Job Discussion Forums

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

Comment on this adage from Horace. Does it reflect your experiences in Saudi Arabia ? For the benefit of those without Latin it can be rendered into the Vulgar Tongue as

Those who cross the sea change their sky but not their soul.

My point is to get you to reflect on how Saudi Arabia, and your experiences here have changed you. Or not. It is now nearly 40 years since I first came to the Peninsula, and I often wonder if I am better or worse as a result of working here.

johnslat · Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 7:09 pm Post subject:

Dear scot47,

My levels of patience versus impatience reversed themselves. Before going to Saudi, I had a "short fuse," but when I left, my patience level would make Job seem choleric and irascible.

I entered Saudi a binge drinker; I left it a teetotaler.

When I arrived, I knew very little about Islam; when I departed, I knew a considerable amount about it.

Offhand, I'd say Horace was wrong in my case; my soul changed (and, strangely enough, I'd say for the better.)

Regards,
John

007

eclectic · Joined: 09 Nov 2006 Posts: 1122

johnslat · Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 1:35 am Post subject:

Dear eclectic,

Even much earlier, Plato would have banned them from the Republic, a mistake IMHO. But he considered their power over the minds of men and women to be dangerous. Of course, that was back in the day when poets actually HAD power.
No need to worry about that now, of course. As W. H. Auden put it:

"For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth."

Sad

Regards,
John

Sheikh N Bake · Joined: 26 Apr 2007 Posts: 1307 Location: Dis ting of ours

Le Petit Prince · Joined: 16 Jan 2010 Posts: 22 Location: Dubai

I wish like heck I'd studied Latin... I can't imagine it's done you much good in the Good Old ME.Forty years in that place!!
My only advice about Saudi is that it is the most .......place...the most unspeakable........... nation. And the people are , genrally the biggest................ on earth.
Aside from that everything is A-OK.

With Malice Toward None · Joined: 20 Oct 2009 Posts: 250

Perhaps we need to reconsider our concept of 'soul'. Do you and me have separate souls? By soul, is it psyche that you mean? Does it mean that when body dies, the soul dies along with it? If so, why should we call it soul? Any one who is reading this who has lost a parent or both thinks his/her soul/s is/are with them/not , guiding their actions, telling them what's right, what's not? We don't need Nietzsche to decide our path of righteousness.
God is soul. And the soul is within me and you. And the moment you decide to let go of everything else accumulated, you are FREE.
Freud, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kant,
As Hamlet says to the soon-to-be-killed Polonius,
Words, words, words, sir.

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

I like to think I am a better person but that may because I have mellowed with age and learnt a bit about living a moral life. Out of the last 40 years, I have spent 16 in KSA, and I am sure I have been affected. I am pleased to say that I have not modelled my driving practices on those of the locals.

That reminds me of an anecdote but I will save that for a later date when I am in a more jovial frame of mind.