Creative Thinking: Demolition
In Riyadh’s Sitteen Street (Malaz area), a well-known building complex had been standing for over thirty years. It included a couple of shopping malls, a travel agency, a bank, sports stores as well as offices on the higher floors. Then the buildings started to deteriorate. Shops closed down one by one until the whole complex stopped functioning. It became like a ghost town with broken windows gaping, torn curtains bellowing out of the panes, rubble everywhere, heaps of dirt in every corner. “Too bad,” I would always think, “They should really pull it down.” It was a sad thought because I remembered with tenderness the times when I used to shop there, get my reservations at the travel agent’s, buy sports gear and greeting cards. And those buildings kept standing there, in total ruin, day after day.
Finally, a few days ago, I saw they had been demolished almost completely. The walls had disappeared, only electric cables were hanging down, dumb witnesses of what had been and was no more. My feelings were mixed up. I was glad that the ghostly buildings were being cleared out while memories flooded my mind, along with a bit of sorrow for... “what had been and was no more.”
A parallel with human life was inevitable. Think about a person or a situation you had to give up (rather unwillingly, tough) because you knew it was for the best. Let us say that you had a friend who was depleting you of your energy by always complaining and dumping on you all his (or her) problems. You liked the individual but the time you spent together ended up making you feel depressed. You finally decided you had better stop seeing him (or her). It was hard, but you had to do it. You were brave enough to do it. Many people are not, and go on “suffering” in silence for (they say) the sake of the friendship. Perhaps you were facing a difficult situation (maybe in the family, maybe at work) and you did not know how to solve it. You knew there was no way to change things, so the only possible solution was to walk out, leaving it behind – for good. It took you time to take such step but you finally did it. You felt immediately relieved but, at the same time, a subtle feeling of regret kept nagging you from time to time.
When you have a serious problem with another human being, when there is nothing you can do, when there is no hope for improvement, it takes courage to give it a cut. Some do it more easily than others who find it difficult to let go. A kind of umbilical cord seems to keep them tied to the past and they cannot bear to get rid of it. This need that many people have to remain attached to the past, to “keep in touch,” to never burn the bridges, is rather puzzling. Some (unfortunately more than one could expect) have reached a point of attachment to things — no matter what — that they become “hoarders.” They cannot throw away anything they have been in contact with (even stuff that anybody else would discard or consider it as trash). It is a morbid attachment to what “has been” that they are totally unable to release.
Without reaching such extremes, we cannot help wondering: Is the attachment, the need for a constant connection to the past positive or negative? As usual, there is no precise answer in one way or another. It depends. If an old building can be repaired, if there is a way to make it function again, let us attempt to restore it. But if we honestly know that no salvage is possible, let us pull up our sleeves, grab any suitable tool and let us begin to tear it down. Think also about a tree that, in order to thrive, needs pruning. It is painful to have to cut so many branches but it is a necessary operation, for the sake of the tree itself. Therefore you, too, can cut some useless, painful, even harmful “branches” that are weighing down your life and wait for the new crop. Or demolish the old “shack” that has become a dead weight, throw away the debris and start building something new.
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