Asim AlaviOnce, while returning from a conference by the metro bus in the bustling city of Istanbul, I witnessed a fair-statured woman with an autistic girl getting in and taking their seats in the rear. The woman appeared in a perfectly calm disposition; her face was even with no signs of bumps and pimples. She was neatly dressed in an ironed-out gown and headscarf. A sharp-witted onlooker would easily describe her as a coolheaded woman enduring a troublesome autistic girl.
The sooner they settled in, the girl, who could be around fifteen years of age, released a screech of the highest pitch; it was so frightening that no girl her age could ever cast such an outcry; it terrified the co-passengers. Some could have guessed the woman squeezing the girl’s neck until suffocation. She repeated it every couple of minutes irritatingly. Although the passengers were visibly annoyed, no one dared to ask the woman to control the girl as if each one was expecting the other to be the first one to reprimand her. Neither she tried to prevail upon the girl for doing the terrifying thing in the presence of strangers. I looked at the woman and expressed a sympathetic grin, shedding a sharp gaze on their faces. She, in return, reciprocated with a calculated grin showing her seriousness in the business. She could have read my face, assuming I was a potential customer, as such seasoned vendors are clever enough to quickly understand the interest of the person staring at them.
Stunning enough, I found no traces of panic or stress in their faces; quite contrarily, the woman was talking to the girl in an astonishingly relaxed manner. For every bit of smooth talk, she got a terrific screech in return, which appeared like expressing joy.
Absolutely no signs of anger in either of their faces were too found. Then, the woman stood up with a neatly organised basket filled with several small items commonly used by commuters. The items were beautifully stacked to grab the buyers’ attention. I alighted, and they, too, alighted and dispersed. I then entered Istanbul’s popular Marmaray underground train that cuts through the Bosporus Strait from the European side to the Asian side of the city. They, too, should have entered. In a few minutes, I was met by another terrifying screech that indiscriminately hit the tube, triggering recurring echoes from every corner. It appeared to me that the woman’s vending begins from one end of the train to the other, with a minimum of one screech in each wagon for the purpose of alerting passengers. The girl could be expressing her joy in excitement when a customer pays money in return for an item, or she could be saying “Thank you” in her God-given language.
This is how the woman turns the girl’s physical weakness into a valuable asset, thereby magically turning the passengers’ outpouring of sympathy into unbroken profit.
Survival Instinct as a Teacher
One does not learn this incredibly smart marketing method in textbooks; neither is it acquired in educational institutes, where human minds are conditioned to think in the ways taught by professors. These are natural talents inbuilt in human nature. Such skills are set in motion when one is pushed forward by his survival instinct to search for means of sustenance. Man’s survival instinct is a compelling urge deposited in human nature; it is an incredible blessing bestowed upon man by the Most Merciful God. It is a clear indication of the Almighty’s absolute justice, as, without this divine blessing, the woman in our discussion would not have possessed the talent to use the girl’s autism as a profit-generating capital. Its innate power and depth are immeasurable. According to Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, it is the “ability to know what to do to stay alive”. Basically, this instinct urges man to muster all necessary means to protect himself from harm. Man’s need for food, shelter and comfort encourages him to invent marvellous things to satiate himself.
History tells us many amazing anecdotes of successful people. One person rose to prominence and wealth through sheer memory power; another amassed a fortune by attracting sympathy towards his physical disability. It also tells us that from the first man, Adam, every generation has used this survival instinct to make life secure and comfortable in marvellous ways. Adam was not sent to an already neatly built civilisation to thrive on Earth. God does not send tools and technologies from heaven through angels for man to create his life.
Conversely, Adam was sent with the inbuilt nature of survival instinct to lay the foundations for a healthy human civilisation for himself and his progenies until the end times. It is by the will of God that man’s thinking and ability to invent evolve through the experience transmitted from one generation to another. This is the simple reason why the first generation of mankind did not invent aeroplanes.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon every passionate youth to take time to sit and contemplate how one can convert one’s physical and mental weaknesses into fortune-making assets. But essentially, without trying to be pretentious or deceptive. Be genuine because it is through genuineness that one gets long-lasting attraction. Powerlessness should not be used as a perpetual means for survival, as that will certainly land one in beggary and laziness, thus destroying one’s future.
