Life is a Stage
by Zeinat Sedki
Zeinat Sedki
Zeinat Sedki is known as a comic actor; very few know her as a philosopher and expert in life and people. This article was dictated by her, and we [the magazine] only changed the style.
Life is but a great stage on which only one old play is performed with no changes. However, people never get bored with it. Although it is the very same play that is performed every day, some people see it as a comedy while others regard it as a tragedy.
In fact, those who consider it a comedy live longer as they enjoy each and every minute in their lives.
I came to realize that life is nothing but a comic play that arouses laughter… In fact, it is a silly one, but since we have to watch it anyway why not laugh and enjoy it even if we are deceiving ourselves.
Happiness is cheap and within reach; sadness, on the other hand, is very expensive … One cannot overcome disasters by just being sad, but one can overcome them by believing that they are nothing but a joke from fate that will soon pass unnoticed in the midst of joy.
For example why do we mourn for our friends and lovers who pass away … Are we sure that they are on their way to hell? Would our grief make them proud among their fellows that they left behind people who appreciated them? Would destiny have pity on us and bring them back to life?
Why do we feel miserable because of poverty and happy to be rich … Are the rich happier than poor people?
Nonetheless, a touch of happiness replaces misery … Happiness makes the poor take beans for a turkey and patched clothes for silks. Sadness on the other hand duplicates their sense of humiliation resulting from poverty.
That’s the difference between those who smile to life and those who do not …those who consider life a comic play and those who see it as a tragedy.
Let’s enjoy ourselves; it doesn’t matter.
El Kawakeb. Issue 25. December 1951.
