosht was happy to be back in the comfort zone, Murteza was happy to be helping them.
As the sunset and it was time to head back home, Murteza smiled and thanked for the company. Adel smiled back, secretly thinking it was actually Murteza that had helped me feel better about his life.
We all are like Adel. We all have inner struggles, battles, problems, daily issues. We all have a son, Zartosht. Zartosht is our set of problems. Always demanding our attention. If ignored, our problems are subconsciously routed and wrongly channeled to vulnerable modes of expression - through anger, through depression, through strangers we don't know. It cannibalizes the joy we are capable of feeling in Now.
Murteza is like other's problems and societal sufferings. Sufferings that often come and sit with us to make us realize the worth of what we have. We should give them time. But talking to them should not distract us completely from our own problems.
If Murteza outside is not helping us see Zartosht within in a different light, then there is no point of Murteza sitting there with us.
If sufferings outside are not helping us see our problems differently, then there is no point of distracting ourselves with the sufferings outside.
For True Healing occurs only when we sit with our problems face to face with the world.
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