5 min read
Retracing steps

What else than the appropriate penalty for one who doesn’t know, namely, to learn from the one who does know? Therefore, that’s what I deserve.

  • Socrates, Republic, Book I, 337d

Knowledge was currency in my youth. The closer I was to the correct answer–or loftier still, the truth–did more than provide credibility. It lent itself towards dominance. My father was a well educated man considering his origins, yet time and time again he would invoke experience as an authority to supersede my book knowledge. The closest analogy to his choice phrase in the Western cultural canon brings to mind a negative picture. In Disney’s Aladdin, the protagonist Aladdin is referred to as a ‘street rat’. My late father used the phrase gha-reeb ahn-yahn in only one setting–while he was with his siblings. Never did I observe anyone from my cultural background use the phrase in his presence, neither his students, extended family, nor my mother. I once asked my mother if my father was a gha-reeb ahn-yahn and I was startled with her reaction. I was informed in a gentle voice but with a heavy air this was an inappropriate way to refer to one’s father. My mother’s origins are less humble, to say the least. I am only now rediscovering to what end what I considered stories in my youth are true and still beyond my understanding.

When I was chastised by my mother there was an unsettling confusion. I had not done anything wrong, I am referring to my father and his origins as he does, isn’t this my right? His blood is in my veins, I have his bulbous nose (which finds licks of ice cream, a past time my father and I shared) which I was ridiculed for but never understood. My mother may not share the background of my father, but I did and I was not ashamed. I learned later from my father this negative attitude towards the phrase persists. Where in Canada (called Turtle Island by its caretakers) where I maintain citizenship graciously provided by my family and the Canadian state, I did not experience the negativities. In parts of the Pashto speaking world the outlook differs.

But I wanted to be a gha-reeb ahn-yahn. Why couldn’t I be a gha-reeb ahn-yahn? I couldn’t, although while settling in Canada there were difficulties adjusting and assimilating, I grew up in comparative luxury.

Note: this part of the text was written later, on 2024-11-28

If knowledge is currency, formal knowledge at first glance is rather expensive. There are charitable means like scholarships, and vested means like a loan provided by a government. To attain training at institutions dedicated to formal knowledge the cost–compared to historical accounts–is quite affordable. Yet this formal knowledge is a part of the puzzle and the lesser half at that. The priceless knowledge is experience. It is the boy’s club, club membership, networking and street smarts. We don’t qualify it through a financial evaluation since it’s known to be impractical in practice. However some folks need a number to measure and compare. I am one of those people, I like math, graphs, models, calculations [1] etc. The difficulty in this holistic method of comparison and my cartesian approach brought great difficulty in my university years. I liked how clearly I could communicate with others who speak different languages. I showed my work and I’d get an answer immediately, no need to dilly-dally with my accent or the other person’s, to speak in a coded language I used with discomfort. This was efficient.

The discretion elders had shown was frustrating. What do you mean ‘you know I’ll be alright’? What does that even mean? Be precise or else I don’t understand. Better yet give me a reference to a story, the older and snobbier the better. If that can’t be done give a rating out of ten. What do you mean ‘how do I do that?’ You have eleven numbers to choose from, how hard could it be? You have 0, 1, 2, …up to 10. You can even use decimals like 7.3, look at all the options you have to choose from!

You can imagine how insufferable I was.


[1] Not excel, I can’t for the life of me understand or use it in any productive capacity. I did well in two different university courses at two different institutions and still struggle with the basics. I admire the office worker who can manage to use it productively!