Week 64 - Gentle Reminder
Social Mobility & Humanity - Saadadeen shares a fortnight worth of thoughts in five small parts
Part 1
This piece is a reminder to myself
Remember that it’s always about the process. It’s never about the destination.
There is no such thing as a destination, not really. You will never arrive and you are not meant to.
Someone who I constantly am inspired by reminded me of this on a warm winter walk through the heart of the city I love.
Part 2
The things I do make sense in the context of my life.
I remember watching this series called 7 Up that followed the lives of 14 people from the age of 7 to 63. It started in 1964 and spanned 56 years, checking in on each of them every 7 years to see what they were up to.
Some dropped out of the show, one died, some married, some had kids, some relocated.
The person each of them became made more sense as you followed each episode. Their personalities were pretty consistent throughout their whole lives, from 7 to 63. I felt like most of them didn’t change much at all. Maybe it is because I haven’t grown up in an intergenerational household but I had always thought of people from different generations as being fundamentally different from each other, so seeing the personality of a 7-year-old map out quite neatly onto a 63-year-old was somewhat a revelation for me.
Part 3
Recently, I have been reading about social mobility.
And I learnt something spooky.
I am not as edgy I as thought. For example, apparently, the reason I chose to study law with theology at university was a quite predictable move considering my socio-economic background. Indeed, it had less to do with my unique interests than I would have had myself believe.
Many decisions I have made in my life, it turns out, have been written about and rationalised by some academic years before I thought about making them.
It is both liberating and disappointing to learn that you are predictable.
Part 4
But was I ever meant to be uniquely different?
Isn’t all great art predicated on our sameness? The human experience!
I went to watch Zain Dada’s Blue Mist at the Royal Court Theatre last week. It is one of the best things I have ever seen.
I saw aspects of myself in all three of the main characters reflected back at me. How predictable.
How human.
Part 5
Today I think about The commodification of Humanity.
The bearded Palestinian man in a neatly wrapped turban cradling the corpse of his young daughter whose humanity is handed back to him on the condition that while everything he loves lies limp in his arms, he smiles beautifully.
Maybe, now, he is human.
https://donate.restlessbeings.org/appeals/gaza-urgent-help-2023
Cresent Writing Retreats final few tickets left for the December 1-4 writing retreat. Writing retreats designed for Muslims, open to all.
See you next week, God Willing.