I go back to my old blog and reread my writings. I search for another blog on Google—there’s no trace of it. It’s lost. Like so many other things. In fact, one of my life’s main preoccupations is precisely this: the search for what is lost—though lost people have always been my first priority. When the lost are not found, perhaps they no longer exist in the future; perhaps they must be found in the past. I think about regrets. About people who once embodied beauty, and are now gone.
It is painful to realize that even human charisma has an expiration date. The phrase “nothing will ever be like it was back then” brings to mind Salvatore, the protagonist of Cinema Paradiso, who lives in constant longing for the past. It seems the age of epic has passed, never to return. Even the social transformations of nations now take the form of coups and external interventions. It is as if the majority has grown content with the master’s money and promises. If you want to roll your own millstone down from the mountain, you must be ready to be wounded—or even to die. The comfort-seeking majority has always been an accomplice to systems of domination.
I have a habit of constantly thinking about the past. The future, somehow, frightens me. Sometimes I drive past the houses where we lived during childhood and adolescence and stare at them for hours—like works of art. Not long ago, I read about an art professor at some European university who takes students to a gallery and forces them to sit in front of a single artwork for three hours without moving, just looking. At first they grow bored, but gradually they begin to perceive the details. To see details, one must gaze steadily at the world. A fleeting glance is not enough to understand existence.
In an age of epic, one must focus entirely on the goal, tolerate no distractions. But is this a world of focus? We live in a world where propaganda dominates. You must constantly run so you don’t fall behind your friend. You must constantly resemble others. Shame has faded from many things, and pause has lost its meaning. You must chatter endlessly just to be accepted. Silence equals rejection. You must constantly express opinions to remain visible to others. And yet, don’t we know that a wise person’s silence outweighs their verbosity?
In such a world, what does wisdom even mean? What does individual independence mean? This is a world of impossibilities—a world of compromise and surrender. Suddenly you grow old and realize that changing many things is beyond your power. You understand that you must lie comfortably on your living room couch and play snakes and ladders with your grandchildren. It’s that simple: the one who has not fought for their dreams must endure defeat until death. And when we die, neither victory nor defeat matters anymore. At most, a banner will be hung on your door, and after a few days everything returns to normal. Normalization is the compulsion of history.
Clinging to the past is a kind of reassurance—the assurance that you won’t be shocked, that you will encounter what you’ve already seen. The exact opposite of the epic spirit, which faces the future—a future that should be beautiful and just, free of oppression and masters. Have we lost our faith in the future?
Governments benefit most from nostalgia—especially nostalgia mixed with sorrow and lament. And an important question arises: what is the duty of the artist and the intellectual? Is the model for humanity the stranger in Safar-e Sang, or Salvatore in Cinema Paradiso? On what basis should art create its archetypes?
I tell my friend: “Time is a monster.” Do you remember our plan? Masuleh, breakfast at the teahouse? Running along the Masal road—the same road where we once spoke about the epic death of Mirza Kuchik Khan?
In another part of my old blog I wrote:
“I am in the Kaveh Terminal teahouse in Isfahan. A middle-aged man sits across from me. I cannot see his face—his hands cover it. His tea must have gone cold by now. The owner plays a song by Banān. A few air force soldiers smoke hookah; the smoke drifts upward. A student holds a book: Writing with the Camera, Face to Face with Ebrahim Golestan by Parviz Jahed. He occasionally opens it and reads. The man’s hair is white. I wonder why he does not remove his hands from his face. The soldiers talk about Shiraz. I want to tell them I too spent three months of military training in Shiraz, but I remain silent. I think they might say: ‘So what? We’re lucky… empty chatter with no value.’”
One speaks only to someone for whom words can become a rope—a connection that continues. Not words that are spoken and then end. This is a world of fragmentation. We are all in pieces. We cling to words once spoken years ago—“I love you”—and store them in the closet of an old house. Sometimes we secretly open the closet and smell those words.
Now the student takes out a book of Forugh and reads while sipping tea. The man’s face feels strangely familiar. A young man with a camera enters. The man removes his hands from his face. Yes—it’s true. He looks like Salvatore. The same man who returns after years to revisit his memories, and to search for his beloved Elena. He finds her old. Confronting an old love wounds the heart, not the face.
The man orders an omelet—but upon seeing the clock, he changes his mind. He stands, pays, and leaves. The soldiers joke. The student keeps reading. I glance at the page—“Conquest of the Garden.” I follow the man. He heads toward the bus station. He pulls a ticket from his pocket. The bus reads “Isfahan–Rasht.” He hesitates. I don’t know why. My eyes fix on the word “Rasht.” I imagine the blue Caspian Sea. I want to go there too.
Perhaps he is thinking of Masuleh’s narrow alleys—where he first saw his Elena. Of a love that has faded. Of reed houses that burn easily. Of the idea that the salvation of humankind is love.
The man turns back. Returns his ticket. Goes back to the teahouse. Orders the omelet. Even smiles. Jokes with the soldiers. Banān is singing. It is Friday morning. The air smells like the sea.
Everyone has something lost. There is a saying attributed to Imam Ali: “Wisdom is the lost property of the believer.” When you lose something, it means you once had it.
Time dissolves. Forugh steps into a jeep. Snow falls. The teahouse becomes Masuleh. The bus reaches Rasht. Elena is old. Perhaps the man does not want to see her aged—or does not want her to see him aged. Cinema Paradiso explodes. Forugh goes to the leper colony. Hamoun runs toward the sea…
The soldiers leave for Shiraz. Coins are thrown into Saadi’s pool. The jeep crashes. Forugh dies in the snow. Like Mirza Kuchik Khan. Like heroes. The end of epic is the beginning of awareness.
It seems not only houses are made of reed—human beings are too. Time is reed. Autumn is reed. Everything is fragile, ready to burn. And you wander endlessly, searching for what you have lost.
This world feels more like Salvatore’s than that of the nameless stranger. Salvatore is more real. No one cares about lost ideals anymore. The idealist eventually fades away, rejected.
Perhaps the artist’s first duty is to depict their own state—and only then to heal the world.
Tomorrow I should call my friend and say: before it’s too late, before we grow older—let’s go. It doesn’t matter where. Staying in one place is decay.
Hope cannot be bought. We must believe that salvation begins within us. Perhaps we need a union of wisdom and strength—of Rostam and Elena.
And perhaps we should all stand in an open square and recite:
“In the name of the Lord of soul and wisdom,
Beyond whom no thought can pass.”
And to wisdom, we must add love.
Because the salvation of humankind… is love
