On Hope Manufactory

The man sharing my elbow rest on the flight was determined to show his extreme discontent to be traveling to Cairo.

- “What’s a girl like you going to Cairo for? it’s so dirty and regressive.”

I didn’t want to answer especially that I found myself trying to explain something that just cannot be “told” and even if I tried this guy won’t get it.

Both Beirut and Cairo fall short in many many ways, life in both can rob many of us of the basic elements necessary for a “good life”. The quality I find fascinating about Cairo is it’s ability to encounter pain with humor and kindness. Neither of which dissolve hardship, but they make it easier to navigate and — well — grow from. Our oxidation can either calcify us into polished versions of ourselves, bent on image and ego, solid and impervious, not even to light. done and debilitated . OR it can distill us, albeit painfully, into softer but more potent forms of ourselves.

For a while I wanted to be ONLY positive and I realized that constant positivity is as wasteful as cynicism, because it shelters you till you fall and leaves you unarmed when you do. entitled and passive. I realise this can come off as redundant linguistic gymnastics, but I find no one doing us justice, not here in Beirut nor there in Cairo. The fact that it’s easier for me to visit Cairo over both countries I border (Palestine or Syria) gives it a bittersweet sense of closeness, besides Jordan there isn’t really anywhere else I relate to in such a visceral manner.

I have not lived there, I know, but I live in Beirut and what I say applies to both (regardless of detailed variations). We often say “hold on to hope”, as if we are implying that it simply exists and all we have to do is find it and keep it close. Hope is scarce, and here you manufacture your own. Painstakingly crafting it from the same sticks you fish out of your wheels.

If I were to answer that man on the plane, I think I would say: 
“Hope manufactury! ما تسألش إزاي”
_