3 Things I’ve learned from Alemenor

Alemenor is an Amharic fiction written by a respected and successful medical doctor in Black Lion Hospital, Dr. Dawit Wondemagegn. The book narrates about three physicians who are colleagues and friends. These three characters have different lifestyles, beliefs, and perspectives. The story flows showing how this friendship is true and meaningful. Beyond the story it tells, it has philosophical content which persuades readers to have an interest in questioning and reasoning.

Although there is a lot to be learned from the book, I will be listing only three things I have learned from it. These things are discussed in the conversations among the characters and also in intrapersonal conflicts in the minds of the characters. One of the characters, Dr. Desta is maybe the source of the teachings and wisdom of the following lessons. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing to learn from the other characters as well.

1. There is no knower but only knowledge.

Dr. Kibru thinks he knows many things and considers himself better than anyone around him. His friend Dr. Desta on the contrary claims that he or others know nothing. He argues that one can know something about a certain topic but be ignorant of other fields of study. A doctor may know a lot about diseases and how to treat them but he would be ridiculed if you ask him about how to design a nice building. Knowledge is a vast thing and there are still unknown things by man. Therefore one cannot call himself/herself a knower. It is useful to be humble about our limited knowledge and curious about other things to know more.

2. Our cultures and beliefs should be questioned.

Dr. Desta says there should be a healthy amount of doubt about what we know to be true. This is a disruptive outlook for someone to have because we don’t seem to live our life inquisitively and reasonably. We accept what has been transferred from our forefathers. There is no fault in accepting the systems of the elderly. But it would be wrong to accept it without questioning its reasons, benefits, and values. We seem to have no clue about our culture, religion, and customs. We even consider them to be true and have no doubt about them.

3. We are just living in a world where we didn’t choose most of our circumstances.

Have anyone chosen his biological parents, birthplace, sex, or race? Most of us didn’t even choose our names. The reality is we are stubborn about most of these features of us. People think and act like they have true choices. The truth is far from that. Most of the things in our life are chosen by others. Our parents decided to give birth. So here we are facing the infinite problems and pains the world presents to us. The funny thing is that our parents probably haven’t even chosen to bring us here. That may have been an accident caused by alcohol or irresponsibility. So we don’t have to act like we chose to live in the first place. Nowadays people are fighting over race and religion. If they stop for a while and think about it, these things are nothing more than coincidences or choices of their parents/guardians. As a matter of fact, this generation didn’t even sign up for either democracy or federalism. Capitalism is also chosen by our fathers, not us. Therefore these and other aspects of our lives shouldn’t be reasons for conflicts.

My Final Words

Finally, I would like to recommend this book to all of you who haven’t read it. It is full of new ideas and fresh perspectives with a lot of questions about life, death, presence, and absence. It asks about morality, love, democracy, and our culture. These serious questions and topics are presented humorously with attractive conversations.