Those who slept forever

Welcome to myself

"How? How?" I couldn't wrap my head around it. I was caught in a philosophical dilemma, rereading that passage by Averroes trying to make sense of it.

The plane was still delayed, and it was already eight in the evening; even if they had boarded at that moment, it would take another forty-five minutes, then two hours of flight, disembarking, and a taxi ride. I would end up getting home at eleven or even later.

The upside was that I wouldn't have to take any more work calls and could peacefully dedicate myself to what I loved most, reading. I've always been judged as a disordered and confusing person, but it's false; I've always had a very precise and methodical order in my mind. I was capable of the most shameless laziness and also of inhuman efforts and fatal concentration when it came to reaching a goal I cared about. As a kid, I thought that was simply my character, but it was only part of the truth. For as long as I can remember, I've suffered from a very particular disorder, at least in its most manifest effects.

What I was pondering and what Averroes was debating with Al Ghazali was the mechanism that allows the transition from unity to multiplicity. In other words, if unity or God are inherently perfect, complete, and unique, how is it possible for matter, which is imperfect, plagued by need, and multiple, to emerge? And if it were a divine creation, it means that it did not coexist beforehand in the nature of the creator and therefore was lacking, ergo God was imperfect.

I've always adored Islamic philosophy; it's a landscape rich in mystical suggestions and practices still little known in the West. The division of reality is a theme that particularly fascinated me, the idea of parallel worlds, ontologically oriented towards light, epiphany. If we were able to touch God, I was brimming with imagination, we could achieve asceticism while still alive.

So, as always happened, I raised my eyes to the left, making sure to fix my gaze on the arch of my eyebrow and did it a couple of times. Then a shiver down my spine and the unpleasant sensation that the right half lifted over the left. I emitted with my voice a faint and sharp sound, imperceptible to everyone but me. I repeated it a couple of times until I perceived my body regain symmetry, my eyes scanned the opposite direction, and I returned with my absolute concentration to my book.

I have Tourette's syndrome.