“The straight line is godless,” says the architect and painter Friedensreich Hundertwasser. They are created by people who have a guilty conscience with straight and square rulers. His strong opposition to the Viennese school of art is reflected in the extraordinary townhouses he built. The curvatures in the floors and walls of these houses, the crooked windows, the trees placed on the terraces of the buildings, and the colors he uses are what he wants to tell the world. Life is mobile. The differences at the basis of existence create diversity and their coexistence creates a rich mobility.
We see an understanding similar to Hundertwasser’s houses in Mesopotamia in a time before the ages. According to legend, the Babylonian king II. Nebuchadnezzar’s wife came from Anatolia. But the dull plains of Mesopotamia made him long for his homeland, full of hills, valleys and rivers. Wanting to restore joy to his wife, the king builds towers that rise into the sky to enliven the land where they live, and each floor of these towers is planted with plants, allowing those who look from afar to see gardens that seem to be suspended in the air. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which we still don’t know whether it is real or not, continues to excite not only the queen but also us today with the thought of it.
The rational mind, which works on opposition, proceeds on the 0/1 principle. There is bad against good, white against black. This is a straight line. However, a graded view tells us that evil is an incomplete good that is not yet complete. Between black and white there are countless shades of gray. It is these differences that create dynamism. This movement against the rigidity of uniformity is sometimes downward and sometimes upward.
Hz. Adam “fell” from paradise to earth. He has been given a life so that he can go back to where he came from and complete this circular movement. He is expected to return to his “original homeland” in a more complete state than when he landed. But it will not be the same paradise again. This place is just like it now, more beautiful. In the lives of the Children of Adam, who are His heirs, there are downfalls in order for them to evolve. All the ups and downs experienced between the duality of birth and death are the steps of Adam’s adventure of becoming human.
A comfortable paradise makes us happy but does not unleash our potential. Those who are able to get up from where they have fallen can stay alive by continuing to grow through these movements. Straight lines are safe. But they are regions without flow, without movement, without joy and sadness. Diversity carries risks, but it is energizing.
The journey of life generously offers us choices and often leaves wells in the areas where we are most hardened. Just as the seed must grow in the darkness, so man rises upward from the shadow of the well when the time comes. Seeds that follow the light have a clear direction. The duration changes but the movement does not change. Lives that draw their strength from change will not stand still. In this case, the measure of our vitality would be our adaptation to change.
