A DAIRY OF ME: The First Decade (Draft) - (AutoBio SERIES)

THE STORY OF MY LIFE FROM A HEAVILY BIASED BIASED POINT OF VIEW

To JRR Martin for the ASOIAF was an eye opener to the possible complexities beyond our ability to absorb and analysis the data that is absorbed by our senses. Neurologists will tell that the sheer amount of data collected and processed is simply mind-bobbling (pun intended).

It does seem to my that I was born on a Saturday of the second Jump, a thousand four hundred and five lunar years after the forced migration (or exile) of a man called Abu l-Qasim. In one of the most successfully clandestine escapes from death, Abu-l Qasim Muhammad bin Abdallah avoided the planned assassination. A feat more worthy than any of the imaginary ones of Agatha Christie, Arthur C Doyle and James Hardly Chase.

Unless am gravely mistaken, the story of the first 10 years of my life is as unreliable as most. It is a jumble events that are at best hazy images with so many wholes and contradictions that most of it seem (with 20 yrs hindsight, too incoherent to be reliable as a source of studying my life or decisions. These early memories seem to have very little in the way of structure or chronological order. And when they are laid down, they can hardly cover 2 years let alone ten.

For example, I have a very clear image of the person that taught me how to spell my name using romanised letters (English). So clear is the memory that I am able to remember the exact place and time, the number of other persons, down to my relative position to my venerable tutor; who was wearing a white traditional baboon Riga. The only thing I can't remember is the colour of his cap.

However, about 15 years ago, I bagan to have doubts as to the identity of the second of two witnessing to this momentous event. Aside myself and my tutor, my farther was seated at his customary spot when receiving visitors. Wearing his signature white jellaba and cap; the colour of which was also in doubt. For over a decade, I would relate this event to many as a sign of the power of islamic knowledge. That my teachers at school had failed to achieve, my tutor had done within minutes. But then I got tired of always saying that I could not remember the identity of the other witness. So I approach my father to clear the matte up.

Imagine my utter consternation and bewilderment when my father, rather surprised at my question, said it was impossible for my memories to be true. I did not know that many venerable and respected tutor could not even spells own name in English, much less teach me to spell mine.

....

In my efforts to cope with this ground shattering revelation, I decided the only possibility was that every other detail of the memory was true with a simple and convenient exception. My venerable tutor had actually taught me to write my name in Arabic, a language in which few could rival his literacy. Thus, for a while at least, I was able to reconcile the solid certainty I had in that memory with the fact that my tutor was only literate in Arabic (and I would later find out, held English in such contempt that he made clear his view that it was a language not worth the effort to comprehend.

Regardless, I knew this self adjustment to my memory was only a temporary bandaid to a piece of my past that too many wholes to be anything more than a creation of my own very active imagination. A capacity I seemed to have had in abundance. In later years I would come across many of my school results in my dad's keeping. One comment that stood out was the complaint that everyone seemed believe I possessed an above above average intellect which was however made redundant by my penchant for getting lost day dreams that would leave me only physically present while my mind and eyes roamed the nearest window from whence to take off into worlds of unknown nature, distance nor veracity. 

Still, the doubts about my own ability to remember my own life was a constant thorn on the side of my now delicate confidence in my own sanity. Thus, for the next decade found me exploring the possibilities of possible significant events of which I remained ignorant due to an inability to recall selected data via the will.

I held on and survived by clutching the very thin straws I had now constructed to protect me from completely loosing confidence in my own ability to differentiate between past activities and imagination.