It’s Saturday afternoon. Jilali, a construction worker, gets his weekly pay (1000 dirhams), thanks his boss and mounts his old motorcycle. On his way home, he stops at the hairdresser’s. While waiting for his turn, he calls his wife, from his old smart-phone, telling her to prepare hot water for his ‘shower’. After getting a nice haircut, Jilali moves on to his neighbourhood's grocer’s. He pays his week’s debts and orders new stuff to please his wife. Hearing the familiar sound of his motorcycle, his children rush to open the door. The children and the wife are all smiles. Jilali is happy too. The children are jubilating: Father bought us biscuits and yogurt! The wife takes the bag into the kitchen.
Minutes later, Jilali is having a ‘shower’. He takes water from a bucket and pours it on himself. This is a shantytown, and there are no showers in shantytowns. But Jilali is happy.
After the shower, Jilali is sitting in the mrah, kind of tiny
covered patio serving as a living-room but also as a dining-room and
everything. The television is there. In front of him is a tea-tray with a hot
teapot and bread. Jilali is delighted. He is waiting for the night to fall, and
for the children to go to sleep, so that he too can go to sleep with his wife,
so that his enjoyment can be complete.
Now count with me how many things Jilali enjoys. (1) Jilali has work, he enjoys that. (Not everybody has got work.) (2) Jilali gets his pay every Saturday afternoon. (3) Jilali has a motorcycle. (Some of his comrades come to work on foot.) (4) Jilali can afford a nice haircut. (5) Jilali has got a Smartphone. (6) Jilali has a wife. (7) Jilali has children too. (8) Jilali’s wife and children receive him with smiles. (9) Jilali has got a place to wash himself in his small abode. (Compare with homeless people.) (10) Jilali has got a television set. (11) Jilali has got someone to make him tea on his return from work. HOW CAN’T JILALI BE HAPPY?
Who could say bad things on Jilali? The grocer has never complained about him. Nobody has ever seen or heard him beg anybody anywhere. He is a MAN, a capable MAN. He can support his family without anybody’s help. He does not need anybody’s advice or preaching. His wife and children are always as nicely dressed as anybody else in the neighbourhood. His children go to school and get good marks. His wife goes to the weekly market every Sunday and to the Turkish bath once a week. Everybody knows that Jilali has many things to boast about. Jilali has no worries about his image.
Jilali has got a good image. But his cousin Larbi has a much better image than him. Unlike Jilali, Larbi went to school, and it’s at school that Larbi learned gypsum work. Larbi works for the same boss as Jilali, but he is paid differently. Larbi does not touch gypsum with his hands. He’s got three apprentices who do that for him. The boss pays Larbi for the whole gypsum work and Larbi gives weekly pays to his apprentices. That’s why Larbi comes to work by car, and he’s got a nice big smart-phone. He left the shantytown a long time ago and then bought a small apartment in an old building in an old neighbourhood, and now he lives in a three-storey house near downtown. And he married a second wife. His personal development has made several people jealous of him.
If Larbi is in a better situation than Jilali, he is far from being the best. If he’s got a three-storey house, there are many, many people who have got villas and even riyads. If he got a nice, new car, there are many, many people who have got much, much nicer and more expensive cars. If he got two wives, there are others who have four. His possessions do not really distinguish him from the rest of the crowd. To stand out, he got to do something outstanding. He should be like his boss’s brother-in-law, who rose from nothing to become President of the Municipal Council of the city. He became one of the important people of the city. Many people still marvel at his meteoric rise in local politics.
The story of the brother-in-law of Larbi’s boss is nothing compared to the story of Alejandro Toledo who, at the age of six, worked as a street shoe shiner, before he became a distinguished economist, then President of his country, Peru, from 2001 to 2006. Not every shoe shiner can hope to become President of his country.
And not only Jilali and Larbi live for enjoyment and image. We all do. We all aspire to personal growth. And maybe we all aspire to rise in esteem. In the nineteenth century, people moved away from horse-drawn carriages to trains, etc. To grind their wheat, some people moved away from windmills to steam mills. And who among us wants to miss the train of progress?
In those times one would boast that he invented a steam mill, one that he installed steam mills, one that he ground his wheat and barley at steam mills. One would boast that he invented the train, one that he drove a train, one that he travelled by train. One that he invented (produced) something, one that he used (consumed) something.
You can’t hope to talk a whole day without succumbing to the temptation of boasting to somebody or other about something or other. Every one of us needs to feel that he/she is important, that he/she is not less worthy than others. Then, why do we look at ourselves in the mirror? It’s a basic need for recognition.
You go in a crowded street, enter a hotel lobby, sit at a café, and all eyes are on you. All eyes will follow you as a snake would follow a snake-charmer’s pipe. You were born with a beautiful face and your beauty has stayed with you, dazzling people wherever you go. Or maybe you went to market and spent hours picking and choosing until you found a dream of a dress or suit. And you feel great when people look at you.
The more beautiful you are, the more stunning your dress is, the more people will look at you. You are aware of that, and so you seldom -if ever- go out before looking at yourself in the mirror.
But whatever you do, you can’t always be eye-catching. You may get completely eclipsed by the Rich and the Famous. Even beautiful people prick up their ears on hearing the jingle of coins or, where these are no longer used, when talking about money. No wonder if a beautiful girl preferred a rich, pimply-faced old man to a handsome youth with little or no income.
The problem is when we don’t have things to boast about while others around us don’t stop boasting. Unfortunately, we are exposed to boasting every day. Even when you shun people and stay at (your secluded) home, your television or Smartphone will bring you all the boasting of the world. Boasting in adverts, boasting in soap opera, boasting in music, plus undeclared boasting of all sorts.
Sometimes everybody -including governments and corporations- go from bragging to begging. Once the crisis is over, everyone starts bragging again. The suffering quickly falls into oblivion. Little or no return to reason, to common sense. I am no exception. May God have mercy on us!
