The Importance of Being Cultured..

This happened few weeks ago, I was walking in our office when I saw this gorgeous girl sitting clueless, I approached her and asked what was she looking form she answered that she is a sales representative for one of the hotels that organizes Iftar for Ramadan and she handled me her business card, I took a quick look at the card and told her: “you are from Romania…right?” She said in surprise: “that is right! How did you know?” I answered: “your family name is Vlad, which is the count’s real name..” she asked : “ what count do you mean? “ I said: “from Romania we know only one count… count Dracula of course..!!” She laughed and said: “yes but I can assure you that I’m a vampire or anything like that..” then she took my business card and left…

I know this whole story may seem trivial and not worth mentioning to you, but to me it had a great significance, for a while there I felt extremely smart and cultured, not to mention that this was one of the few times I managed not to make an idiot out of myself in front of a stunning beauty..

But to tell you the truth, all my life I’ve been trying to be cultured, and for some reason I feel that I’m far away from achieving that, to me a cultured person is someone who have read thousands of books, went to hundreds of museums and exhibitions and listened to dozens of symphonies… he is a man who knows how to think and how to look at the big picture, and more importantly how to express himself and say what he thinks and when and where… me on the other hand, I have no idea what I am talking about half the time and although I read a lot but I finish a good book I usually get the feeling that I am a complete ignorant and that I have a lot to learn before I dare to open my mouth and say any opinion about anything..

But this didn’t prevent me from looking “cultured”, there is a great difference between looking cultured and being one if you know what I mean.. and luckily most people can not recognize the difference… and for some reason, the seeming of culture appeared on me very early, people around me started to consider me cultured even before I learned to read and didn’t miss that opportunity, so I started reading about everything and thinking about everything till one day I discovered that I became different.. I began talking differently and acting differently even thinking differently and here I had my second discovery, culture is a good thing but within limits, it’s a double edged knife that must be used wisely or it will destroy your social life mercilessly… I remember one time during an Arabic lesson in high school, there were those twin brothers whom you don’t require a lot of intelligence to tell that they are either junkies or just passing through a severe phase of stupidity.. The teacher was discussing a poem by Farouk Shousha begins with the following verses: “The Arabic blood said: I and water are even, I have to taste, no colour and no smell..” the teacher said that the Arabian blood became like water that lost its distinguished taste and colour, thus became like water that lost its value… I objected saying that scientifically speaking, water does have no colour, no smell and no taste, meaning that water has no distinguished characteristics, and so is the Arabic blood now…a simple, logical remark as you can see, but – to my surprise- the two brothers started starring at me and then laughed hysterically as if one of them is telling the other: “ who is that insane of understands poetry..” , and the other answered with a head nod with the meaning : “ don’t mind him.. he is just another idiot..”

This was one of the important incidents that taught me a new fact: “ I may not be cultured but I’m in a better state than others..” , the same theory behind the English saying : “In the Land of the Blind One-Eyed is King” , I still remember this wonderful conversation between two people standing behind me while I was in the pavilion of the Academic library in Cairo’s book fair.. the fist said : “ look at all these books… when did they find the time to write all these books?”. The second answered wisely : “ they must have nothing else to do, man..” I stood there trying to process this logic… where do these people come from? And if writing books is what idiots do on their free time, what brought them to the academic library? What brought them to a book fair in the first place?

By time, the raft grew wider, till I went to collage just to discover that things won’t get any better, in order to survive collage you don’t have to be cultured, instead you need to be cool and funny even if you were as shallow as a beetle, I remember one day when I was walking through the corridors when I saw one of the cool kids who always walks with a bunch of gorgeous “chicks” , I stopped him expressing how much I liked his T- shirt, which portrayed a mysterious man dressed in black and standing between two lines of trees with writing in English in big letters saying “ FRANZ KAFKA”

I went on about how much I love Kafka’s writing and that “ The Trial” is one of the best novels I’ve ever read, and that his other famous story “Metamorphoses” (in which Gregory Samsa woke up to find himself transformed into a giant insect) is one of the…..he stopped me then, saying that he only bought the T-shirt because his girlfriend thought it is cool and that he has neither heard about that Kafka guy nor that other dude who turned into an insect, he left shaking his head in a way I know very well, it seems that the list of those who consider me insane or an idiot is just getting longer and longer…

That was the first time I started thinking that maybe my calculations were wrong from the start, there is no place today for those who want to read more or know more, the rules have changed and what used to work yesterday does not mean much today, and if you don’t believe me just go through any newspaper or watch any television channel, there is a strange human activity that makes you chase a leather ball just to put it inside a net hanged on a metal frame, a weird activity as you can see but it could turn you into a hero if you are good at it, there is even a more strange activity where you can wear funny clothes with huge golden necklaces and stand on a stage singing stupid lyrics, that alone can make you a legend no matter what disasters you make and if you were lucky , people will organize demonstrations cheering for you even if you broke the law or became a drugs addict…

Maybe the two junkie brothers were right, maybe it was my fault from the beginning when I wanted to be cultured, maybe I should’ve been cooler than this, maybe I wasted too much time reading instead of singing or playing soccer… maybe I’m insane or just an idiot after all..

I noticed something now, the insane never admit that they are insane and since I confessed in the last paragraph that I may be insane then this means that I’m definitely not insane…

I’m just another idiot…

I think I feel a little better…

A Final Word :

SHE : How is your friend?
HE : He is dead.
SHE : What killed him?
HE : His Life