Denial, revisited.


It's a great song by the Offspring. But it's also a theme I've been thinking about ever since I came back to Jordan, ever since I had to write a theatre piece about it.

What is denial? Who says you're in denial? Who gets to judge? What adds fuel to the fire is that I'm the sort of person who believes that nothing is impossible. It's a philosophy that's served me well in my life: here I am, doing things few people would have ever thought possible, experiencing things I'd never imagined.

And back to the denial itself? Is there really a clear cut case of black and white in life? Ever? or is everything all about shades of grey, moral ambiguity, and uncertainty?

We experience denial because we are afraid. We're afraid to face a situation that will ruin the beauty of our ignorance, even though we sometimes do not realise this. We fear that we shall forever lose that beauty of not knowing...that precious illusion that gives us the most important thing in the universe: Hope.

There's a latin saying, which I'll have to look up sometime...it goes: Whilst I breathe, I hope. I'm going to rephrase it as Whilst I deny, I hope. After all, sicne denial is buolt on what one doesn't know, who's to say we're wrong?