What if the person you see as your greatest enemy today could be your strongest ally tomorrow?

Growing up, I was a rebellious teenager who managed to get himself kicked out of every school he attended. Teachers disliked me for my disobedient tendencies and frequent fights. The only teacher who truly believed in me was my father, who was in prison at the time. Our only form of communication was through letters.

One day, I made a real enemy at school—Eugen, a Russian exchange student built like a human refrigerator. He was tall, fat, and cold as the Siberian tundra. I had a reputation as the class clown, and I couldn’t roasting him.

One day, he had enough and challenged me to a fight. I accepted. And by “accepted,” I mean I sucker-punched him right on the nose as hard as I could.
Blood dripped from his nose, but his face didn’t flinch.
Then he screamed like a beast and charged at me like an enraged rhino. That was the beginning of a month-long war between us.

I wrote to my father about this, expecting advice on how to defeat this ogre of a human. After all, he was a former special units soldier, trained in taking down tanks and helicopters. But instead of war strategies, he gave me something unexpected: a story.

He told me about my great-grandfather, Abu Ali, and how he and my family defended our village successfully against the French in the 1940s war.

One of the reasons they were able to defeat the French was because of their strategic location in the mountains, the other one was that every person in the village was a psycho who was grateful for the opportunity of dying in the pursuit of protecting our hill.

My great-grandfather, however, was a bit of an odd bird.

He found creative ways to maintain communication with the enemy.

In between battles, he would secretly sit and share meals with the leadership of the opposing army.

He even got his battalion to leave food for the French foot soldiers. They would kill each other in the morning, break bread together at noon, and then go right back to fighting in the evening.

At the time, I wasn’t sure what to make of this story.
It wasn’t until the proxy war in Ukraine escalated recently—where the opposing factions dehumanized each other to the brink of global nuclear exchange—that I began to understand. I realized how dangerous it is when enemies stop seeing each other as people.

I’m still not entirely sure what my great-grandfather’s lesson means, but if I had to distill it, I’d say this: Today’s enemy can be tomorrow’s ally.

Yours

Daniel

PS - Quest

Here’s a homework assignment for you—a technique that will help you explore your own beliefs so that instead of condemning others for what they believe, you can foster curative conversations that allow you to understand, engage, and grow with people who have different agendas than your own.

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