The Case of the Prison-Monger

The more you want, the more chance you will lose what little you already have.

Great Expectations make frustrated men. Our parents, being realists, teach us from the outset not to yearn for big things – when you stretch up to reach higher things you drop what you had under your arms. Moral of the saying? Hold on to what you have and be satisfied. The more you want, the more chance you will lose what little you already have.

Still, we produce ambitious men. Anomalies, actually; a handful among millions. However, try to keep what you have is a standing order for all. Without exception. This is why an Ethiopian is surprised, even if opposed, at the extent to which the State goes to protect itself. Or, say, the Great Chairman himself. He has liquidated many of his close friends, he has struck alliances that change swiftly, he has ordered Terror and Massacres (what we call the TM diet) against the people, he has peddled the country’s sovereignty to the highest bidder (in this case none other than Russia which came big and fast with the item the Chairman needed most at the time – arms). From a rabid anti-socialist, he has metamorphosed himself into the symbol of socialism in Africa (even if many say it is play-acting). All to keep what he has – absolute power.

The wife who expects affection and not love lives happily ever after with her husband who, like all husbands, spreads his love around. Parents who expect some consideration from their children and no more end up with disappointment. Pray to God but don’t expect miracles. Watch your health, but you may die soon. The less you expect, the less you get frustrated, and the greater is your happiness if you get more.

It is a philosophy of poverty and servility, you may say. Perhaps. Actually, it was expounded in a coherent form for the first time in the eighteenth-century manuscript by St Gebre the Poor. The manuscript, which read like a ‘How-to-live-satisfied-with-an-emptystomach’ manual, could have sold well in the present weight-and-diet-conscious western world. It dealt not only with the filling capacities of a one-fruit-a-day-meal and warned how one can get fat and lazy by not exercising the mind, but it also advised believers on how to let ambition steam in its own pot and how to realize happiness through deprivation. A Chinese philosopher said to …

...to be continued

a story by Hama Tuma