About me
I recently lost my tail! Well, when I say recently, I mean about 25 million years ago. After that, it took millions of years to finally stand on my two feet.
Repetition, after all, helps reinforce neural pathways in the brain. My tail may be gone, but many traits of my ancestors still remain in me. Like what? Things that seem absent but still exist:
Fear of being rejected by the group
The fear of rejection is a shadow that has always followed me—a timeless legacy from my ancestors.
There is always something within me whispering that being different is dangerous. The tribe ensured my survival. If I were different, I would be seen as a threat, and possibly cast out. Maybe that’s why I always find myself fitting into one of society’s accepted molds:
We marketers, we Iranians, we Americans, we philosophers, we reds and blues, we entrepreneurs, we democrats, we conservatives, we vegetarians… I am always searching for an identity, a cause, a group to belong to.
You can see one of my past memories in this photo. The fools looked as if they had seen a ghost. That’s why you shouldn’t expect an “independent identity” from me. Later, I wrote this verse: *Blend in with the crowd, and you’ll taste the joy of life (Written by Rumi, 13th century). So, I changed my colors too.
Struggle for survival
The struggle for survival has been with me for millions of years. But honestly, something strange happened—probably when I became a Neanderthal, or even earlier. I became the first creature to realize that I could die. It was terrifying. I mean, truly terrifying to be confronted with being and not being.
My rapidly growing frontal lobe helped me cope with this bizarre fear by creating all sorts of beliefs, art, and rituals
This was one of those days when I was drowning in philosophical despair, channeling my inner Albert Camus. The sneaky ones snapped a photo out of nowhere. Photo source: An article about Neanderthal women from Aeon online magazine.
And yet, even now, like my canine ancestors, when it comes to competing for resources—when my primal fear merges with the terror of death—not only might I sink my teeth into others, but I even have the potential (heaven forbid) to tear their throats out. Call it a war for nationality, ethnicity, status, rank, water, land, positive ambition, negative ambition, development…
Misthinking, logical fallacies, tons of cognitive biases
Just imagine: back when a lion was chasing me, should I have stopped to logically calculate my escape route? Imagine if I didn’t have heuristic thinking! Or if I had thought, This poor thing has cubs too, and felt pity—I would have been devoured. Instead, I learned to justify: Yes, this lion has cubs, but I am the superior being, I have a greater nationality, ethnicity, and religion, and I have found the absolute truth; the rest will go to hell because they don’t understand the real truth. Modern folks call this Moral Exceptionalism.
Here, I was craving fatty bird liver. From the animation Man by Steve Cutts, 2012.
Do I really need to confess that I don’t have the hardware required to be fair? If these biases and fallacies have made me a fool—so be it! I don’t suffer from it—others do: nature, Earth, those outside my nation, families other than my own… Not me. Long live me! Just me!
Compassion and empathy? No, thanks
If I were too compassionate, as Saadi says in his famous poem, ‘Human beings are members of a whole body,’ and if I truly felt others’ pain as my own, my survival might be at risk.
Nevertheless, the evolution in the collective consciousness, which was the result of mechanisms ensuring the survival of the species, had made the group more important to me than my tail-bearing ancestors. It was strange that sometimes, for me, the survival of the group, the community, and even my kind became more important than my own survival. I felt the suffering of others as my own.
Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion in Buddhism, whose name means “The One Who Looks Down from Above.” According to legends, when he gazes upon the suffering of beings on Earth, a tear named “Tara” falls from his eyes. He has vowed to save all beings from the cycles of suffering and confusion in their journey of evolution. This archetype has counterparts in other philosophical and religious systems.
Now, I am a disjointed and fragmented being, bearing a systemic violence to tear apart and ensure my own survival, and a strange love and empathy for other creatures. Art and some creative beliefs helped me resolve this painful contradiction within myself. As a relief, I would create idealistic and exemplary worlds, and sometimes even impose my belief in them on others; after all, you know, I really enjoy trying to force everyone into heaven.
From the day my tail fell off to the day I wrote this poem, what a short distance it was! About 25 million and 130 thousand years; nearly 0.18% of the lifespan of the Milky Way galaxy:
“Humanity cannot be achieved in this earthly plight;
A new world and a new human must be rebuilt right.”
The day I said this, I was in the 14th century, but I carried centuries of despair in my throat, and I still don’t know if humanity can truly be achieved. Now, I am a hodgepodge: a mix of softness and violence, crime and martyrdom, beauty and vulgarity, selfishness and self-sacrifice, unachieved luminous worlds, and the repetition and repetition of destructions, yet with a tiny bit of light that seems everlasting and indestructible within me.
But despite all these contradictions, I am still a masterpiece. And I possess an incredible tool for endurance; I mean creativity. I weave very well: philosophy, justification, science fiction, and anything that offers an escape from my contradictions and the world’s contradictions I live in.
And perhaps that’s why I write this blog.
About Ghazal
Born in 1987. Studied Electronic Engineering. Ended up in marketing — I was supposed to be a primary school teacher, but that didn’t pay the bills in my country.
Interests: Deep focus on understanding, learning, poking into different topics, spaghetti, noodles (which I completely blame Naruto Uzumaki for this one).
Naruto Uzumaki, the main character of Naruto manga by Masashi Kishimoto. With over 250 million copies sold, it is one of the best-selling manga series in history. Interestingly, Kishimoto originally intended for Naruto to be a ramen chef, not a ninja!
Purpose of this blog
I wanted a corner where I could express my thoughts without an audience, or with a small audience, about life, business, science, and sometimes other things. So, if you’re wondering why I, someone who makes a living from marketing, have created a blog that doesn’t really focus on attracting an audience, my answer is: Sometimes a human just needs a space on the internet to write for themselves, without the concern of likes and clicks. Does it seem beyond the stereotype others have of marketers?
The perception others have of the human species, the ‘Marketerus genus’.
Am I trying to build a personal brand?
I wouldn’t mind having a personal identity of my own. But there’s a Persian saying, ‘The potter drinks from a cracked pot.’ The English equivalent is ‘A cobbler’s children have no shoes.’ If I consciously try to build a personal brand, I feel like I’m not at home within myself.
Just to clarify, I’m not more honest than what my species, especially the Marketerus genus, suggests. If this blog helps me professionally, I won’t stand in the way.