By Roya Monajem, Tehran

It is said: You ask heartily it happens, yet if you leave it solely to the universe, it may happen in strange ways.

Couple of months ago, continuing the path of moving away from the past or better to say trying to understand what it means when mystics say: die unto this life, if you wish true liberation, salvation, freedom, rebirth on a higher level of being, the idea crossed the mind to close my yahoo account and start to use gmail, with much less spams… to say the least. The resistance was: What about those readers who might come across one of my works in the internet and wish to give me some feedback?

Plus the fact that I didn't even have all addresses in the address book for the most unproductive sin called sloth or laziness.

Plus what close friends said when they heard the idea: Don't close it! Or as one of them put it: "Let us keep two camels for communication, in modern technical terms two e-mail accounts."

The above considerations and recommendations helped laziness to keep postponing the necessary primary step of fulfilling that wish, i.e. completing the address book. Not only it seemed a boring job, but more important than that it meant going through the past again, another burdensome job when one has almost completed exploring the past in a constructive way (i.e. for the purpose of identifying destructive patterns and reaching self-acceptance, self-love, self-reconciliation) and now wishes to concentrate on here and now.

Plus the fact that managing two camels now was a good justification for feeding the disease called Tomorrow, with the underlying cause of laziness!

…Until a couple of days ago, when I learnt one of the camels was stolen over night without a trace left behind from the robbers (hackers)!!!

Panic was the first emotion coming up:

My goodness! I hope none of my friends or readers would suffer for my laziness, my foolishness!

The second cause of panic:

How many people among those who know me would think of me as a "thief" now?!!!

But apparently nothing could be done. Sometimes helplessness can be therapeutic. The very idea of what is the point of panic when nothing can be done was like water poured on the burning fire of that panic now aggravated with the fact that apparently it was me who gave the thieves the key to the stable of that camel.

While checking mails, although I intuitively knew I should not pay attention to the e-mail from a sender called Yahoo with the subject: Confirm your account otherwise…and despite all logical and emotional hints that surfaced when I opened it, a vicious uncontrollable impulse forced me to fill it, even when while typing the PW, I saw that it is appearing in letters instead of conventional Black Dots or Stars…!!!!

So the original panic summarized in: Lest some become the victim of my foolishness was now mixed with the resulting negative emotions surfacing as the result of the above discovery, like an agonizing guilt feeling, rage, self-anger, self-reproach, regret and you name it.

Then a voice was heard inside reminding the old Persian saying: Enemy can produce goodness if god wills?

So die unto the life of roya the fool, the ignoramus and don't waste your energy as usual on the above negative emotions and instead keep concentrated and make the wish that all your friends and readers are clever enough to realize that the e-mail the hackers are sending them can not be yours even if it is signed by you.

Enemy may bring good if god wills?

The first 'gift' it brought was that the account is gone!… The realization surprisingly brought a mixture of sadness, grief, sorrow, nostalgia…

Yahoo is a word that for many Iranians who know it is the mantra of dervishes means perhaps more than it does for other Moslems who use it only in its literal sense meaning god help us and things like that… The picture that comes to mind with this word when we pay attention, or even automatically, is that of an old man with long white beard, in white robe with a beautiful jacket and sometimes with a wide shinning green satin belt, holding a ritual bowl full of stories in regard to its meanings, all symbolic in a way and… In other words, for those of us who saw those genuine dervishes particularly in our innocent days of childhood when we only had our senses and feelings to distinguish between good/bad, genuine/fraud, the word brings to mind the first conception of divine compassion and love reflected in those shining eyes, kind face, pleasant soothing presence… All gone!

Enemy may bring good if god wills…

Didn't you wish to close down that account particularly as a symbolic gesture to leave the past behind, to experience a kind of rebirth? That is done, that e-mail belongs to the late or ex-royamonajem now. So instead of mourning, wailing and weeping for your symbolic death, celebrate the re-birth by opening a new account at the same site with the e-mail address: ex.royamonajem@yahoo.com.[1]

Thank you hackers!!! I just had an e-mail from an unknown source in my new imaginary Yahoo account that said, everything happens for the best! or as a deceased teacher- friend used to say: everything happens for the best, even if it does not appear when it occurs.