Saturday, 22 March 2014
What You See Is What You Get.
Thursday, 13 March 2014
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
The Empty Jar Club
- Yes, that's why I didn't get what you were saying the other day.
- I literally mean empty.
- But how does that feel?
- It's like you're full of nothing.
- That sounds like it would feel great.
- Not the good kind of nothing.
- I don't think there's a bad kind of nothing. There's a certain freedom that comes with having no attachments.
- Well it isn't that kind.
- that's why I don't get it.
- You're looking for a certain something to fill the nothing but you don't know what it is or where to find it or if it exists. And till you find it, the nothing is just there and it's unpleasant.
- kind of like me feeling homesick for a home that isn't there? Or that third eye that you always feel is missing on your forehead?
- Hmm maybe.
- We are empty jars.
- We're empty bottomless jars.
Of A Post-Apocalyptic Rainy Night.
I need to keep this memory.
I was lost in Zamalek for two hours last night when it started raining.
I was dragged to an outing where I wasn't welcome by an oblivious friend and decided to head home 15 minutes into it, so I started walking around trying to find a main street where I could take a cab or a bus home. It was pretty late, and 5 minutes into it, it started pouring and there was an onslaught of vicious thunder and lightening that split the sky in two every minute.
The streets were deserted, everyone was already home or hiding it out in cafes and shops. The lights were out as well, and other than a couple of forgotten lights here and there, it was pitch dark. There was no living soul as far as the eye could see, save for the occasional gang running around celebrating the rain tribal style. I was soaked through, I had a waterproof sweater in my bag that I put on, but my bag was soaked.
I couldn't see five feet in front of me properly because the rain had rendered my seeing glasses useless, and even without my glasses, you couldn't make out where the street started or ended because of the rain and the darkness. All of my books and college handouts and my cellphone and packet of cigarettes, they were useless, and it was useless to try and save them, but I didn't care. I knew it was dangerous, but I didn't care for that either. I felt liberated. It was a post-apocalyptic walk, without the zombies.
I had no idea where I was or how I'm gonna get home, I was alone with no one (civil) in sight, but I was happy. I knew that any minute I could get mugged or harassed or some car could come and try to pick me up and I wouldn't have been able to fight back, but none of that happened, and I didn't care that it could. It was freezing and I didn't have the right clothes on, but I didn't care for that either. I don't remember feeling more liberated in my entire life. I felt free, and there. There was an air of tangible presence that I haven't assumed in a long time. I felt small and insignificant, and somehow these two made me feel liberated and good. I had no control over anything. I felt like an empty opened jar.
I was the last human on earth, and I wasn't expected anywhere. I wasn't worried about. I was completely and utterly alone, and defenseless. And by god it was magic.
I was picked up by a cab that broke down on the bridge, and the cabbie was kind enough to call his cabbie friend and pick me up on the bridge. I left a butt print on the backseat going out, and the second one was in a hurry and splashed water meter-high when he sped off. We were lost there too, since you couldn't see through the windshield and his wipers were broken down, so we could have had an accident any minute. I didn't care for that either. We took a thousand wrong turns and it took another hour and a half to make it home, after ending up in two wrong districts. He'd soaked 6 people who were trying to stop the cab a little too desperately by driving too close. He dropped me off 15 minutes away since he couldn't figure out how to battle one-way streets, they were a little too urban for what he was used to, and elaborately voiced his indignation on the matter.
I ended up walking home in the rain for the second time, this time followed by a couple of bored guys, and later followed by 5 workers on the back of a pick-up truck. But that didn't matter, try as they might, they couldn't ruin my good mood.
I met my dad by chance at the foot of the building. He'd just come back from work at 1:30 am. He started ranting about a couple of issues of his own, and all I could think about was how beautiful this planet would be without its people, trashed and all.
There are so many reasons (stated and left out) why this could be a bad memory, but for some reason, that I can't place or make sense of, it's a happy one.
Saturday, 8 March 2014
Friday, 7 March 2014
Fuck Semantics.
Words also give people credit they don't deserve, and have done nothing to be eligibile for. They provide a slot that's just the right size for people to fill with all the things they like to hear and really want to believe about you.There is always that one person we've known long enough to realize that nothing they say means jackshit. They start talking and it's all white noise, because you know from experience that they speak for the same reason that a dog chases its tail; they just can't help it. What people don't realize though is that we are all that person, to different degrees. We may not be that confused puppy, but then again we'll probably chase that red dot like our lives depended on it and cough up hair balls until we choke on our own aquaphobia.
Friday, 28 February 2014
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Memory Blob.
Ich wollt ich wär ein Huhn,
ich hätt nicht viel zu tun.
Ich legte vormittags ein Ei und nachmittags wär ich frei.
Mich lockte auf der Welt,
kein Ruhm mehr und kein Geld,
und fände ich das große Los,
dann fräße ich es bloß.
Thursday, 20 February 2014
Bach's Coffee Cantata
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
Tuesday, 4 February 2014
Sunday, 26 January 2014
Monday, 20 January 2014
Moral Myopia.
"One of the oldest and most universal moral precepts is the Golden Rule: Treat others as you want them to treat you. That mandate shows up in Confucianism and in the Code of Hammurabi. It was reiterated by Seneca and by the Buddha. It appears in the Bible, as the command to love thy neighbor as thyself. It might possibly have been taught to more people than any other notion in history.
It is also, on reflection, a little weird. For a guideline about how to treat others, the Golden Rule is strikingly egocentric. It does not urge us to consult our neighbors about their needs; it asks us only to generalize from ourselves—to imagine, in essence, that everyone’s idea of desirable treatment matches our own. As such, it makes a curiously narrow demand on our imagination, and, accordingly, on our behavior. Morality does not start with the self, it starts when we set the self aside. We dwell in moral myopia; literally and figuratively, we are too close to ourselves."- Kathryn Schulz.
Saturday, 18 January 2014
Friday, 10 January 2014
Friday, 3 January 2014
Thursday, 2 January 2014
Tuesday, 31 December 2013
Sunday, 22 December 2013
Thursday, 12 December 2013
Monday, 9 December 2013
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
Of Cacophonysts.
It was a wondrous life of sheer denial
They were part of that planet as much as it was part of them, and the missing part was filled by their complete lack of selves, for you can't fill what has been annulled.
There are ways for the willing
Electric signals were more active than any other species that they could hope to see.
Everything was very..there. The very there-ness was tangible.
He was not.
Monday, 2 December 2013
Friday, 29 November 2013
Loose Threads.
He can read now, he taught himself how to read using discarded newspapers. He has the purest laughter in the world, with neglected and broken front teeth, a voice that's a note short from being whole, and a breath away from being a whisper. Scratchy and out of breath, with enough strength to breathe life into a harpy. Physics won't let it echo so it wouldn't throw off its fragile numbered systems, but it echoes loud enough if you know how to listen.
He still gets his own broomstick and cleans around his area at 7 am everyday, even though he doesn't have to, wasn't asked to, and it's not his job. He still does it because it makes him happy, or rather because he's human enough to humanize 5 square metres around him at all times.
He's a wonderful human being, and he won't ever know it in his lifetime, nor will he be remembered afterwards because I don't think he has any family. He restores order and throws off more in my head, and he won't ever know it. The world hasn't broken him, although it has tried. Some people are just bigger than the world I guess.
His cat is a curious creature as well. I thought I may have rationalized this into my own conscious memory to add a certain magic, or maybe that's only how I saw it because I wanted to see it, for people only see what they want to see, but I like to believe it isn't. One-eyed and seems to linger longer than most of its fellows on things that wouldn't naturally stop a cat, like a twirling leaf or an intriguing shoe. It's bound to the man though neither of them seem to depend on the other. He feeds it when he can and it brings him bird offerings when it could. They greet with a 7 second or so long glare every morning, that they snatch in the middle of chores, like the look you may give an old friend with stories that don't need recounting but are shared nonetheless. It's funny.
I wonder if he has enough clothes, it's getting colder.
It's wonderful night tonight, cold and quiet and tangibly there. One of those nights that you can rest in without having to rest. I've found peace as well, it was within me all along. Bad things haven't stopped happening, they still do and they are even worse. People aren't getting better, they're shittier than I remember. Life isn't giving more chances, and taking away more than most. But I'm happy, through it, somehow. I've found peace.
I remember a good friend once telling me that no person can ever be whole or completely happy if they're not their own home. I think I found home now.
Ramona
It's all just a dream, babe
Sunday, 10 November 2013
Sunday, 3 November 2013
Tuesday, 29 October 2013
Of Flying Bisons, Liz Lemon & Dickolocausts.
I think aurora borealis is beautiful.
Life has been hectic and meaningless, with heartbreaking ellipses and disappointingly premature periods. I’m juggling a job and uni, previously two but then economy happened. Which I don’t mind, the mind-numbing emotion-draining robot-mutating capitalist nature of 21st century work suits me well, it comes in handy sometimes. Although, at other times, I go from worrying why momma ship is ignoring my distress signals to worrying that maybe my distress signals brought momma ship down.
I still don’t understand people, the only difference is that now I’m not even trying to because who needs that?
Let me take you for a walk in my shoes so you’d understand. For instance, this whole Saudi women driving campaign is like a guy getting kicked out of his house putting up the fight of his life to keep the doormat. Forgive me, but shouldn’t they be fighting for rights to lead normal lives first? Aren’t there severe human rights violations and freedom shenanigans to sort out? Shouldn’t you worry about your school lunch before snagging your toy back from the big bully? Priorities, people. I get it that you gotta start somewhere, but it doesn’t have to be a commercialized first-world whine in a third-world environment. That’s not square one.
Then there’s 30 Rock, which everyone finds hilarious and I find incredibly depressing. What is funny about an intelligent beautiful hardworking woman getting fucked over and having her dreams stomped and is humiliated on a daily basis for absolutely no reason at all? How is that funny? TV sitcoms should tend to escapism, not serve as painful reminders. I mean, Louie I get, we laugh in self-defense. But Liz Lemon? Come on, Liz Lemon should rule the world goddammit.
Then there’s a dude friend who, talking about his crush, quips: “It's like she's the female version of me. Well, I'm the female version of me, but she has the package.” Yes, it’s funny. But is that really all? I knew guys think with their dicks but this is a whole new level of dickhead-ism. I’m starting to think that the whole ‘Guys think with their dicks’ thing has more truth to it than the revelation most of us had at 15. Everyday it proves long-lasting. But then again most chicks these days remind me of energizer bunnies, in the sense that they’re immortally cute squeeze-balls who have nothing at all to add to the world other than their squeaks, so guys aren’t entirely to blame.
I hate adjacent lines. I think it’s cruel that two lines can overcome so many forces to meet at a point then have no choice against the same forces to part, with no hope of reprieve till they’re a circumference apart, god knows when. Parallel lines have it easy, compared to that. I wasn’t going for a bumper sticker line but it looks like it came out that way.
I have stalkers now, it was annoying at first but then I came to think of them as puppies. When trained, they fetch you stuff and bite at cue. It’s entertaining, if it hadn’t been for all the time spent in curt social interaction directed at saving the feelings of someone who has proved they have none by being there. This doesn’t make sense to me either. The only thing that pisses me off, and by ‘pisses me off’ I mean I haven’t found a silver lining with yet, is this annoying tidbit: They won’t let me read. Much like puppies, they feel offended if your attention is directed at an inedible object that isn’t them. This is equally baffling to me.
Japan would have got a lot more media attention if geishas had swag. Floating around all 'I be rocking this Okiya like it was Okinawa brah san.' What does have media attention, however, (Other than the last Airbender who likes penguin sledding and has a pet flying bison) is the release of the new iPad air, which is a lighter, faster, more expensive bourgeois clone of its predecessors. Apple doesn’t make sense either. You see, the only reason Apple is so famous in the US is because they produce quality gadgets with a cheap price tag. In the Middle East, it is ridiculously overpriced next to its more competent competition that comes at half the price, and remains the most purchased because that’s how parallel universes work I guess. US Apple fan boy vs. Arab inferiority complex. Meet Asia, working behind the curtains, beating all released smart phones for a fraction of the price, with absolutely no media attention, at all, on this beauty right here: http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/12/xiaomi-beats-samsung-to-top-chinas-smartphone-charts/
Amongst the many other things that I still don’t understand is how onion soup is so underrated, how Tennant never showed up on the Simpsons, how struggles and snuggles are only a letter apart and people still opt for the former - Well two, alphabetically speaking. One, mathematically speaking – why people refer to Wust el Balad as some muggle Diagon alley where they can find anything, from Unicorn blood and falcon hooves to phoenix litter, why there are 18 stair steps on each flight rather than an easily manageable 20, how no one has orchestrated a dickolocaust yet, why burger patties are so hard to make, why they’re called unicorns rather than uniswords or unispears or unilances since they don't have corn on their heads, and last but not least, why they still haven’t built an aero hydraulic Quidditch coliseum, magnetically levitated broomsticks, a repelling snitch & a ginormous remote-controlled bludger when there’s an unfunded kickstarter project begging for Quidditch to be an official sport.
I rest my case.