The Endless Cycle of Yearning

A Personal Insight into Al-Mutannabi’s Poetry

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قال المتنبي:

‎نحن أدرى وقد سألنا بنجد

‎أقصير طريقنا أم يطولُ

‎وكثير من السّؤال اشتياق

‎وكثير من ردّه تعليلُ

Al-Mutannabi said:

We asked at Najd, knowing the answer well

“Is our way short or is it long?”

Many a question is but out of longing,

And many a reply is but consolation!

There is a certain profound irony in our relentless questioning of things of which the answers are already known to us. Sometimes, we ask not just because we are curious to know, but because we inhabit some fanciful hopes – that to be engaged in the process of questioning, or that the act of questioning in itself, might somehow undo the knots of distress that are tightly wound within us.

Those answers, though familiar to us, are repeated over and over again, as if hearing them, and letting them strike our ear drums hard, would turn us on, and would ‘awaken’ something deeper – something ‘metaphysical’ within us. We consider their functionality as cocaine, inciting pleasure in the whole body and spirit, or as an antidote, a balm for our deeply ingrained fears and vulnerabilities.

Yet the answers, much like the poet’s “mere consolations,” do not penetrate our very essence. They just clinge at the surface – momentarily comforting, but ultimately insufficient. They don’t possess the magic we think they do. They don’t fill the emptiness inside.

After that nanosecond of cloud nine delight, the familiar pangs of fear within us, return with a much greater force than before. And the same antidote, now becomes the venom.

Reflection now leads our inner demons, or perhaps our inner angels, whispering – that we are unworthy of this joy. And we again embark on the same journey of self loathing.

Here we are, suspended in this endless cycle of longing and melancholy from which there seems no escape. And eventually, we find ourselves once again descending into the dark abyss of our inner, earthy hell – a place where our despair is familiar, and it feels like home, and those fanciful hopes, merely fleeting visitors!