Cairo, the 12th October, 2009

“ Masters and Apprentices”

I’ve soon found out that there is no difference between giving and receiving – two faces of the same coin – and, even less, between masters and apprentices.
The whole concept of a master – the one who holds the knowledge – and an apprentice – the ignorant who receives that knowledge – has seemed, for quite some time, an illusion to me.

We’re all masters and apprentices of each other and the one who presumes to hold the throne of Knowledge above anyone else denounces himself as the most ignorant.
Some times, you are the one who holds the strength to pull someone else up and lift him and, another times, you’re the beggar laying helpless in the gutter of your spirit asking for a loving, compassionate hand to lift you up. We’re nothing but ONE running in ups and downs throughout life. No one belongs ONLY “Up City” and no one belongs only in “Down There City”.

Knowing that, here it is another piece of “Food for the Soul” from one of my favourite eternal entertainers, Michael Jackson (a genius of a kind but also a very confused, lost person with some Lights that prove my express made theory: we’re ALL LIGHT AND DARKNESS, Masters and Apprentices).
Here we go:

“It’s curious what takes courage and what doesn’t. When I step out on stage in front of thousands of people, I don’t feel that I am being brave. It can take much more courage to express true feelings to one person. When I think of courage, I think of the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz. He was always running away from danger. He often cried and shook with fear. But he was also sharing his real feelings with those he loved, even though he didn’t always like those feelings.

That takes real courage. The courage to be intimate. Expressing your feelings is not the same as falling apart in front of someone else – it’s being accepting and true to your heart, whatever it may say. When you have the courage to be intimate, you know who you are, and you’re willing to let others see that. It’s scary, because you feel so vulnerable, so open to rejection. But without self-acceptance, the other kind of courage, the kind heroes show in movies, seems hollow. In spite of the risks, the courage to be honest and intimate opens the way to self-discovery. It offers what we all want, the promise of love.”

“Allah aleik, ya sidi! (If you don’t speak Arabic, ask any Egyptian what this means cause I have no need to translate it right now).