Oh Life

Mahmoud Kianoush states in a brief introduction to the story “Oh, Life!”: “Today, the majority of individuals across three generations—young, middle-aged, and old—whose minds, like those of several previous generations, have necessarily engaged with the caravan of science, civilization, free thinking, and free living in the new world, have been wandering and spinning in the realm of ‘politics.’ Not only have they distanced themselves from and become unaware and alienated from the worldview of their childhood, but as parents, they have also neglected to consider and understand the natural, healthy, but vulnerable worldview of their children. In my opinion, this two-sided neglect, a consequence of ‘political thinking’ without the foundation of ‘scientific and philosophical thinking,’ may have begun about 165 years ago, when ‘Naser al-Din Mirza,’ the crown prince, immediately after the death of his father, ‘Mohammad Shah Qajar,’ came from Tabriz to Tehran and ascended the throne, appointing ‘Mirza Taghi Khan Amir Nezam’ as his Grand Vizier with the title ‘Atabak-e-Azam.’ This profound and ambitious Grand Vizier became ‘Amir Kabir’ and founded Dar al-Fonun. Now, many of us might be deeply puzzled as to why, after 165 years of rejecting the caravan of science, civilization, free thinking, and free living in the new world, we have come to a point where we see ourselves having fallen behind that caravan by about a thousand years. Perhaps this reformist and truth-seeking deviation has a thousand and one geographical, historical, social, and cultural reasons. As a poet, storyteller, and literary critic, not in any other role, I feel that one of these thousand and one reasons is our rupture from a sinless childhood life and forgetting the purity of human life’s nature, contaminating it with adult illusions. To reflect on this one reason among thousands, I invite seekers of the path of ‘doubt and questioning’ in a poetic, imaginative, realistic, symbolic story to journey back to childhood. I hope that the story ‘Oh, Life!’ can find a small corner and a brief opportunity to be read amidst the noisy busyness of constant ‘political thinking,’ a notion often equated with ‘intellectualism.'”