Obsession 

Obsession   -   in Persian    وسواس 

By John Kazerooni

Once upon a time, in a garden so breathtaking that even the wind moved through it with reverence, two love birds lived among flowers drenched in color and trees ancient enough to remember countless springs. Streams wandered peacefully through the garden like silver ribbons, and every sunrise painted it with the tenderness of a quiet blessing.

At the heart of this paradise those two birds lived happily full of love. They loved each other deeply—so deeply that separation felt unnatural to them. When one flew, the other followed. When one sang, the other answered before silence had the chance to settle. Day and night passed through their lives like gentle music. Their affection became known not only within the garden, but beyond its borders. Birds from distant skies spoke of them. Flowers seemed to bloom brighter in their presence. Even the old trees swayed softly whenever the two rested together upon their branches.

Their love had become part of the garden’s soul. And perhaps that is why what came next arrived so quietly. For destruction rarely begins with storms. It often begins with a single thought.

One afternoon, while resting beside the beloved companion beneath the shade of an ordinary tree, one of the birds allowed imagination to wander. “What if there were a golden tree?”

Not merely a tree touched by sunlight, but a magnificent tree made entirely of gold. A tree whose glowing leaves would capture the dawn like liquid fire. A tree unlike any other in existence. The bird imagined both of them perched upon its radiant branches, singing beneath shimmering leaves that transformed every sunrise into eternity.

At first, the dream was innocent. Only a few passing seconds of imagination.

But time has a mysterious way of feeding certain thoughts until they begin feeding upon us. The seconds became minutes. The minutes became hours. The hours quietly swallowed the dream entire days. Soon, the golden tree no longer visited the bird’s imagination. It became an obsession. It began living inside.

The real garden slowly faded from awareness. The fragrance of flowers no longer touched the spirit. The songs surrounding them became distant echoes. Most painfully of all, the bird stopped truly seeing the loving companion beside them—the one who had once been enough to fill an entire world.

Obsessions are strange in this way. They rarely announce themselves as destruction. Sometimes they arrive disguised as beauty. As dreams. As ambition. As purpose. And other times, obsession wears darker clothing.

Some become obsessed with fear. With suspicion. With the belief that everyone around them wishes to harm them, betray them, or steal their peace. They begin searching endlessly for hidden enemies in every shadow. Their minds become prisons guarded by imagined dangers.

Whether one becomes consumed by golden fantasies or haunted by endless fear, the result can become tragically similar: The person slowly disappears from reality.

And what begins inside a single mind rarely remains there. For obsession can quietly devour far more than one lonely heart. It can drain the warmth from love, silence the laughter within peaceful homes, fracture places once held together by faith, divide communities that once trusted one another, and poison entire societies with fear, suspicion, and endless unrest. 

History itself bears witness to this sorrow. Entire nations have marched toward darkness not always because of evil men alone, but because human minds became consumed by visions, fears, certainties, and hungers that no longer allowed them to see one another clearly.

Like a fire that begins with a single spark hidden beneath dry leaves, obsession often spreads unnoticed until the garden itself begins to burn. Like a flower under invisible stress, the bird began fading day after day. Energy weakened. Songs lost their warmth. The glow in the feathers dimmed. Even love itself began slipping quietly away, not because love had died naturally, but because obsession had occupied the space where presence once lived.

The beloved companion watched helplessly. Confused by the transformation, the companion tried to reconnect. Songs were sung as before. Wings flew close together. Patient waiting replaced certainty, hoping for the warmth that once returned effortlessly from the heart. But the bird’s eyes remained fixed upon something invisible—something that existed more powerfully in the mind than the living world around them. And slowly, the other bird too began losing hope. For love cannot survive where attention disappears.

History repeats this tragedy endlessly. Human beings become consumed by dreams, fears, ideologies, endless news, imagined futures, imagined enemies, desires without limit, anxieties without rest. Entire families collapse not always because of hatred, but because minds become trapped elsewhere. Relationships wither because presence has been replaced by obsession.

Some chase golden trees. Others flee invisible wolves. Yet both abandon the garden standing before them.

Perhaps this is one of the greatest lessons time tries to teach us: the mind is both creator and destroyer. A thought can inspire civilization, art, discovery, and hope. But an unchecked thought can also consume peace, distort reality, and slowly separate a person from life itself.

And so the lingering questions remain suspended in the silence of existence:

Is obsession a disease? Or is it a wound of the soul searching desperately for certainty, meaning, or escape?

Can it be cured?

Perhaps the cure begins with awareness.

With noticing the moment a thought stops visiting us and begins ruling us.

Perhaps the cure is balance. Or gratitude. Or silence. Or the courage to return our attention to the living people beside us before it is too late.

For dreams themselves are not the enemy. Imagination is one of life’s sacred gifts. Without dreams, humanity would never create beauty or reach beyond darkness.

But wisdom may lie in learning this delicate truth: Dream without abandoning reality. Imagine without losing presence. Protect yourself without becoming consumed by fear.

Because sometimes, while searching endlessly for a golden tree—or hiding from imagined dangers—we fail to realize that the ordinary branch upon which love quietly waits was already more precious than gold.

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