Category Archives: Asylum Archives

Masks

I’ve been reading about this masks that we wear all the time, in some blogs around, and I’m really feeling them annoying me.
For some period of time, I decided to remove all the masks I have (Most of them not all), and I tried living with it for a while, I really lived some period of my life, I was really undiplomatic (it was really fun to tell a guy you hate that you really hate him), I talked my heart, and I really felt free (as in freedom).
But graduating from the university, and going into the market destroyed everything, it’s almost impossible to live in this world without masks. For example, you cannot tell your Boss that you hate him, or that he is so annoying (I thought about it a lot :P). You can’t tell a customer that he is so stupid, or (a3la ma b5ailak erkabo). And as your social life gets smaller and smaller, you have to try to keep what’s left from your friends. So you have to wear a different mask with every group of people.
And man, this artificial life that we are living, I really have a trouble getting into it. But in a lot of this you have to, or you would be the stupid geek living upstairs.
Well how many masks I wear, one for work, one for some other group of people at work, one for walking in the streets, one for a particular people I know, other for some group of friends, another for another group …. etc.
I have this question, am I going to live in masks for the rest of my life? Whom am I living for? Can’t I just live my life the way I wanted it? …
Ich kenne nicht.

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What a Night

Oba Oba, I love this woman, do you know what does it feels like when you spend all the night doing nothing but listening to music, especially when it’s performed by Stan Getz, sang by the great Astrud Gilberto, and originally wrote by Joao Gilberto, Oh Dindi, and There is no one like you, (taken from the spirit of Chopin‘s Prelude in Em).
I love you more each day, yes I do, I’ll let you go away, if you only take me with you, and the Girl From Ipanema, takes me to other worlds, no one else can take me to, and How Insensitive, I must have seemed, you didn’t have to be so nice, I would’ve loved you anyway.
And in the end comes Ziad, in his Brazilian concert, with Sho B7ebbek, and his own version of Prelude in Em.
Every time I wanted to shut down the computer, another great song is played, and of course I could do nothing.
Thanks for this great night, of course this is not my first night like this, but I guess this is the first time I write about it.

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Weirdo Thoughts

Well, I don’t know where do I start, it’s like a million thoughts in my mind running at once.
Today, I was setting with a friend of mine, we were discussing a lot of things, about relativity, about origins, about life … etc.
It was mostly about judging and “MAYBE”, maybe things are this, and maybe things are not. You have to make a decision, but maybe you were right, and maybe you were wrong.
Logic should help you in this, but the problem is that logic is not always logical, Logic says that everything should have a start, and everything should have an end; but also logic says that there is always a plus 1, and of course there is always a minus 1. Well this is not logical, there is no rules, there is nothing in logic.
I started thinking, I’m living this life, I’m 22 years old now, I’m running in this life, I don’t want to waste time, why?
In computer science, the most thing I saw that implements something like life was General Trees, and people started to put Algorithms to search them, but there is a big difference between them and between life, when you are in a node in the Tree, you know all the nodes surrounding you. In life you know some of the nodes around you, but more and more nodes are hidden from you, you always try to think out of the box to find another options (nodes), but you can’t know them all. another major difference is that when searching in a General tree when you reach a dead end, you can go back one step or more. In life that’s not always available, you cannot undo things you’ve done. People made heuristics to find the shortest path to another node, they rarely happen to find them (only in an ideal tree or life), for example everyday, I wake up to go to work (from Rainbow St. to the Second circle), I have some different paths to reach it, I have some rational options, and I take one of them. My rational option is that to reach to my work is to be heading to the first circle up the street, but what if I took another path, what if went down town, maybe I would find a colleague who’s driving a car, and just picks me up and I would spend less time in my journey to work. it takes me about 20 minutes when I take my rational path, but if I calculate my irrational path, it would take me in such condition about 8 minutes. (it’s another Maybe).
Another thing, I’m running through my life, racing time, but to where … ? I’m more successful in my life than most of people in my age. but how can I tell. A simple question is always asked, what is the reason of my life? a lot of people just answer it without even really thinking about it. well let’s ask the question in another way, what is the thing that you would die for? that if you achieved it you don’t want anything more? well maybe I had an answer for that question for sometime, but it changed in a lot of time. new purposes where put, and a lot of purposes where erased. Now, I can’t answer that question. I think is that I’m living in a chaos. It’s a little bit organized, but it’s still a chaos.
Damn, I cannot concentrate on one thing. Why am I going to work everyday? why I’m spending time doing what I do? why am I being me? where do I want to go in the end? …
No answer, which gives another kind of question, why do I want to live? I didn’t choose to live in the first place, I was never convinced with a reason to come to this planet. And now I’m fighting to survive … Ironic. If I died, what changes would that make? If I lived a million year, what changes would that make? If I didn’t come to this planet, what changes would be? … No answer!
If you take an upper view to life, you would feel it’s worthless. But you are fighting for survival, you are racing time to take the most of it. WHY? … No answer.
I lived a lot of experience in my life, that most people would live and die without knowing any of them, I lived the best days of my life, and I lived the worst. I knew what hunger means, and I know how love feels like. I lived days that I don’t want to sleep, cause I would lose a moment of happiness, and I lived days that I don’t want to wake up, so I wouldn’t feel more pain. Why all of this? I could’ve ended things in a lot of ways, but I didn’t. I could’ve asked for help from people that I don’t want them in my life when I really needed it, but I didn’t. why? … I just don’t know.
In the last JP meeting, I spent almost 10 minutes, just sitting, looking at every group, hearing what they say, just trying to figure out what discussion interests me the most. I wanted to move to sit beside a group, to join, but at that moment, I don’t know what happened to me, I moved to another group. what I was thinking in that moment? … can’t say.
Sometimes I think, what if I knew everything? wouldn’t that make my life easier? but what does it worth living after that? I’ve always hated limits, but limits makes you comfortable. Sometimes I’m too lazy to be alive … other times I come too active to be a … I don’t know what. but most of the time I just exist, doing things for no reason, breathing for no reason, but just trying to live as a regular normal being? but I always fail. Most of people dream to be superb, I always wanted to be just normal, and I always fail. People usually respect me, but they also never agree with me. Maybe I’m trying to be a romantic rational person. but of course in theory I would fail, and I guess I failed.
Damn, I don’t know anything. I guess I’m going really crazy …

Ma3eesh Masary

Well, for a long time, I believed that the important thing is your work, your personality, and money always came in the second place, for me I believed it’s only a tool.
As from the last period, I found out, that I was mistaken, if you don’t have money, you are nothing, you are the amount of money you have.
You don’t have to pay money, you only just need to have them. In a situation you would be discussed to be accepted, another one (who has money) would be accepted without negotiation. I really hate these things, until lately I felt really discriminated by it, although I deserved a thing more than another one, the other was accepted (he really has a lot of money), maybe I cannot judge what really happened, but I felt it this way, it was really annoying to me.
I guess, I need to join Fight Club.

Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt at Fight Club):
Advertising has its taste in cars and clothes … working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.
We’re the middle children of history, man.
No purpose or place.
We have no Great War … no Great Depression.
Our Great War is a spiritual war.
Out Great Depression is our lives.
We’ve been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars.
But we won’t, We’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.

Random Crazy Weirdo Thoughts

Justice is Blind. Justice halls painted green. Does he have the right to do something?
From the beginning of the previous century, the terms right and wrong, good and evil, had a lot of troubles surviving, these terms needed some kind of relation to something, you can say this thing is right for some kind of culture or religion or any kind of ideology.
In the end they depended on power, the one who has power, is the one who has the right. Like did the US had the right to invade Iraq? Well depending on our culture, maybe not, but did that matter, they invaded it anyway, and who could’ve stopped them, depending on there power, yes they had the right.
And now the question that is lately so much asked, did this Danish newspaper had the right to publish these cartoons? Till now nothing is clear, as the forces are not really visible. And does freedom of speech allows them to do that? well if we can get a couple of years before, when Bin Laden destroyed the Buddha’s statues, did he had the right to do so? Well it appears that he had, nobody had complained. Like Buddhism is not a religion or something, and he did not discriminate them. Every day in our life a lot of people discriminates Buddhas, Hindus, Maharishis …, and you know that is not discrimination, as those people has no power, and depending on our culture they are wrong, and they are stupid, and they are just a few unbelievers, cause they have gods other than ours, and we also swear at Jews, even in the fact that it is forbidden in Islam, but we consider them as enemies of god, even they believe in god, and we also consider them to hate Muslims, forgetting about some Jews who supported us and our case (Like Felicia Langer), but who cares, they don’t complain about it here.
I remember before a couple of years, I was watching Late Night with Conan O’Brien on NBC, where I don’t really remember whom he was talking to (I guess it was Chris Rock), who said that this is the end of time, implying somethings about the current time (I remember that he said that the best rapper is white, the best Golf player is Black, France is accusing US to be arrogant … etc.), well I guess it’s really the end of time, US is teaching Europeans how to respect religions, Britten is accusing the rest of Europe with being Racist (which the Britons were always not ?!), the Arabs are teaching Europeans the freedom of speech, And Syria is the first country to take her ambassadors out of Denmark between the Arabs based on a religious issue, Man it’s really the end of time.
And at the end, what does Muslims really want from all of this Danish thing? aren’t we having enough troubles with the rest of the world (Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Iran)? do we need a new one? and what does the other European journals (who republished the cartoons) are up to? and how is it going to end? are we going to forget as usual? or it’s going for eternity?
I guess everything is going crazy around here. This planet is lacking a lot of logic, I guess everybody is going crazy (including me). (Eza janno rab3ak 3aglak ma benfa3ak, If your people are gone crazy, your mind is not of good use for you!).

Once I Had a Friend

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Dear Ra’afat,
I know you won’t receive this letter, but I’m writing it to you anyway.
I know it’s been almost 3 months since you’ve gone, but your memory just cannot fade away, I almost cry every night for your loss, It’s really hard for me to imagine the world without you living in it.
Do you remember the night when we bought these, I’m keeping it close to my heart, well of course you remember, at that night we both knew that seeing each other would not be easy anymore, everyone of us has to take care of his business, and the business that both of us were in was ended, I remember your words that night, you told me that we should keep them as a memory of each other, in case we did not see each other again.
Do you remember the last night you were in my house, you came to me that night, and slept in my house, we spoke a lot that night, we spoke about a lot of personal stuff, I guess you still remember all of them. At that night, you kept listening to the song Hello, you’ve listened to it over and over again. Now every time I hear it, the tears just start to wash my eyes, I can’t hear it anymore.
Why?
Why did you have to go? Why did you have to leave the world like this? What was the reason for your death? Is it because some moron wanted to kill people? Is it because you had to go to work that day? Is it because you needed money so much? Just why? Nobody gave me a good reason for it.
I still remember the moment when I heard the news, I remember I was in the street that moment, when Baha called me, and told me that you were gone, my legs could not hold me anymore, I remember that I fell in the street, with tears flooding of my eyes, I didn’t know what to do next, how I’m going to live, I still cannot figure the answer, I’ve tried to do a lot of things, but believe me, I’m still having troubles living, just who is going to wash my tears away …
And now the tears are still in my eyes, and nobody is going to wash them while you’re not here.
The other day Baha told me that we were a lot alike, we both don’t talk much, but when we are together we don’t stop talking.
I guess you still remember the song (be 3’orfeh z3’eereh), which both of us used to like it so much, I still listen to it, and I still love it, but after you’re gone, the words have a stronger meaning to me, as for me, it talks about you and me.
You are a martyr, and what difference that makes to me, for me it’s still that I lost you, it’s still that I wont see you again.
May your soul rest in peace,
Your Friend Forever,
Ala’a.

When will we grow-up?

Inspired by a post on Khalaf’s blog about the human rights report, and the Jordanian responses against it.
Well I guess it’s in our culture to think that we are perfect, and we never do anything wrong. We never accept the thought that we might be wrong at some point, if you come to your colleague and tell him that he did something wrong, the first thing that he tries to do is to deny, and if he couldn’t he would start blaming somebody else, or even starts blaming you, even if you have nothing to do with it.
One of the points that I learned during My work with the UNFPA, is if you want to reach to something you should learn from your mistakes, and to learn from them the first thing you need to learn is where did you make mistakes, for that you need to criticize your self and to listen to other people criticism, as they have another points of view, you should listen to them, unfortunately in my live, the only people who criticized me was my bosses (who should to make the job better), and my close friends who really cares about me (as we always had this thing between us), other people thinks that they might hurt my feeling with their criticism, for me nowadays, (it’s something wrong that I do) as I’m bored of all of this, if I criticized somebody, and he just started to deny it or to take the defensive side, as if I was attacking him, I would put him in some list, and would start to avoiding any interaction between me and him (and of course try to ignore his existence), and if it was work we are talking about, (alright I would tell him first) if he took that side again, I would report it to the manager (as he cannot take that side with him), I know that it’s mean, but I just hate this kind of people.
If you don’t criticize, and accept criticism, how can you develop?

Let’s see what you have to say …

People who affected my life

My life had run through a lot of changes, almost all of these changes were made by my own decision, (some of them were because my life has changed depending on my conditions, but in the end I’m still what I am in the end), my decision was made through my change in the mental field.
from the people I never met, the first one I remember was Irwin Schrödinger, for those who don’t know who he is, he had put one of the most important equations in the history of physics, he made the change from classic physics to modern physics, the most important to me was not what he done, but the when did he do it, and what was he, he was a second year mathematics student, he wasn’t even specialized in physics, or chemistry, he just gave me the thought of that where ever you are, and who ever you are, you can make a change to this world, and you can be one of the greatest this world has witnessed, he gave me the ambition with no limits.
The second one I remember is Karl Marx, Although his great thoughts that he had written, the most important thing for me was mentioned in the Communist Manifesto rewrite, The Communist Manifesto was first written in 1848, when he republished it almost 30 years after, in it’s preface he said a very important thing, he said that he is publishing it the same it was before just for the scientific integrity, although he does not agree on the most of it, when I read that, I just realized how change can be, how every period needs it’s own study, you cannot say something and after a hundred years to expect that it’s still working as when it was put, I really understood what a changing world we live into, and if I couldn’t understand that change, I just can’t live in it.
The third one was Jack London, from his writings I learned a lot of things, I learned how can I analyze the world around me, how can I argue about something I really believe in, and prove myself right (this doesn’t mean I’m closed minded :p).
From the people I’ve met who made a change for my life, there was actually not a lot of people (most of them were girls :p).
In the end I would just like to say, that I just hope, in one day, that somebody says, that Ala’a had affected my life, I don’t know, maybe that’s a dream, maybe I’ve affected some lives before, but I just hope that this happens.

So You Think You Can Tell Heaven from Hell

The other day I was practicing Pink Floyd‘s Song Wish You Where Here on my guitar, and in a sudden I started thinking about the first line, well can I really tell heaven from hell, I don’t really know, what is heaven to me, for some time I thought if I could just live alone in this world, doing whatever I like, this would be heaven. After a while of living alone in a house with no one around me, I just couldn’t stand it, my mind just went off, until lately, you can barley find me home, I’m trying to spend my time anywhere but home, trying to reach every human touch around, that was really Hell for me, perhaps these days I’m going to have a room mate, I’m still afraid of it, but what the hell, I’m going to give it a try.
And like this a lot of things I find in my life.
So what do you think, can you really tell heaven from hell? Lets hear what you have to say.

This is the Lyrics of the song if you want :p

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.