Mahmoud

“لن أنصحك بشيء، فلا شيء أثقل على النفس الحرة من تلقي النصائح.”
― يوسف زيدان, ظل الأفعى

“السؤال هو الإنسان . الإنسان سؤال لا إجابة . وكلُ وجودٍ إنساني احتشدت فيه الإجابات فهو وجود ميت ! وما الأسئلة إلا روحُ الوجود .. بالسؤال بدأت المعرفة وبه عرف الإنسان هويته . فالكائنات غير الإنسانية لا تسأل ، بل تقبل كل ما في حاضرها ، وكل ما يحاصرها . الإجابةُ حاضرٌ يحاصر الكائن ، والسؤالُ جناحٌ يحلق بالإنسان إلى الأفق الأعلى من كيانه المحسوس. السؤالُ جرأةٌ على الحاضر ، وتمرّدُ المحَاصَر على المحاصِر .. فلا تحاصرك الإجابات، فتذهلك عنك، وتسلب هويتك.”
― يوسف زيدان, ظل الأفعى

“وأنت يا ابنتي معذورة في حيرتك، وفي التردد في طرح السؤال... فقد نشأت في بلاد الإجابات، الإجابات المعلبة التي اختزنت منذ مئات السنين، الإجابات الجاهزة لكل شيء، وعن كل شيء، فلا يبقى للناس إلا الإيمان بالإجابة، والكفر بالسؤال. الإجابة عندهم إيمان، والسؤال من عمل الشيطان! ثم تسود من بعد ذلك الأوهام، وتسود الأيام، وتتبدد الجرأة اللازمة والملازمة لروح السؤال.”
― يوسف زيدان, ظل الأفعى

“War seems like a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. Then they get a taste of battle.

For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted by an axe.

They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now, They take the wound, and when that’s still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water.

If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron half helm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the small folk whose land they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad in all steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world.

And the man breaks.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Feast for Crows