Why should we hide all this? – Nevin Massad

A few weeks ago, when I wrote in the same place about the need to temporarily disappear and imitate cats, who have a unique ability to hide – I had no idea that many of us actually wanted to hide, and that my article in Al-Shorouk inspired them to speak, reveal and speak out. Thus, one of my friends told me that she wished to hide so as not to blame those who would never stop offering guidance and advice sincerely, of course, but in a stifling and suffocating way. Another told me that the feeling of being available to others at all times would desensitize her because she was assured and did not have to worry about her absence. She went on to say that hiding or disappearing would bring a necessary shock to others. To wake them up to themselves. A third woman told me that hiding gave her a free space to live for herself, think about her own ideas, and reevaluate her life experiences, and we all need such a review at a certain age. My fourth friend told me that she had begun to feel emotionally alienated from her close family environment, and those who think that alienation only occurs at a distance from those close to her have not experienced alienation in her home and have not been burned by the family environment. Its fire.

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She talked to me, talked to me, talked to me… until I was surprised by the strong need to hide. In general, the reasons of friends did not go beyond the desire to preserve for oneself even a minimum of privacy, or the need for a minimum of appreciation from those around us, or the necessity of being separated from home and family after years of living together. Psychological separation. All these reasons have their merits, but… When we think about the changes that have taken place in our society over the past decade, we notice the strange invasion of our privacy by others, until the “self” almost completely disappears in the face of “care” or almost. Our thoughts, beliefs, actions, clothes and events have become public property that everyone can own, and although this is a reason for some to seek escape to private space, it raises the question of where to escape and how to escape. If we hide from the surveillance of smartphone applications that monitor our movements, indicate our hiding places, and expose our bunkers, how can we hide from the forest of surveillance cameras that are spreading everywhere like mushrooms? Would anyone believe that someone would install a surveillance camera on the door of their apartment? This happened to our first-floor neighbor until we were comfortably walking around within his lens and he had drawn thick plastic curtains on his balcony out of jealousy of his “family harem”. If we flee to shock those around us and make them feel our worth, this is also a reasonable reason, but the fear is that our hiding will not have the desired effect. In the case of the experience I talked about in an article last week, my mother’s hiding with some of her friends would temporarily stop my teenage brother, and then the situation would return to the way it was, or as my mother used to say, “Did your father go back to your brother? This is a proverb I have only heard from her, and in fact, many people like her have such unique characteristics. As for hiding in order to escape physical isolation from the surrounding environment, I think this is the most difficult hiding, because it has the first but probably not the last, and it is a high price that not everyone is necessarily able to pay, because it requires giving up the prerequisite of living at home, and not all of us are capable of managing his affairs.

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Is hiding a form of cowardice in some way, since it is sometimes associated with the inability to deal with the problems of life (of which there are many) and instructs those who contemplate them to hide until they are resolved by legitimate means? This is a rather cruel question, the answer to which is not necessarily in the affirmative. Disappearance can be part of the solution, defusing the crisis when one of the parties to the problem disappears from the scene of the incident, even for a limited time. Disappearance can also be a merciful choice for its owner, unlike other catastrophic options, if a psychologically fragile person cannot obtain a safe refuge through temporary hiding, he may resort to alternatives with uncertain consequences. Therefore, unless he withdraws and isolates himself, he may ruin those around him and also himself.

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All the reasons for hiding that we have discussed so far involve various forms of pain, but what if there is a good reason to hide? My youngest granddaughter, when she is very excited, will call me to play hide and seek together, or like the girls and boys of her generation, I will respond by having her eyes black. Increasingly showing pain. She gives me a few seconds to hide better, then shouts at the top of her voice under the dining table: That’s it, I’m hiding, Viv, and I laugh at her naivete with all my heart, her voice telling me where I am. My granddaughter also laughs as I move from room to room, and she looks at me from her hiding place as if I were really looking for her. This hiding, which we all experienced in childhood with our parents and later understand with our children and grandchildren, contains a double happiness: the happiness of the children, because they are proud of their ability to deceive and surprise them. The happiness of the parents… All surprises at this age are joy, and the happiness of the adults is that they are the source of overwhelming joy for the children. Let every disappearance be a cover-up.

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Mr. Stephen Garnier, author of the book “How to Live Like Your Cat?” (my article published in Al-Shorouk on June 28), opens up for us Ali Baba’s cave, which, although it contains no gold, corals and rubies, is rich in subtle human experiences that certainly differ in small details, but which make us all feel that we are suffering real pain just to continue living.