The libertine

I first learned I had no soul in Egypt in 1999. I was in an oasis town called Al Fayoum, taking photos of romantic poverty, when a local man purposely walked into me, knocking me sideaways, mid-photo. I assumed it was an accident and looked up at him, and he turned to face me while he was walking away and gave a clear grimace, somehow both facing me and walking away at the same time, grimacing, with piercing, unfriendly eyes. I’d seen that look before a few times in Egypt; enough times to make me stop and think what it meant. This was pre-9-11, when I still had a healthy disrespect for all religions, and didn’t know the difference between a Jew and a Muslim. I now know there is no difference – they are just the same as me: insignificant human animals with overblown senses of importance. I’d made a lot of faux-pas during that trip. I still remember the whole room filling with laughter - absolute uncontrollable, unexpected mirth, after I asked if I could get a flight to Israel. I remember the student coming up to me in the Mohammed Ali mosque (no, not that Mohammed Ali) and telling me I was not behaving respectfully. He was unapologetically angry, veritably incensed. I remember the man saying, with contempt, “No, they are not singing, they are praying”, and I especially remember that pregnant pause during an argument about money in the Khan al-Khalili souk, after a non-Muslim female had literally ripped the cash out of a male Muslim’s hand, when I could see in their eyes the thought: “Should we beat the crap out of them, or laugh it off?”. That look followed me everywhere, and I eventually interpreted it to mean “that base infidel”. Those challenging eyes, coming from an animal that had spent an entire lifetime in devotion to a spiritual ideal, facing an animal that had spent an entire young adulthood in devotion to folly and fleeting sensual whims.
What troubled me most was that it was all true. Where they had a deep spiritual conscious, no matter how absurd it was, I had only an indiscriminate fancy, based on nothing but orgasms, pride and desire. I have no soul. I am like a Labrador, running through a sunlit field; it’s tongue hanging out, with a glorious, idiot smile on its face.
I wish I had a soul. I listen to Mahalia Jackson and I wish I had a soul. I meet my fiends and relatives who have a certain and defined faith and I wish I had a soul. I speak to virtual strangers who are discovering subtle and profound truths about themselves and I wish I had a soul. But I don’t. I am hollow and empty like the rotten core of a decaying tree trunk. Like a shell whose inhabitant has long left for a larger housing. Like Kenny G. I am on a path of existence, leading towards a death that will lead me into eternal nothingness. It makes me feel so … liberated.