Driving through the crowded streets of Cairo, a friend of mine and I got stuck in a small deadlock while trying to go through a one and a half car two-way street. One guy could have just backed off completely and solved it all, but instead, he just held up traffic and kept trying to go forward until, inevitably, he had to reverse into an empty space so that others including himself can move.
This jam was responsible for us running a bit late and so I maneuvered my way through the streets till the main street was at hand. Now as I was approaching the main street, towards the end of my one way street another car came in. Seeing that it was my way and that he had some space to back off (and that the main street was not crowded so he wouldn’t be clipped) I just paused and checked if he would go into reverse. After a little gesticulation and shouts muted by his own windows, he finally backed off enough for me to pass.
As our windows got nearer, he said very calmly, “By the way, you’re stupid.” As I was telling him that he was stupid as well, my friend was said, “It’s true”. He was telling me that I’m stupid because he’d just made a turn and that I had more space behind me, my friend agreed that I was stupid because that man had to back off a bit into the main street and I was saying that he was stupider because he went down a one way street in the wrong direction.
I’ve always thought that the person making the mistake was supposed to provide the solution, but he and my friend seemed to agree that I’m stupid because I didn’t put in an extra effort to correct his mistake. They think I’m stupid because I obstinately and idiotically thought that the road rules were on my side. They think I’m stupid because it would have cost me less effort than him to fix his mistake.
I thought that my friend didn’t know it was a one way street and that it wasn’t stupidity but rather a principle, so I made it clear and this is how my friend replied, “So what? Everybody does it.” Well then that makes it okay I suppose. I must be stupid indeed. It’s alright that people aren’t accountable as long as someone else can fix their mistakes. It’s alright that people break the rules as long as everyone accepts it. It’s alright to accept things as they are because that’s life… I remember in Alexandria before the roads were fixed, people would cross over to the other side speeding and flash their lights at people going in the correct lane so that they move out of the way. I always thought it was only courtesy to get back in the correct lane if you weren’t able to make it… but I guess I was wrong.
I think I am stupid really for thinking that courtesy ever plays a real part in life apart from its existence in books and literature, it’s not deal with your consequences, it’s have people deal with your consequences. Accept things cause everybody does it… well, I guess I really am stupid and that I stand alone in thinking that it means something to stand for something. I stand alone because at the end even though my friend said, “Sorry for the offense,” she added as she left the car, “but you do know that it's two against one.”
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Thursday, January 04, 2007
24
24 is a brilliant TV show. I’ve always wondered, ever since watching a movie by the name of ‘Nick of Time’ why they don’t shoot some movies in real time where events can be seen as they happen. Well almost a decade later they did it with 24. The best thing about 24 is that it’s (almost) in real time. Each episode is just one hour and we can see what happens in that hour. It’s a real thriller too; you get entangled in its mesh provided you watch something like 3 episodes in a row.
Anyway the other night it was showing, Jack Bauer was hot on the terrorist’s trail and CTU (counter terrorist unit) had arrested someone who was their only lead to reach a terrorist who was trying to acquire a nuclear missile. Apart from the fact that it seems so easy now for individuals to acquire weapons of mass destruction, there was something else I found intriguing.
The man they arrested was a retired US marine who they suspected to have been a mercenary. He had no priors. So in order to hinder his interrogation, the terrorist (whose name is Marwan.. surprise surprise) calls ‘Amesty Global’ and asks for a lawyer so that CTU don’t torture that man into divulging the information that can lead to the capture of Marwan. That got me thinking of how far advanced Human Rights are to be able to have one lawyer easily obtain a court order so as not to violate this citizen’s rights. Are human rights organizations so powerful everywhere in the world? In Egypt it would take a phone call from the president to stop an act of torture, not just a simple phone call to any Amnesty. Human rights mean nothing in Egypt unless stated otherwise, totally unlike other places in the world. I’m not saying that this is the way it is in America, but I’m saying that it’s highly plausible that an American with no priors is saved from torture just by a phone call no matter how important he is to a case and how unimportant he is as a human being.
So anyway, after the lawyer had been sent, they call up the president since it is a matter of National Security asking him to intervene and let them do their job. The president fears to sanction such torture (yeah right!!) and asks them not to. At this point, with this only lead and their conviction that this man can provide them with information to save lives they had to reluctantly let him go, but good old Jack resigns and takes him on as a citizen.
Now the question here is: Can we sanctify torture if we’re sure that we can get positive results from those being tortured? There is no question that our rights (constantly violated over here) are important and that no man should be subjected to torture, but the situation described puts us in a dilemma nevertheless. In cases like these there seems to be a reason for torture, extracting answers that will save lives. After all, it’s not fair that terrorist should use these means on people and that when caught they get a five star treatment. Where’s the justice in that?
The trouble is that sometimes we should not be too rigid about our standards. I mean it’s great that we accept the right not to be tortured for everybody, but if breaking that rule meant saving thousands of lives, I would suppose that it should be acceptable. In any case it’s very hypothetical really, since we can never know what people actually know and what they don’t. In general it’s better to let the guilty walk free than torture the innocent and that’s why laws of human rights are there in general, so that we do not risk hurting the innocent. It’s just a very hypothetical question and I suppose it remains a matter of opinion if it is really worth it…
Anyway the other night it was showing, Jack Bauer was hot on the terrorist’s trail and CTU (counter terrorist unit) had arrested someone who was their only lead to reach a terrorist who was trying to acquire a nuclear missile. Apart from the fact that it seems so easy now for individuals to acquire weapons of mass destruction, there was something else I found intriguing.
The man they arrested was a retired US marine who they suspected to have been a mercenary. He had no priors. So in order to hinder his interrogation, the terrorist (whose name is Marwan.. surprise surprise) calls ‘Amesty Global’ and asks for a lawyer so that CTU don’t torture that man into divulging the information that can lead to the capture of Marwan. That got me thinking of how far advanced Human Rights are to be able to have one lawyer easily obtain a court order so as not to violate this citizen’s rights. Are human rights organizations so powerful everywhere in the world? In Egypt it would take a phone call from the president to stop an act of torture, not just a simple phone call to any Amnesty. Human rights mean nothing in Egypt unless stated otherwise, totally unlike other places in the world. I’m not saying that this is the way it is in America, but I’m saying that it’s highly plausible that an American with no priors is saved from torture just by a phone call no matter how important he is to a case and how unimportant he is as a human being.
So anyway, after the lawyer had been sent, they call up the president since it is a matter of National Security asking him to intervene and let them do their job. The president fears to sanction such torture (yeah right!!) and asks them not to. At this point, with this only lead and their conviction that this man can provide them with information to save lives they had to reluctantly let him go, but good old Jack resigns and takes him on as a citizen.
Now the question here is: Can we sanctify torture if we’re sure that we can get positive results from those being tortured? There is no question that our rights (constantly violated over here) are important and that no man should be subjected to torture, but the situation described puts us in a dilemma nevertheless. In cases like these there seems to be a reason for torture, extracting answers that will save lives. After all, it’s not fair that terrorist should use these means on people and that when caught they get a five star treatment. Where’s the justice in that?
The trouble is that sometimes we should not be too rigid about our standards. I mean it’s great that we accept the right not to be tortured for everybody, but if breaking that rule meant saving thousands of lives, I would suppose that it should be acceptable. In any case it’s very hypothetical really, since we can never know what people actually know and what they don’t. In general it’s better to let the guilty walk free than torture the innocent and that’s why laws of human rights are there in general, so that we do not risk hurting the innocent. It’s just a very hypothetical question and I suppose it remains a matter of opinion if it is really worth it…
Thursday, December 28, 2006
What makes a lie?
What makes a lie? Is a lie the opposite of the truth or are both terms a gray shade in the black and white spectrum. Assuming that a lie is a piece of information contrary to fact or truth, in that case truth or fact must be identified. I don’t want to get into the whole definition of truth and what have you, I will assume that we know exactly what a lie is about. My real concern here is when does a lie become a lie.
The trouble is that the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that it can be very subjective. If someone were to speak a fact that wasn’t true, then we would assume it to be a lie, but what if that person believed it to be true, is it still a lie? It’s not a lie to him, so can the piece of information take two forms according to the viewpoint from which you are looking at it? On the other extreme suppose someone spoke a fact that he believed to be false and yet he was mistaken about it and it turned out to be true, is it a lie then?
How much of our intention has to do with words being lies or truths?
Let’s say someone wrote a note describing something he will do as a past. A suicide note saying, “I’ve killed myself, for I could not bear the pains of this world any longer.” It seems to me like it would be a lie at the time of writing, yet transformed into the truth if it is done. It remains a lie if it is preempted. So what makes a lie a lie?? There’s an intricate link between lies and time and intention.
If one were to say I was in the street just a while back, would it be a lie if he was there a minute ago, an hour ago, a week ago? When does it start becoming a lie. If never then lies themselves are not what I thought them to be.
If lies take such a form, does its archenemy, the truth, take a similar form too? If lies contain some truth to them, then mustn’t truth contain some lies in them as well? Let’s forget sincerity for a while because sincerity never changes fact. If truth and lies can contain so much of each other then they can be confused.
But I think that there’s a difference. A piece of truth inside a lie cannot prove that all of it is true, but a small lie inside the truth has a much more illuminating effect.
The trouble is that one man’s lie is another man’s truth. If lies are so subjective, then we can only evaluate them in relation to people.
The man who said a truth thinking it was a lie seems to remain, still, a liar and to the person who heard it, that same lie is a truth.
Lies are in the ears of the beholder, but can we say the same about truth?
The trouble is that the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that it can be very subjective. If someone were to speak a fact that wasn’t true, then we would assume it to be a lie, but what if that person believed it to be true, is it still a lie? It’s not a lie to him, so can the piece of information take two forms according to the viewpoint from which you are looking at it? On the other extreme suppose someone spoke a fact that he believed to be false and yet he was mistaken about it and it turned out to be true, is it a lie then?
How much of our intention has to do with words being lies or truths?
Let’s say someone wrote a note describing something he will do as a past. A suicide note saying, “I’ve killed myself, for I could not bear the pains of this world any longer.” It seems to me like it would be a lie at the time of writing, yet transformed into the truth if it is done. It remains a lie if it is preempted. So what makes a lie a lie?? There’s an intricate link between lies and time and intention.
If one were to say I was in the street just a while back, would it be a lie if he was there a minute ago, an hour ago, a week ago? When does it start becoming a lie. If never then lies themselves are not what I thought them to be.
If lies take such a form, does its archenemy, the truth, take a similar form too? If lies contain some truth to them, then mustn’t truth contain some lies in them as well? Let’s forget sincerity for a while because sincerity never changes fact. If truth and lies can contain so much of each other then they can be confused.
But I think that there’s a difference. A piece of truth inside a lie cannot prove that all of it is true, but a small lie inside the truth has a much more illuminating effect.
The trouble is that one man’s lie is another man’s truth. If lies are so subjective, then we can only evaluate them in relation to people.
The man who said a truth thinking it was a lie seems to remain, still, a liar and to the person who heard it, that same lie is a truth.
Lies are in the ears of the beholder, but can we say the same about truth?
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Equality
Is there any hope for equality?
Out of the blue a friend of mine remarked: Heba is an ‘old rag’ (Literal translation of an Arabic word that means a promiscuous lady, bitch or prostitute). So I asked why… to which he said, any woman that puts herself in a compromising position such as marrying ‘3orfy’ (common law I think is translation) is an ‘old rag’. So I asked him, how about guys? Why are they not ‘old rags’ too? This of course provoked the mother of all clichéd argument over the equality of men and women in a society.
The conversation went around in its usual (concentric) circles brushing up on human rights and equality in the world along with how different people with different passports are treated differently.. etc.. etc.. we all know the drill.
But one point came up that made me pause later on after a quick recap of the conversation. It’s that rule that men can kill their wives if they saw them cheating and get 1 year in prison while women get life for a similar murder. My friend Solomon very graciously asked that we bypass this point because it’s obvious that here if a woman finds a guy cheating on her it can be his wife but not the other way around. The law itself gives the man that right.
This is where I pause amidst other points that were said because I wonder now if there’s any point to my believing in equality in such a society. Is there any hope for equality inside a society whose very own law is biased towards a man? Is there any point in trying to see equality in society if everything else around doesn’t advocate that equality? ‘Do onto others what you would have done onto you.’ That’s a powerful statement that I believe in and nowhere in others does it say just your same gender. I believe that what rights I have should be given to others, but how would that work with a law that says otherwise, with a mentality that says otherwise and with a logic that says otherwise. Yes ladies and gentlemen, there is a logic that says that in society, men and women should not be treated equally. Constitutional rights have long gone, but does it even make sense to ask for equality within the society?
One topic that came up was the appearance of women on a beach for example. The usual for guys is to have swim wear that covers a part of their body and for women to have swim wear to cover a greater portion of their body. Now where’s the equality there? ( I say let all women dress in the same way that men do) The point that Solomon brought up is that there’s a difference and that this difference causes a different standard to be applied on men and women. I said yes, but the same abstract rule applies, which is to cover the arousing sections of bodies (although I must say that most parts in a woman are arousing). To which he replied, but that just means the implementation is different and should be different in society.
The differences in general are there, but who knows enough about both genders to make this distinction I wonder… The point is that even with a skewed scale, people think that they’re actually implementing a sort of equality in their own way. Women are in a more compromised position and so they are more accountable, women are weaker and therefore equality is to be over protective of them… Now how can you deal with a problem like that if people claim that the problem doesn’t even exist?
So my question is: Is there any real and practical prospect of equality? Is there any hope that a society can provide equality at some point in time? Can this ever stop to be a losing battle?
I present the question to those of you out there with an answer. I don’t really know the answer to it but if I were to guess, I would say that there is no real hope. Try as we might to change people’s outlook on genders, there are things far greater than just outlook that are in play. There’s the law and the notion that difference in gender implies a difference in standards. There are people that are holding on to religious values in a dogmatic way that disables any logical argument to intervene. There are people too set in their ways to heed any voice of reason.
The real question isn’t education, most people are educated enough to know what equality’s about, the real question is what you believe and what you feel. As advanced as we are, we’re still guided by our emotions that our intellect cannot control, we know things to be untrue and yet our emotions are trained to believing them. It’s all about what people choose to believe and what side of the conflict they pick.
Out of the blue a friend of mine remarked: Heba is an ‘old rag’ (Literal translation of an Arabic word that means a promiscuous lady, bitch or prostitute). So I asked why… to which he said, any woman that puts herself in a compromising position such as marrying ‘3orfy’ (common law I think is translation) is an ‘old rag’. So I asked him, how about guys? Why are they not ‘old rags’ too? This of course provoked the mother of all clichéd argument over the equality of men and women in a society.
The conversation went around in its usual (concentric) circles brushing up on human rights and equality in the world along with how different people with different passports are treated differently.. etc.. etc.. we all know the drill.
But one point came up that made me pause later on after a quick recap of the conversation. It’s that rule that men can kill their wives if they saw them cheating and get 1 year in prison while women get life for a similar murder. My friend Solomon very graciously asked that we bypass this point because it’s obvious that here if a woman finds a guy cheating on her it can be his wife but not the other way around. The law itself gives the man that right.
This is where I pause amidst other points that were said because I wonder now if there’s any point to my believing in equality in such a society. Is there any hope for equality inside a society whose very own law is biased towards a man? Is there any point in trying to see equality in society if everything else around doesn’t advocate that equality? ‘Do onto others what you would have done onto you.’ That’s a powerful statement that I believe in and nowhere in others does it say just your same gender. I believe that what rights I have should be given to others, but how would that work with a law that says otherwise, with a mentality that says otherwise and with a logic that says otherwise. Yes ladies and gentlemen, there is a logic that says that in society, men and women should not be treated equally. Constitutional rights have long gone, but does it even make sense to ask for equality within the society?
One topic that came up was the appearance of women on a beach for example. The usual for guys is to have swim wear that covers a part of their body and for women to have swim wear to cover a greater portion of their body. Now where’s the equality there? ( I say let all women dress in the same way that men do) The point that Solomon brought up is that there’s a difference and that this difference causes a different standard to be applied on men and women. I said yes, but the same abstract rule applies, which is to cover the arousing sections of bodies (although I must say that most parts in a woman are arousing). To which he replied, but that just means the implementation is different and should be different in society.
The differences in general are there, but who knows enough about both genders to make this distinction I wonder… The point is that even with a skewed scale, people think that they’re actually implementing a sort of equality in their own way. Women are in a more compromised position and so they are more accountable, women are weaker and therefore equality is to be over protective of them… Now how can you deal with a problem like that if people claim that the problem doesn’t even exist?
So my question is: Is there any real and practical prospect of equality? Is there any hope that a society can provide equality at some point in time? Can this ever stop to be a losing battle?
I present the question to those of you out there with an answer. I don’t really know the answer to it but if I were to guess, I would say that there is no real hope. Try as we might to change people’s outlook on genders, there are things far greater than just outlook that are in play. There’s the law and the notion that difference in gender implies a difference in standards. There are people that are holding on to religious values in a dogmatic way that disables any logical argument to intervene. There are people too set in their ways to heed any voice of reason.
The real question isn’t education, most people are educated enough to know what equality’s about, the real question is what you believe and what you feel. As advanced as we are, we’re still guided by our emotions that our intellect cannot control, we know things to be untrue and yet our emotions are trained to believing them. It’s all about what people choose to believe and what side of the conflict they pick.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
What's Worth It..
Dr. Phil was on the other day and it had a very interesting couple who were united after 62 years. Now how they were separated or united is not something I followed on the show, but the idea of them coming together when they’re both over eighty really got me thinking. I’m thinking what does it mean to spend time with someone after all these years, after all the sex drive has gone and all the things you were passionate about have cooled down. What does it mean to have companionship at this age towards the end of an entire lifetime?
The real issue at hand for me is what will I take with me if I ever manage to live to that age, what will I still be passionate about and fight over. I get into quibbles and debates about many things today, but how many of these will I look back at and say, what does it matter? How many of these things will seem futile and insignificant. There are so many things that can change about who I am, what’s important for me today? Important enough so that I carry it with me an entire lifetime.
I don’t know .. I just don’t know what’s worth it..
The real issue at hand for me is what will I take with me if I ever manage to live to that age, what will I still be passionate about and fight over. I get into quibbles and debates about many things today, but how many of these will I look back at and say, what does it matter? How many of these things will seem futile and insignificant. There are so many things that can change about who I am, what’s important for me today? Important enough so that I carry it with me an entire lifetime.
I don’t know .. I just don’t know what’s worth it..
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
The Two Sides
The two sides of the same Egyptian coin is the head and the tail. Tail is a politically correct term since the true intention of a coin is having a head and a backside. Egyptians are very distinctly both really, they’re faces, but on most other occasions, they’re asses. It’s not a fifty/fifty chance though of ending up with one side rather than the other, it’s really a matter of which side you invoke.
I’ve talked with many people about the contrast between the downtown events that took place right after Ramadan and the African cup events that took place in February of the year 2006. They are opposites that are so extreme, yet certainly performed by the same people. Just last February the girls were out till midnight celebrating in face paint where other young guys who barely knew them celebrated with them and I’d go so far as to say that they even looked out for them too. The whole incident was phenomenal and the joy around was felt from the heart. The lust that following eid was also felt from the… heart. It was a very powerful lust. One that was enough to break the barriers of self control. Let me just say that those men acted on instinct. If any man is honest enough he’ll admit that when he sees a voluptuous girl on the street the thought of grabbing her crosses his mind, if not, then she’s not sexy enough. It’s just the way we feel, but we don’t act on it because as humans we’re defined by our control. There’s no doubt that both extremes exist within us but it’s a matter of how we stimulate it.
That’s not to say that the isolated incidents themselves did not contain that same contrast, for when we’re thinking of the Eid incidents we quickly overlook the few brave men who sheltered some women despite the mob. And when thinking of the African cup we overlook the sick ones who used it as an opportunity to harass some girls.
Egyptians have a way of acting like tails on normal occasions until their chivalry is challenged. A friend of mine was about to get mugged somewhere in Alexandria, and so instead of just cowering away, he went out and shouted ‘yerdeekoo ye7sal keda fi mante2etko’ ( is this a way to treat someone who came to your area is the translation I suppose assuming someone who doesn’t know Arabic would even bother to read this far). The translation doesn’t do justice cause it’s the attitude of appealing to tradition, generosity and chivalry of sha3by places. So basically some of those people switched to chivalry mode and stood up for those who were trying to mug my friend.
It’s all about which side of people you appeal to. It’s about what part you provoke. People are not ready to confront being low, they’re just ready to be it without anyone pointing it to them. People aren’t ready not to be gallant, they would fight off any such accusations in a second. This is always been a theory of mine, that you have to know which side to invoke in Egyptians. The usual circumstances usually lead to getting tails but if you appeal to them you might get their chivalry.
The theory is of course evident by downtown vs. African cup, but that got me to thinking, what is it that drove people to either of those extremes? The problem is that with the African cup, people felt united and people felt hope and that’s always a dangerous thing in a country like ours.. because not so long after this false sense of hope and pride, people realize how false it is. When confronted with their daily life they see clearly that they’ve been robbed of a right to hope or stand united. The African cup was just a glimpse of what could have been and the happenings of Eid are a glimpse of what really is. It’s hopelessness and despair and a sort of jungle. People’s chivalry is of no use to anyone and so it disappears.
People have been educated in such a manner where everything contradicts itself and so all you end up with are two extremes within them rather than one moderate behavior.
It’s a shame to see all the goodness of people thrown away, their potential crushed and their spirits drained. I’m a skeptic, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Egyptians have proven that when they need to, their motivation takes them a long way. The only problem is that it’s in very short pulses, like an awakening that happens once in a very long while.
There’s a search for a common goal, so that people’s energies are used and so that one person can derive power from the other. In the African cup it was a good cause, a victory for an Egyptian country, and that’s why women were protected, because the cause was being united to face our challengers. In Eid the goal was to chase and harass girls. It was a common goal and that’s why there was so much energy. People are deprived of a real goal, but they’re running towards nothing anyway.
I’ve talked with many people about the contrast between the downtown events that took place right after Ramadan and the African cup events that took place in February of the year 2006. They are opposites that are so extreme, yet certainly performed by the same people. Just last February the girls were out till midnight celebrating in face paint where other young guys who barely knew them celebrated with them and I’d go so far as to say that they even looked out for them too. The whole incident was phenomenal and the joy around was felt from the heart. The lust that following eid was also felt from the… heart. It was a very powerful lust. One that was enough to break the barriers of self control. Let me just say that those men acted on instinct. If any man is honest enough he’ll admit that when he sees a voluptuous girl on the street the thought of grabbing her crosses his mind, if not, then she’s not sexy enough. It’s just the way we feel, but we don’t act on it because as humans we’re defined by our control. There’s no doubt that both extremes exist within us but it’s a matter of how we stimulate it.
That’s not to say that the isolated incidents themselves did not contain that same contrast, for when we’re thinking of the Eid incidents we quickly overlook the few brave men who sheltered some women despite the mob. And when thinking of the African cup we overlook the sick ones who used it as an opportunity to harass some girls.
Egyptians have a way of acting like tails on normal occasions until their chivalry is challenged. A friend of mine was about to get mugged somewhere in Alexandria, and so instead of just cowering away, he went out and shouted ‘yerdeekoo ye7sal keda fi mante2etko’ ( is this a way to treat someone who came to your area is the translation I suppose assuming someone who doesn’t know Arabic would even bother to read this far). The translation doesn’t do justice cause it’s the attitude of appealing to tradition, generosity and chivalry of sha3by places. So basically some of those people switched to chivalry mode and stood up for those who were trying to mug my friend.
It’s all about which side of people you appeal to. It’s about what part you provoke. People are not ready to confront being low, they’re just ready to be it without anyone pointing it to them. People aren’t ready not to be gallant, they would fight off any such accusations in a second. This is always been a theory of mine, that you have to know which side to invoke in Egyptians. The usual circumstances usually lead to getting tails but if you appeal to them you might get their chivalry.
The theory is of course evident by downtown vs. African cup, but that got me to thinking, what is it that drove people to either of those extremes? The problem is that with the African cup, people felt united and people felt hope and that’s always a dangerous thing in a country like ours.. because not so long after this false sense of hope and pride, people realize how false it is. When confronted with their daily life they see clearly that they’ve been robbed of a right to hope or stand united. The African cup was just a glimpse of what could have been and the happenings of Eid are a glimpse of what really is. It’s hopelessness and despair and a sort of jungle. People’s chivalry is of no use to anyone and so it disappears.
People have been educated in such a manner where everything contradicts itself and so all you end up with are two extremes within them rather than one moderate behavior.
It’s a shame to see all the goodness of people thrown away, their potential crushed and their spirits drained. I’m a skeptic, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Egyptians have proven that when they need to, their motivation takes them a long way. The only problem is that it’s in very short pulses, like an awakening that happens once in a very long while.
There’s a search for a common goal, so that people’s energies are used and so that one person can derive power from the other. In the African cup it was a good cause, a victory for an Egyptian country, and that’s why women were protected, because the cause was being united to face our challengers. In Eid the goal was to chase and harass girls. It was a common goal and that’s why there was so much energy. People are deprived of a real goal, but they’re running towards nothing anyway.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Restaurant Culture
I don’t get it.. or maybe I do.. but I don’t think everyone else does, or maybe they do.. It’s just that I find it very troublesome and pain staking to go to a restaurant really. There’s something wrong with me or with people or with the restaurant business in general. I genuinely think it’s the restaurant business.
Firstly with everything in this country inauspiciously inverted, the whole meaning of the word waiter has been inverted. If the word waiter comes from ‘wait’ then I believe that it’s the customers who have become waiters judging from the amount of time they need to actually find an alleged ‘waiter’. Going to a restaurant has become like fishing, requiring lots of patience and waiting for food to come, on some lucky occasions you can fish out a waiter that actually does the job of getting you some food. There are even some techniques to ensure service which take a little experience, skill and practice.
One of the best techniques is to order things bit by bit, ensuring that a waiter will come with one order and at that time you order another, hence making sure he’ll visit every once in a while or at least be in the neighborhood, the problem with this technique is that at some point in time the waiter gives up and stops getting you that extra tissue you asked for or that salt, or that piece of brownie you requested last. Another problem is that you have to think of these things and that you have to put off some of the things you want till the waiter’s next visit. However, I’ve seen this technique applied masterfully by some of my friends, and I have concluded that females are better at this technique since they’re already very demanding by nature.
The good planner uses another technique, which is to position the place of seating strategically so that the field of vision and gesticulations allows for the attention of any waiter that’s passing by. You can of course forget about ‘your waiter for this evening’ sometimes you just have to use the first man in uniform that you see. This is a good strategy but it’s not so easy to apply since places can be crowded and this position doesn’t necessarily have the best view.
All in all, it’s exhausting for me to go to a restaurant cause it takes a lot of work and I still see that I’m the waiter in this equation. I’m sure at some point in time it was a waiter’s job to wait for people to make their orders or to finish their food or something, but now that culture has changed. And why shouldn’t it? The service doesn’t need to be good at all. All people care about is the setting. If a place invests enough money in some fancy interior design, it can save bundles on service and waiters and not only that, it is guaranteed to make loads of money by virtue of ornaments alone.
The better the design the more the money, never mind food, never mind service, as long as you got good lighting, hip interior you’ll do just fine. All any place has to do is just put an insane minimum charge and collect. Never mind service, people just keep on coming. So why should the service be any good? If you give good service or poor service the result is always the same. Even waiters know that, they count on people’s habit of tipping. People who tip, tip very constantly and consistently, people who don’t just don’t. People who tip are obsessed by the rules of tipping, is it ten percent and when to tip and all that.. Well we’re in Egypt, we have a culture of our own, so I really don’t think that tipping is as calculated as that. People get the worst service and in the end are embarrassed not to leave a tip. It’s these kind of people that cause all this bad service really. Tips are for good service, at least that’s how I perceive it. The consistency by which people repay bad service with money is amazing and I certainly can’t blame places or waiters for trying to test their limits, I would.
I sometimes feel like an outcast when I claim that tips are for good service. I feel like an outcast when I point out something wrong with the service or food to the restaurant. I do it with good intent. If it’s a good place it would want to know and make it better, I’m just doing a service to those who come after me, but that seems to be embarrassing for some, for reasons I don’t know.
So all the tippers out there, they’re responsible for the bad service I get. All those who are too embarrassed to speak up about their salad are responsible for my bad salad. All those who don’t care about value for money are responsible for the loss of my money for no value.
Maybe I just don’t get it.. why is it so much work going to a place that should be offering you service.. To top it all off, you have to search for them to pay them.. one of these days I wish I would just walk off so that they come sooner, but the real problem is that I really think they’d be too lazy to stop me ..
Firstly with everything in this country inauspiciously inverted, the whole meaning of the word waiter has been inverted. If the word waiter comes from ‘wait’ then I believe that it’s the customers who have become waiters judging from the amount of time they need to actually find an alleged ‘waiter’. Going to a restaurant has become like fishing, requiring lots of patience and waiting for food to come, on some lucky occasions you can fish out a waiter that actually does the job of getting you some food. There are even some techniques to ensure service which take a little experience, skill and practice.
One of the best techniques is to order things bit by bit, ensuring that a waiter will come with one order and at that time you order another, hence making sure he’ll visit every once in a while or at least be in the neighborhood, the problem with this technique is that at some point in time the waiter gives up and stops getting you that extra tissue you asked for or that salt, or that piece of brownie you requested last. Another problem is that you have to think of these things and that you have to put off some of the things you want till the waiter’s next visit. However, I’ve seen this technique applied masterfully by some of my friends, and I have concluded that females are better at this technique since they’re already very demanding by nature.
The good planner uses another technique, which is to position the place of seating strategically so that the field of vision and gesticulations allows for the attention of any waiter that’s passing by. You can of course forget about ‘your waiter for this evening’ sometimes you just have to use the first man in uniform that you see. This is a good strategy but it’s not so easy to apply since places can be crowded and this position doesn’t necessarily have the best view.
All in all, it’s exhausting for me to go to a restaurant cause it takes a lot of work and I still see that I’m the waiter in this equation. I’m sure at some point in time it was a waiter’s job to wait for people to make their orders or to finish their food or something, but now that culture has changed. And why shouldn’t it? The service doesn’t need to be good at all. All people care about is the setting. If a place invests enough money in some fancy interior design, it can save bundles on service and waiters and not only that, it is guaranteed to make loads of money by virtue of ornaments alone.
The better the design the more the money, never mind food, never mind service, as long as you got good lighting, hip interior you’ll do just fine. All any place has to do is just put an insane minimum charge and collect. Never mind service, people just keep on coming. So why should the service be any good? If you give good service or poor service the result is always the same. Even waiters know that, they count on people’s habit of tipping. People who tip, tip very constantly and consistently, people who don’t just don’t. People who tip are obsessed by the rules of tipping, is it ten percent and when to tip and all that.. Well we’re in Egypt, we have a culture of our own, so I really don’t think that tipping is as calculated as that. People get the worst service and in the end are embarrassed not to leave a tip. It’s these kind of people that cause all this bad service really. Tips are for good service, at least that’s how I perceive it. The consistency by which people repay bad service with money is amazing and I certainly can’t blame places or waiters for trying to test their limits, I would.
I sometimes feel like an outcast when I claim that tips are for good service. I feel like an outcast when I point out something wrong with the service or food to the restaurant. I do it with good intent. If it’s a good place it would want to know and make it better, I’m just doing a service to those who come after me, but that seems to be embarrassing for some, for reasons I don’t know.
So all the tippers out there, they’re responsible for the bad service I get. All those who are too embarrassed to speak up about their salad are responsible for my bad salad. All those who don’t care about value for money are responsible for the loss of my money for no value.
Maybe I just don’t get it.. why is it so much work going to a place that should be offering you service.. To top it all off, you have to search for them to pay them.. one of these days I wish I would just walk off so that they come sooner, but the real problem is that I really think they’d be too lazy to stop me ..
Saturday, October 21, 2006
It’s Tough Being A Woman
I’m not sure if men will agree, or women for that matter, but I really think it must be very hard being a woman. Of course I love women and the final product (already I’m pissing off the feminists) is wonderful, but being a woman itself is a lot of work. I mean women are in a tough spot from birth. Even though it’s better now, I can’t imagine how women lived a long time ago.. deprived of any education, they had to claw their way into the world. They had to deal with far more educated men and conquer them. They had to bear abuse and they had to bear shame.
Even today, when a woman is born, especially in the Middle East, she brings less joy to her family (not to me but to some others), she is surrounded by a fence of rules that she should not dare to cross. She’s not expected to play sports, she’s expected to act in a certain manner, she’s not even expected to hear cuss words and she’s expected to be home at a certain time. The community has built a cage around her that imprisons her even with her constitutional freedom. I don’t know if women see that, but I do.. and I don’t know what I’d do as a woman. I would rather be a woman with a bad reputation than be locked in such a case.
Like I said I think it’s very tough to be a woman, and men don’t give them a break. They just ask more and more and women bear more and more. They demand so much more of women and yet almost everywhere they call themselves the superior race. I’m not a feminist out to defend women or say that they’re superior, I just understand what they go through. It’s such a horrible quality to be able to put yourself in one’s shoes, it always causes me trouble .. This is the trouble I’m talking about, as a man, I’m very happy, rebellious against my own society and it’s easy for me to retaliate. Women have much more calculations and I don’t know if I would have been able to rebel had I been a woman.
Where do women get all their strength, with all odds against them.. with child labor, responsibilities and pressures by men. I really don’t know and that’s why I’m impressed with strong women. I’m impressed with how they fought all that was naturally against them and have risen to fight those battles that I do. I think it’s very difficult not to admire women. I also can see how to sympathize with them, but the trouble is that I don’t sympathize much with those who do not choose to help themselves.
Women are about sacrifice, even those who don’t. They always sacrifice something because they’re born at a social disadvantage. I know that there’s this talk of equality, but I’m saying that they’re born at a disadvantage. There’s equality of opportunity but not equality of people. If they were so equal, why didn’t women take over the world? I think it’s very concerning whenever I see an evil woman. Not that women can’t be evil, they can be and very much so in fact, but I mean the idea of a woman has been tampered with so much in my head that she needs to be kind, loving and obedient. Now I’m thankful that this is not how I view women really.. but it’s due to that damn trait of putting myself in their shoes.
Women need to be seductive; they need to watch their weight and what they eat. They need to wax and put on make up and just basically invest so much time on how they look. To top it off it has been customary to see women as in charge of the household and cleanliness. She has to keep the house in great shape, do all the dirty work and yet maintain her feminine beautiful and sexy image. She must be everything it seems, do the tough jobs and yet remain graceful. Be responsible and yet submissive.
Another thing about women that I appreciate is their biological nature. I mean after they mature they have so much to maintain. And it’s not just that… women are normal 25 % of the time. In a cycle of four weeks, they’re normal for one week, they get their emotionally exhausting PMT for the next, then get their physically exhausting period for a week and then ovulate for a week. A woman has something out of the ordinary to deal with 3 weeks out of 4, so much so, that I’m not sure I can label any one week ‘normal’.
I don’t understand how men can just ignore this, I mean even the tough guys out there not just those with a feminine side. It’s really tough and to think that putting yourself in these shoes might be mushy is just pure cowardice I believe. I think courageous and tough men have to appreciate certain tough situations, and like I’ve been babbling all this time being a woman is theeeee ultimate tough situation.
How can one chromosome mean this world of difference? I really don’t know.. but I do know that it’s tough being a woman even with all those rights. Those women’s rights are there but they also put pressure on her. They’re a sort of freedom but a lot of women I know have less ambitious priorities by nature. I mean they can do certain jobs as good as men and some even better but a lot of them need the emotional side fulfilled too.
What started all this anyway? Well I was watching part of a show ‘Qasim Ameen’ and he was talking about giving women a right to education. I realized that we’re depriving women of all the tools they need to get ahead and that it must be very tough.. But on second thought, they’re doing very well without a lot of tools and getting ahead, imagine what would happen if we make all those tools available.. Lord have mercy on men..
Even today, when a woman is born, especially in the Middle East, she brings less joy to her family (not to me but to some others), she is surrounded by a fence of rules that she should not dare to cross. She’s not expected to play sports, she’s expected to act in a certain manner, she’s not even expected to hear cuss words and she’s expected to be home at a certain time. The community has built a cage around her that imprisons her even with her constitutional freedom. I don’t know if women see that, but I do.. and I don’t know what I’d do as a woman. I would rather be a woman with a bad reputation than be locked in such a case.
Like I said I think it’s very tough to be a woman, and men don’t give them a break. They just ask more and more and women bear more and more. They demand so much more of women and yet almost everywhere they call themselves the superior race. I’m not a feminist out to defend women or say that they’re superior, I just understand what they go through. It’s such a horrible quality to be able to put yourself in one’s shoes, it always causes me trouble .. This is the trouble I’m talking about, as a man, I’m very happy, rebellious against my own society and it’s easy for me to retaliate. Women have much more calculations and I don’t know if I would have been able to rebel had I been a woman.
Where do women get all their strength, with all odds against them.. with child labor, responsibilities and pressures by men. I really don’t know and that’s why I’m impressed with strong women. I’m impressed with how they fought all that was naturally against them and have risen to fight those battles that I do. I think it’s very difficult not to admire women. I also can see how to sympathize with them, but the trouble is that I don’t sympathize much with those who do not choose to help themselves.
Women are about sacrifice, even those who don’t. They always sacrifice something because they’re born at a social disadvantage. I know that there’s this talk of equality, but I’m saying that they’re born at a disadvantage. There’s equality of opportunity but not equality of people. If they were so equal, why didn’t women take over the world? I think it’s very concerning whenever I see an evil woman. Not that women can’t be evil, they can be and very much so in fact, but I mean the idea of a woman has been tampered with so much in my head that she needs to be kind, loving and obedient. Now I’m thankful that this is not how I view women really.. but it’s due to that damn trait of putting myself in their shoes.
Women need to be seductive; they need to watch their weight and what they eat. They need to wax and put on make up and just basically invest so much time on how they look. To top it off it has been customary to see women as in charge of the household and cleanliness. She has to keep the house in great shape, do all the dirty work and yet maintain her feminine beautiful and sexy image. She must be everything it seems, do the tough jobs and yet remain graceful. Be responsible and yet submissive.
Another thing about women that I appreciate is their biological nature. I mean after they mature they have so much to maintain. And it’s not just that… women are normal 25 % of the time. In a cycle of four weeks, they’re normal for one week, they get their emotionally exhausting PMT for the next, then get their physically exhausting period for a week and then ovulate for a week. A woman has something out of the ordinary to deal with 3 weeks out of 4, so much so, that I’m not sure I can label any one week ‘normal’.
I don’t understand how men can just ignore this, I mean even the tough guys out there not just those with a feminine side. It’s really tough and to think that putting yourself in these shoes might be mushy is just pure cowardice I believe. I think courageous and tough men have to appreciate certain tough situations, and like I’ve been babbling all this time being a woman is theeeee ultimate tough situation.
How can one chromosome mean this world of difference? I really don’t know.. but I do know that it’s tough being a woman even with all those rights. Those women’s rights are there but they also put pressure on her. They’re a sort of freedom but a lot of women I know have less ambitious priorities by nature. I mean they can do certain jobs as good as men and some even better but a lot of them need the emotional side fulfilled too.
What started all this anyway? Well I was watching part of a show ‘Qasim Ameen’ and he was talking about giving women a right to education. I realized that we’re depriving women of all the tools they need to get ahead and that it must be very tough.. But on second thought, they’re doing very well without a lot of tools and getting ahead, imagine what would happen if we make all those tools available.. Lord have mercy on men..
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The Wrong Approach
The problem with people nowadays in relation to God and religion is the way they work it out; more often than not people start the wrong way around. People have the habit of first looking around them at things they comprehend and see and then trying to work out what they cannot see. Let me explain, people always look at the world around them and from it try to deduce the spiritual world beyond, so they look at the earth and try to deduce if heaven exists. This method usually does not provide good results, because whatever the deductions seem to be, they’re always incomplete. Starting out with what you see can lead you anywhere. The better approach would be to assume that there is God and see what the results will be, or assume there is no God and deduce how things should be, then perhaps match it with what you have and from it determine what you’ve assumed wrong.
Of course some people claim they have made the assumptions I stated above, but have failed to work in that direction. Let’s take for example how people approach religion, first they take the words of any religious book as the absolute truth, and from it they work what God is like. This is a very dangerous approach because when assuming there is God, there can be no absolute guarantee that the book they’re reading is His word, and so the word of God gives a wrong impression about God to those assuming he does exist, and totally disproves the existence of God (in some cases) to those assuming he doesn’t exist.
(A very good example of people saying unreasonable things can be found here)
All this might be getting boring and a bit complicated.. I think it’s a bit too dense but here’s what I mean, it would be much simpler to assume that God doesn’t exist and then reason as to how the world will be like. It would be much simpler to assume that God does exist and reason what the world would be like in his existence and what His words will be like. If we try to imagine what God would do if he did exist it will save us a lot of trouble, and perhaps then we can reason His words.
A debate struck up between me and a friend of mine in which I asked him about something. So the first thing he answered me was “God said so”. Now I don’t know about you, but this word infuriates me a bit, because at a time when people are claiming God said so many things, you can’t base this as a source of your argument. I mean with so many books and so many theories, let’s use that brain God gave us, he must have given it to us for a reason. Perhaps not to understand everything but just enough to understand whether what we’re being told can be true. So I told my friend, don’t explain to me by telling me God said so, explain to me why God said so or would say so, let us reason why God would say this and let us reach through the little logic we have why God told us this. So we sat down and examined the issue from a social point of view, psychological point of view, scientific point of view and we reasoned that God has a reason for saying this and that.
You see that’s the problem I’m talking about, people keep telling you because God said so.. and while I know God must have said some things, I know that there are some means of understanding part of God’s wisdom. It’s all about working the right way, sometimes working backwards can give you an illogical god or even a contradicting god.
I’m not going to get to detailed examples of what I mean but let me try to show something. Let’s assume there was God, and there was a devil. Now what would God do to help humans and what would the devil do to counter that plan assuming as well that we had free will. I suppose that God would probably give people instructions on how to live and what would be good for them, but the devil’s technique would be to cast doubt on those words, and the best way for people to get lost is to be confused and not know what’s right from what’s wrong. It’s like psychological warfare I suppose, each country releasing a set of press releases and you can choose which to believe. Of course there are signs that tell you which is true and which is not.
I remember the war in Iraq, there were many statements made by the States regarding the battles and there were statements made by Information minister Saeed Al Sahaaf of Iraq regarding the same war. They were both conflicting and yet one was true and one was not so true. I guess at some point people choose which they want to believe, what they wish to be true, or what they were raised to believe.
So the point is simple, it’s all about the approach. Whenever people reason as to what God might say, someone comes in and just says: No you infidels, God said so and so and so and so as if it were definitive.
To top this all off, I must add these excellent links for both believers and non believers. It’s just a few things to show that theology is not that trivial.
If you think believers are naive click here.
If you think non believers are idiots click here.
Many people approach God and religion in what I view as a wrong way, but hey.. it’s my blog and the only opinion that really matters is my own.
Of course some people claim they have made the assumptions I stated above, but have failed to work in that direction. Let’s take for example how people approach religion, first they take the words of any religious book as the absolute truth, and from it they work what God is like. This is a very dangerous approach because when assuming there is God, there can be no absolute guarantee that the book they’re reading is His word, and so the word of God gives a wrong impression about God to those assuming he does exist, and totally disproves the existence of God (in some cases) to those assuming he doesn’t exist.
(A very good example of people saying unreasonable things can be found here)
All this might be getting boring and a bit complicated.. I think it’s a bit too dense but here’s what I mean, it would be much simpler to assume that God doesn’t exist and then reason as to how the world will be like. It would be much simpler to assume that God does exist and reason what the world would be like in his existence and what His words will be like. If we try to imagine what God would do if he did exist it will save us a lot of trouble, and perhaps then we can reason His words.
A debate struck up between me and a friend of mine in which I asked him about something. So the first thing he answered me was “God said so”. Now I don’t know about you, but this word infuriates me a bit, because at a time when people are claiming God said so many things, you can’t base this as a source of your argument. I mean with so many books and so many theories, let’s use that brain God gave us, he must have given it to us for a reason. Perhaps not to understand everything but just enough to understand whether what we’re being told can be true. So I told my friend, don’t explain to me by telling me God said so, explain to me why God said so or would say so, let us reason why God would say this and let us reach through the little logic we have why God told us this. So we sat down and examined the issue from a social point of view, psychological point of view, scientific point of view and we reasoned that God has a reason for saying this and that.
You see that’s the problem I’m talking about, people keep telling you because God said so.. and while I know God must have said some things, I know that there are some means of understanding part of God’s wisdom. It’s all about working the right way, sometimes working backwards can give you an illogical god or even a contradicting god.
I’m not going to get to detailed examples of what I mean but let me try to show something. Let’s assume there was God, and there was a devil. Now what would God do to help humans and what would the devil do to counter that plan assuming as well that we had free will. I suppose that God would probably give people instructions on how to live and what would be good for them, but the devil’s technique would be to cast doubt on those words, and the best way for people to get lost is to be confused and not know what’s right from what’s wrong. It’s like psychological warfare I suppose, each country releasing a set of press releases and you can choose which to believe. Of course there are signs that tell you which is true and which is not.
I remember the war in Iraq, there were many statements made by the States regarding the battles and there were statements made by Information minister Saeed Al Sahaaf of Iraq regarding the same war. They were both conflicting and yet one was true and one was not so true. I guess at some point people choose which they want to believe, what they wish to be true, or what they were raised to believe.
So the point is simple, it’s all about the approach. Whenever people reason as to what God might say, someone comes in and just says: No you infidels, God said so and so and so and so as if it were definitive.
To top this all off, I must add these excellent links for both believers and non believers. It’s just a few things to show that theology is not that trivial.
If you think believers are naive click here.
If you think non believers are idiots click here.
Many people approach God and religion in what I view as a wrong way, but hey.. it’s my blog and the only opinion that really matters is my own.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
The Psychopath Test
So a recent comment on one of my posts reminded me of a test I heard once that determines how much of a psychopath you are. It's very interesting, so to anyone who comes here (talking to myself) if you haven't heard this before, give it a shot.. with reasoning.. if you've read this before, enjoy the different answers.. and if you want to know the answer.. just google it.. or I can give it away some time anyway if you're lazy.
"This is a story about a girl.
While at the funeral of her own mother, she met a guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing, so much the dream guy that she was searching for that she fell in love with him immediately.
However, she never asked for his name or number and afterward could not find anyone who knew who he was.
A few days later the girl killed her own sister.
Question: Why did she kill her sister?"
"This is a story about a girl.
While at the funeral of her own mother, she met a guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing, so much the dream guy that she was searching for that she fell in love with him immediately.
However, she never asked for his name or number and afterward could not find anyone who knew who he was.
A few days later the girl killed her own sister.
Question: Why did she kill her sister?"
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Shattered Glass
There’s something about shattered glass that’s unsettling. The shattered glass itself and the process of glass shattering is intricately linked to irreparable damage. What worries me most about a broken piece of glass is how much it can hurt. The problem with shattered glass is that it has many broken pieces and each on its own dangerous and hurtful.
The odd thing about it is that the single piece that consisted of all those smaller pieces was in all likelihood very safe, smooth and probably even beautiful. When broken, all those pieces lose their form, beauty and meaning. They may be laid out in a beautiful manner but that isn’t always the case and even then they remain dangerous pieces of glass that may cause damage.
Even the sound of glass breaking against a hard substance is very disturbing. It violently disturbs the relative peace preceding it. The sound of glass breaking announces an event that must be dealt with in an urgent manner. It’s very distracting, imposing and intrudes on all activities happening around it.
Another thing that bothers me about shattered glass is the amount of small pieces it has broken into. So many pieces suddenly exist and some of them are so tiny that they can’t be seen. Some of them fly away so far from where the glass broke that their position cannot be anticipated. These small pieces are still dangerous and invasive, for even after a shattered glass is swept off and cleared away, no one can ever be too sure that all the pieces have been picked up. The once safe area is transformed to a ore dangerous upon which one must tread cautiously lest he be hurt. Those small pieces can hide well and unsettle a once peaceful and quiet place.
There’s also a sense of waste when glass breaks as well. This sense of waste is all the more magnified when big pieces remain intact and have sharp edges that render them useless. It strikes me even more with colored glass whose shattered pieces look beautiful and reflect light in so many ways yet nothing can be done with it but throw it away. The glass once shaped to server a purpose now serves none and in fractions of a second morphs to an inadequate state making it worthy only of disposal.
It’s a waste of glass and a waste of something good when glass shatters. There’s something unsettling about it, about the irreversibility of the process and the randomness of the result. I certainly prefer glass before it has been shattered.
The odd thing about it is that the single piece that consisted of all those smaller pieces was in all likelihood very safe, smooth and probably even beautiful. When broken, all those pieces lose their form, beauty and meaning. They may be laid out in a beautiful manner but that isn’t always the case and even then they remain dangerous pieces of glass that may cause damage.
Even the sound of glass breaking against a hard substance is very disturbing. It violently disturbs the relative peace preceding it. The sound of glass breaking announces an event that must be dealt with in an urgent manner. It’s very distracting, imposing and intrudes on all activities happening around it.
Another thing that bothers me about shattered glass is the amount of small pieces it has broken into. So many pieces suddenly exist and some of them are so tiny that they can’t be seen. Some of them fly away so far from where the glass broke that their position cannot be anticipated. These small pieces are still dangerous and invasive, for even after a shattered glass is swept off and cleared away, no one can ever be too sure that all the pieces have been picked up. The once safe area is transformed to a ore dangerous upon which one must tread cautiously lest he be hurt. Those small pieces can hide well and unsettle a once peaceful and quiet place.
There’s also a sense of waste when glass breaks as well. This sense of waste is all the more magnified when big pieces remain intact and have sharp edges that render them useless. It strikes me even more with colored glass whose shattered pieces look beautiful and reflect light in so many ways yet nothing can be done with it but throw it away. The glass once shaped to server a purpose now serves none and in fractions of a second morphs to an inadequate state making it worthy only of disposal.
It’s a waste of glass and a waste of something good when glass shatters. There’s something unsettling about it, about the irreversibility of the process and the randomness of the result. I certainly prefer glass before it has been shattered.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Remedies and solutions are not mine to behold,
in this desert of time, where one too quickly grows old,
As to a passing wind is a motionless scene,
so am I to time, nothing do I mean.
And who am I to ask the whens or whys of this world,
I'd neither add nor take if I was ever told,
we're all shooting stars and sometimes we're not even seen.
we're neither earth nor air we're something in between
do we exist? for certain yes we do,
but how or why, I haven't got a clue,
I'm not gonna answer life's questions anymore,
survival is more impending and knocking at my door.
As a bystander I was born and a bystander I stay,
Seeing of life's movie a single still portrait,
not enough to understand the way things come in play,
but not little enough so as to look the other way.
in this desert of time, where one too quickly grows old,
As to a passing wind is a motionless scene,
so am I to time, nothing do I mean.
And who am I to ask the whens or whys of this world,
I'd neither add nor take if I was ever told,
we're all shooting stars and sometimes we're not even seen.
we're neither earth nor air we're something in between
do we exist? for certain yes we do,
but how or why, I haven't got a clue,
I'm not gonna answer life's questions anymore,
survival is more impending and knocking at my door.
As a bystander I was born and a bystander I stay,
Seeing of life's movie a single still portrait,
not enough to understand the way things come in play,
but not little enough so as to look the other way.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Gates Of Despair
Lurking about me continuously are gates of despair, entreating me to walk right through them to a land where all has gone wrong. The gates are wide open and inviting and there seems to be much comfort in the act of slipping through past their entrance, but I know that the other side is full of darkness. I know that the only easy thing is passing through those gates because once I’m in, these gates will shrink and they will no longer be inviting they will be distant, and they will no longer lurk about me they will be evasive. I will be in a dark hole and all the while given the chance from one spiral of despair to yet another.
The dark gates call on to me continuously. When my day is rough, when the going gets tough, when I’m tired and lost with so much left to do and think about. Why must I wrestle so much with these invitations, they seem to ask me to let go of all I have. But I can see no future in accepting this invitation; nothing but the momentary comfort of accepting it and the temporary relief of these battles.
Must life be so hard? Is it the same with everyone around? Or is it just me? It’s becoming harder for me to survive, harder for me to do the things I should, harder for me to finish the tasks I have. In the past things were easier, my tasks would be clear and my path would be vivid. But now… why has everything easy been replaced with struggle and where is that young man who found everything easy to do?
That young man would comfort friends and glide through troubled paths with confidence and grace. Those gates of despair were always behind him, trying to catch up but failing and he in turn never looked back. Maybe he slowed down and became me, and now those gates have caught up with me. I fight their invitations but every now and then I think of what it would be to accept their invitation and fall into one comfortable spiral of despair.
What other gates await? What other gates are fast on my track I wonder. I must keep going forward and though the climb is steep, but surely there will come a time that I will be able to travel downhill. I know that one fights off what he can in order to become all that he could…
The dark gates call on to me continuously. When my day is rough, when the going gets tough, when I’m tired and lost with so much left to do and think about. Why must I wrestle so much with these invitations, they seem to ask me to let go of all I have. But I can see no future in accepting this invitation; nothing but the momentary comfort of accepting it and the temporary relief of these battles.
Must life be so hard? Is it the same with everyone around? Or is it just me? It’s becoming harder for me to survive, harder for me to do the things I should, harder for me to finish the tasks I have. In the past things were easier, my tasks would be clear and my path would be vivid. But now… why has everything easy been replaced with struggle and where is that young man who found everything easy to do?
That young man would comfort friends and glide through troubled paths with confidence and grace. Those gates of despair were always behind him, trying to catch up but failing and he in turn never looked back. Maybe he slowed down and became me, and now those gates have caught up with me. I fight their invitations but every now and then I think of what it would be to accept their invitation and fall into one comfortable spiral of despair.
What other gates await? What other gates are fast on my track I wonder. I must keep going forward and though the climb is steep, but surely there will come a time that I will be able to travel downhill. I know that one fights off what he can in order to become all that he could…
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