How I Ruined Today’s All-Nighter.

Of Dadoscope, Doppelgangers & Sophia Loren.

It’s been a rather relaxed day, with the exception of a couple of incidents where the accumulation of assholes made me blow up in the face of one of the sweetest people I’ve come to meet. Quite a recurring incident, it’s how karma likes to be funny, or maybe how evolution tends to those who have not been morphed yet by survival’s better judgment. I have no idea what  I came here to write, but I’ve had quite an interesting conversation with my father and judging from my goldfish memory, I’d hate to let that go to waste in the folds of my troubled mind.

It wasn’t anything that special really, we were just sitting there, him after a very long day at work and mine just barely starting, I had an all-nighter ahead and I wasn’t that pepped up about jumpstarting it. As usual, I turned off the lights, made us a couple of glasses of white tea and we sat there enjoying an old 60’s movie called ‘The Countess Of Hong Kong’, starring Marlon Brando and that chick with the unbelievably awesome boobs called Sophia Loren. My dad, as usual, made the most observant and abstract comments, which usually but not always had a hidden meaning he was hinting at. It’s one of his method of getting advice into my subconscious past my defenses. He commented on how Sophia Loren has been made to wear flats so she wouldn’t be taller than Marlon Brando, how the acting was theatrical because at the time, movies were a foreign concept to them. He commented on how all the girls have been casted and scripted to sound ordinary and paling in comparison with Sophia, even though she wasn’t that slick herself; just a pretty face and mysterious demeanor really. He mooted my outraged observations about how much of a male-dominated society it used to be by asking me what Marlon just said, which I didn’t remember, hence proving his point that after all, it was Sophia’s lines to which our attention was directed. He told me that boob jobs didn’t exist back then, and laughed at how I retorted defensively that they don’t make em like that anymore.

Somehow our conversation drifted to our dreams. Not the ones you have in your sleep, the ones you wish for when you’re wide awake with your head given the pink slip. I already knew his by heart, but I like to hear him say it. I get my goldfish memory from him so he never fails to cover all the details. Sipping on his white tea and staring off into the reluctant shadows, with only the TV giving his facial expressions just enough lighting and the movie chatting up the background into a comfortable haze to give room for his speech to be personal yet laid back, he’d talk about how he’d always wanted to retire in a little cabin by an expanse lake, somewhere in the outskirts of a tranquil little town. He’d press that the food needn’t be that great and the cabin would probably be more on the shack side than an actual reputable condo. He’d say that was all he wanted out of life, with the luxury of a quality fishing line, a comfortable reclining chair and access to a beautiful library and good classical music. Somewhere quiet, away from all the confusion of modern needs and commitments of the city life. He’d say that the only adventurous version of that dream of his would have to be roaming the world on one of them yachts that have been furnished into a little floating house.

He’s always been a hopeless romantic, one that has been undercover as a working class blue collar for so long that he’d effortlessly fool anyone into thinking that person has been obliterated long ago. I daresay he’d give the thought police a run for their money had his first name been Winston. He’d talk about his father when I ask him why he wouldn’t go fishing as often as he’d like, much like he used to till I turned 8, and that’s when the story always comes, the one about my grandpa. He was a rebellious soul, confrontational and took life by the balls. The bad boy who took idiotic risks and made it big despite his own father’s expectations of him yet never failed to enjoy the little niceties of life, the redhead on the basketball league and the flirtatious playboy who knocked all the ladies off their feet yet managed to maintain a sense of integrity and chivalry that seemed to have been travelling down the same line since the medieval times and almost gone extinct. He’d say how much of him he sees in me that it scares him, reminding me of how my grandma always follows every little thing I habitually do by an ‘Oh my, just like your grandpa, bless your soul’, and I giggle at the irony, since I’ve never actually met the guy. I’d inevitably start thinking about how a lot of what feels like our choices has been predetermined by genes.

The story that inevitably follows being how he stopped being confrontational and didn’t take the risk of telling his boss he was a total ass after he got married. He’d quip his line, how he stood there in the middle of the bank and told his boss off saying ‘If I wasn’t married, I’d make you into the fool you are, lucky enough for your new set of front teeth, I have kids who’ll pay for this.’ In case you were wondering, he was shortly promoted afterwards. Then my father would never fail to add in the little footnote that I should never try that because people are no longer grounded in a sense of morality and I would most probably not only get laid off, but no other place would hire with that mole on my CV just so the asshole could save face. And yes, dad never forget to add in a ‘Don’t try this at home’ when he’s talking to me; he knows I’m nuts enough to try it against every reasonable argument common sense or self preservation may offer.

He’d always ask me what my dream is, the form of life I’d like to lead, and I’d always say the same thing, an independent life void of attachments and being tied down to a spouse, family or any form of preset agenda or zip code, leading a career that I love doing which doesn’t have to bring in that much money but enough to get me by on my own without tagging me as a kid who can’t pay her own electricity bill and getting evicted for failing to meet the deadline of payment after so many notices. He’d again comment of how much of his father he sees in me, using adjectives like bohemian and existentialist to describe it in retrospect. I’d always ask him what he thinks of it and he’d follow with the usual line of how the striking resemblance I have with his own father is gainsaid by the amazing contradiction I have with my own father, giving a little smile, the one that makes me feel he can see through me more clearly than he can see through the white tea he’s holding; I call it dadoscope. He’d comment on how I always liked it in stock as opposed to his choice of enjoying the tiny luxuries life offers in retail. I always say I get better discounts and he’d retort that his losses are not as paramount to the invested capital.

Then, like every other night, we’d agree to disagree as we drudge on to the things we have to do, cussing at the clock for stealing our time and academia for occupying our heads, only to do it all over again.

And I’m Afraid Because I Have No Fear.

Eshtery Dma3’ak.

Happiness Has A Price Tag.

Of Sparky.

‘Let me tell you about a Labrador retriever named Sparky. Sparky could not wag his tail, because of an automobile accident many years ago, so he had no way of telling other dogs how friendly he was. He had to fight all the time. His ears were in tatters and he was lumpy with scars.’

– Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut.

Every Criminal Was Made Into One. Or So Say The Pussies.

When you're the only common factor in a great diverse number of heinous things, you start to wonder if it was your fault and they're all derivatives. I don't know which higher power believes in my superhuman abilities but I'd like it to stop trying to win the bet with the one who doesn't.

'لا نكلف نفسا إلا وسعها.' - Well, I gotta say, I'm flattered.

And no, I’m not being sarcastic.

You’re Looking At Me But I’m Looking Through You.

Now I Gotta Get Used To Not Living Next-door To Alice.

Life Lesson #302

يعني ايه كارما؟ يعني تفضل تقابل ناس وحشه طول حياتك فا تخليك لما تقابل ناس حلوه متصدقش نفسك و تديهم بالجزمه

Of White Tea Ring Stains On Kübler-Ross Models.

I’ve had an odd month, it’s been one of those months when life doesn’t seem like it’s gonna give you a break any time soon. A good friend postulated that life just realized I’m turning 20 soon and decided to give me a painfully accelerated crash course which I might as well gain experience from.

It gets me thinking about how people think a baby dear surviving in the jungle all on its own is so damn tough, hah. Well, Bambi, wait till you get a whiff of this. Humans have it a lot worse, they’re handling the animal/neanderthal/intelligent beings/psychotic mutants  integrated version of survival’s book. That’s numerically quadruple the work, but would amount to a lot more if the value was assigned according to the level of difficulty. We’re looking at a six figure here people. It doesn’t seem like it’s taking any coffee breaks, because it’s been surely interrupting mine.

I woke up this morning and it took me thirty minutes of all the verbal variation of  ‘Everything’s gonna be just fine, I’m stronger than this shit’ to muster up the guts to get out of bed, because somehow, right there, with the lights off, doors closed, no people, no technology and no phone, absolutely no means of connection to the outside world, it felt like I could finally pause life, or at least its effect reaching me. The blanket was the cape that deflected all the warped psychic bullets coming out of everywhere.

But then I needed coffee, and it was all the way to the kitchen, passing through a vulnerable time tunnel with phones, laptops, people and news broadcast in the way. You could say that coffee got me out of bed and saved the day. And it’s not even Irish.

Work is good, I’ve voluntarily been working for almost 10 hours, and I’m not done yet. I’ve got another 8 ahead, and it’s splendid. It’s amazing in the way how it takes the guilt and all the unnecessary brain activity and turns you into a happy bot. I’ve always wondered why the natural course of life would state it logical to put our brains on overdrive while our bodies were on overdrive, but looking at  it with a glass-half-full-of-coffee perspective, it now makes sense that puberty and high-school are simultaneous, much like how a drunkard’s vehicle would only revert to uniform velocity when it’s reached maximum acceleration. Either on its own would leave too much room for thinking which has a small possibility of making room for your creativity as opposed to a humongous and a more likely possibility that you’ll have enough time on your hands and ram in your head to fuck up irrevocably. Conclusion? Burnouts are in badger-less bliss.

Also, white tea is great for all-nighters, because it offers the comfort of the illusion that you might or might not get sleep some time soon, which is otherwise eliminated with a caffeinated shot up cranium in a mug of coffee or a guiltily fattening coke. It doesn’t mean you’ll sleep soon, it just means you can if you want to, and the choice is always liberating. Even in a stupid little irrelevant thing, because let’s face it, you’re more likely to hang around if you don’t really have to. It makes you look at the piles of Advanced Maths and Physics with the rejuvenated lust of a hook up rather than the grudge of a spouse.

Along the lines of all-nighters and white tea, help could come from more unexpected routes, like a med student who happened to be up at just the right time, ogling a glaucoma text with a droopy sleepless eye. A shout out to all the little tools of desperate luck coming at you from all the angles you’d have your butt towards at just the wrong time who manage to hit you in the back of the head with an annoying little hopeful blow.

Funny thing happened today, when I recounted the series of unfortunate events to one of the odd birds I call friends, I was called lucky, and it made me think about how of all the adjectives, lucky was the one to fill the designated clearing. Maybe being lucky doesn’t necessarily mean the right things happening to you at the right time, but rather the wrong things happening to you at all the wrong times just because you, of all people, were up for it. It would give off the sense that you’re a working-class underrated hero, which is yet another illusion that humans seem to find comforting. Another shout out to the old soul who said that weakness is a self-fulfilling prophecy, taking people’s word is much like looking in a  reverse mirror and first impressions are a second chance at a third person perspective.

And for now, I leave you with the thought that bad things might be an indicative, though a paramount fail at a funny cosmic joke, that you’re up for great things, regardless of  how little you are.

And Then You Call Upon God.

One Day.

Close Enough To Start A War.

These couple of weeks have given me a lot of time and reasons to come down to many realizations. You know, those middle of the night aha moments where a light bulb materializes in the thin air above your forehead and you end up smacking it off because the pain of that revelation almost scorches it and end up with a theatrical facepalm? Yeh, those ones.

I realized that at this point of my life, my sanity has been sufficiently unhinged to make me see things that no other person can second. I’ve been told that I needed professional help by two of my closest people and I came upon the conclusion that my psyche Vikings push people who care away with tiny little axes and dismember them in an obscure vault in my subconscious while simultaneously convincing me that they never gave a fuck to begin with, or existed, for that matter. Shame I had to find out after being held hostage and led into that same room earlier this week when I tried to take care, the only way I can, about that little figment of evolution’s imagination that goes by the name of soul, proudly crowned with a ‘my’ pronoun that isn’t really its own, nor mine.

I realized that people actually care, I just was never let to believe it by my Vikings because it was easier that way, it was much easier when everybody was a temporary it that never gave a crap and never will. It prevented the  progress of a thing that was more likely by historical odds to leave by making it sound like it never intended to stay. The Vikings weren’t happy that I sneaked into their HQ and found out about their current war strategy. I’m guessing they’ll wage another soon enough, with a strategy that I have no clue about, a plan B that hasn’t been put down in textbooks or tried on a former human psyche. And I use the term human loosely.

‘It would be difficult to determine the state of that soul and what form it had assumed, under its twisted envelope. If we were to attempt to penetrate into Quasimodo’s soul through its thick, hard outer shell, if we could sound the depths of that twisted mind, explore the shadowy interior of that opaque creature, illuminate its obscure corners and absurd blind alleys and suddenly throw a clear light on the spirit enchained at the bottom of that cavern, we would no doubt find it stunted and rickety, like those prisoners in the dungeons of Venice who grew old bent double in a stone box too low to stand in and too short to lie in.

Quasimodo scarcely felt within himself the blind stirrings of a soul made in his own image. The impressions of external objects underwent considerable refraction before they reached his understanding. He received almost no immediate perceptions; the external world seemed further away to him than it does to us. His brain twisted all the ideas which passed through it. He was therefore  the victim of endless optical illusions and aberrations of judgment; his thoughts wandered aimlessly, sometimes mad, sometimes idiotic.’

I realized that my logic, uttered incessantly by the voices inside my head, has been rendered inept; it’s no longer one that I could listen to and follow with confidence, because by the statement of people whose word I’ve learned to trust more than my own, it’s no longer in sync with that of the world. It’s been pushed back into another dimension by the aforementioned Vikings, known to the world as defense mechanisms.

I realized that the world is not coded in mathematics, and couldn’t be predicted with formulas, because it’s full of ‘People’ whose formulas are too volatile to be bracketed in one general term. In fact, they’re so elaborate that even if you take one person and try to formulate and extrapolate his actions and reactions, there’d still be more variables than the slots you’ve made into their formula, and as a consequence would be impossible to fit in just one and quite a laborious task to try and make an extended version of that x function to include all those y variations, let alone know, by your current state of judgment, their true limit or form.

In the words of a good friend, the only consolation is this: “Being nuts isn't a bad thing, look what all the sanity brought to the world.”

As for the solution, I’m not nearly one to know.

Life Lesson #301: Running away is not an option.

‘I mean if you’re able to go into a collapse with all your might, why can’t you use the same energy to stay well and busy?’ – J.D. Salinger.

A Dream.

i had a dream recently

and it was about

...*drumroll*

zombies

kal 3ada

i was in a pyramid fil 2wel

(my dreams are super gory btw)

anyway, fil pyramid and i dnt rmr details, but there were mummies everywhere

and they were SCARY

intestines falling out and shit

7agat 2raf awi

b3deen there was a struggle 7aga keda, neseet el details honestly

i ran out

thinking the dream was over

XD hahaha

oh me. el mohem

i ran out into the heart of a city of roaming zombies

first image

blood splattered on the ground and pieces of flesh

one zombie on a lamp post

hanging b3deen fell and smashed on his face

and i freaked out

not that he fell

no

that wasnt the scary part

the real scary part is if you know zombies, they don't know how to climb really..

at least not lamp posts.

this was an indication that i was screwed

so naturally, i pretended to be a zombie with this other guy, who was also human zayee

i know, i keep telling my mom im messed up

3lashan this isnt normal

but whatever

anyway,

this is when it gets really weird

and you'll realize

what zombies are

to me

i finally got it

i pretended to be a zombie with this guy, and there were a bunch of zombies hanging out keda, like chilling as friends

and they demanded we do this weird zombie dance

el mohem we sucked, and fil akher i was like

...im sorry im just not a zombie

hahaha

and they're like, we know, it's okay we won't do anything to you

and

the dream ends with me telling them

"you're genuinely good people, though."

and they all smiled.

***Courtesy of Sara Soliman, one of my closest friends and someone whose head is a place I’d personally book a ticket to in one of my next lives.***

17th of February 2012

But that's just how the story unfolds, you get another hand soon after you fold.

Well, guess what, dad? Turns out I’m a wimp after all.

Phantom Soul

We Feel What We Can’t See.

‘You may be a lot of things, but wimp is not one of them.’ – Dad.

Home Yet Homesick.

Of Crystals.

Come to think of it, literature is nothing but wonderful custom-crafted lies that people use to escape from or into their own aura, depending on how they carry themselves through life. And life is nothing but a chosen distraction from all the time we have in the world that otherwise would only be the death of us.

And once every blue moon you come across a person whose ability to be happy exceeds their own as well as life's shortcomings. And you realize that they're the ones who've been doing life right all along. Not by being great, intelligent or successful, but happy. Those who are genuinely amused by how a little uncircumstancial event might have taken an unexpected turn, and that idiotic happiness is the reason for their light-hearted bouncing through life, without the needless stress and grief that weighs the soul down, sometimes so much that you begin to resent everyone who’s not wandered off of the yellow brick road. But what you don’t realize is that you only resent yourself for not having that ability, and you’re projecting it onto others, whose only fault was that they were enjoying their lives.

Little by little, you’d stopped doing the things that make you happy, and have been reduced into seeking constant affirmations of your worthiness from others due to lack of regular confirmations coming from within. It’s not their fault that they haven’t stopped trying when you have, it’s your fault for stopping without valid reason. For in what better purpose could hard work be harnessed than your own happiness? After all, you’re the one living with yourself, you might as well be pleasant. If not, then you’re probably thinking along the analogy of a married couple. You’re married to yourself, what happiness does it bring you if you’ve filed for an annulment?

Think of how many hours one may be willing to put into a paper, for the sole purpose of tending to their GPA, how much more important do you think your happiness is? It is after all the GPA that counts. That rigorous meticulous work you put into the latter is a lot more long lasting and relished than the former, even though sometimes, the former will lead to the latter, in the form of little deposits into your personal bank account. Another deposit may be a good book, yet another a careful workout. For what other reason would you do something if not for your own happiness?

If an emotion like pure hate and resentment that is energy-consuming could be replaced by another emotion like happiness that is energy-producing, with little effort being that you work on the things that make you a better version of yourself, then why on earth wouldn’t you take it? Masochism is a morphed form of happiness for the crippled of soul. If you’re able-bodied, why park where the wheelchair’s supposed to?

The little things matter, and with enough little crystals you’ll cast an expanse hue on every other department. If it doesn’t work, you could always go back to your delusions of martyrdom, they’ll be waiting right where you left them, in a pile of shards that flake everything they touch.

Why, do you ask? Because what else have you got to lose?

‘Like the terrestrial crust of the earth, which is proportionately ten times thinner than an eggshell, the skin of the soul is a miracle of mutual pressures.’ -A. Carson

Room 101

‘That is what brought you here. You are here because you have failed in humility, in self-discipline. You would not make the act of submission that is the price of sanity. You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes; only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth; is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to re-learn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane…

Do not imagine that you can save yourself, Winston, however completely you surrender to us. No one who has ever gone astray has been spared. And even if we choose to let you live out the natural term of your life, still you would never escape from us. What happens to you here is forever. Understand that in advance. We shall crush you down to the point from which there is no coming back. Things will happen to you from which you could not recover, if you lived a thousand years. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.’

Excerpt from 1984, by George Orwell.

Phantom Limbs. (IWTFY)