Haiku On Life

I care not to freakin' care!

2012-02-20T10:54:00.005+02:00

I don't care if you're from the Muslim Brotherhood party. I don't care if you're salafi. I don't care if you're christian.

I don't care if you're a liberal or a secular or a revolutionary socialist.

I don't care if you're a communist or a capitalist or a Marxist.

I don't care if you're a leftist or a rightist or a no wing at all.

I don't care if you hate my religion or my beliefs. And I don't even care about what you believe in, it's your life, your beginning and your ending, I have no interference whatsoever in any of that.

I won't bother looking at your cap or your veil or your beard. I wouldn't really care if you wore a necklace with the word Allah engraved on it or a cross or an image of Jesus.

I don't care. I really don't. And I refuse to give you the chance to label me either.

I only care that you're a part of humanity and you care to not care about labeling.

I only care that without names, we'd all know a better meaning of life.

I care for you not to care, so please stop labeling me, I swear I'm only human, nothing else. Nothing.

Quotes

2012-02-15T23:49:00.002+02:00

-"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." — Theodore Roosevelt

-‎"He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others—the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad." —"Everything is illuminated" (novel).

A picture is worth so much..

2012-02-13T14:41:00.002+02:00

خوفنا

2012-02-10T23:39:00.003+02:00

نحن شعب إعتاد الكلام و النباح دون أن يُسمع لنا صوت ، و حتى من سمعنا فقد ادعى الصمم و عدم الكلام. حريتنا ليست كالأمور المُسلّم بها ، بل كالأمور التي يطبخها الرؤساء في شكل قذر يعتبرونه الديمقراطية.

"أعطني إعلاماً بلا ضمير ، أُعطيك شعباً بلا وعي" هكذا قالها وزير إعلام هتلر. فبالفعل نحن شعبٌ بلا وعي نلوم جهلنا على إعلام متخلف ساذج يرى أن كثرة الكذب تجعل الناس يصدقونه أكثر. و تنجح النظرية.

ولكن مع ثورتنا فقد أذهلْنا العالم بصراخنا و عويلنا حتى أننا ندفع ثمن سكوتنا لسنوات و سنوات ، ندفع الثمن شهداء أبطال يستحقون الحياة بينما نستحق نحن الموت في صمت. شهداء أصغرهم يموت مخنوقاً بسبب أيادٍ قذرة أو غاز لم تحتمله صحته المسكينة. ولكننا لن نتحرر جميعنا حتى نحرر ما يستعبدنا من الداخل.

إن لم تسأل نفسك أسئلة مثل "لماذا؟" و "كيف" و "ما مدى صحة هذا؟" كلما سمعت خبراً ما ، فأقسم لك أن نسبة تحررك هي 0%. إن لم تسأل نفسك لماذا يموت الناس في سوريا بهذه الوحشية و لماذا يستحق شعب بطل أن يُهان و يُذل هذه المذلة و يرى ما لم يره شعب في هذا العالم على مدار العقدين الماضيين ، فإن ضميرك لايزال ميتاً ، و إن وداعك لأحد قريب منك سيأتي لا محال و ستعلم حين إذٍ معنى أن تفقد عزيز ظلماً و بلا داع.

حرر عقلك الذي تشوبه الفرحة بالجهل ، قبل أن يدركك الحزن على فراق أحبابك.

ثورات الربيع العربي مستمرة. يسقط بشار الأسد. يسقط حكم العسكر. يسقط حسنة مبارك و العادلي. يسقط النظام الإستبدادي السعودي. تسقط روسيا و الصين. تسقط الأمم المتحدة. القوة في يد الشعوب.

ألا إن نصر الله قريب.

Random Facts and Info

2012-02-09T14:06:00.003+02:00

Google Is Richer Than the 28 Poorest Countries Combined
"The Manifesto of the Communist Party" Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was one of the books that screwed up the world for having inspired the most brutal regimes in human history.
"Wiki" in Wikipedia is the Hawaiian word for "fast"
In the early days of film making, people who worked on the sets were called movies. The films were called motion pictures.
Why is there water everywhere but not much to drink?
13% of people are left-handed, up from 11% a few decades ago. The story that right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people is a myth.
Ernest Vincent Wright’s 1939 novel Gadsby has 50,110 words, none of which contains the letter e.
When anaesthetic was used for the first time in childbirth in 1847, the mother was so amazed and relieved at how painless the birth was that she named her child Anaesthesia.
The famous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, in which seven Chicago gangsters were gunned down on February 14, 1929, was one of the bloodiest in mob history
In 1859 a solar storm hit the earth (the largest in recorded history). It was caused by massive sunspots and solar flares. It was so intense that auroras were seen around the earth (even in the caribbean) and the ones over the Rocky Mountains were so bright that gold miners thought it was morning. It knocked out the telegraph systems of Europe and North America.

Questions That Might Kill You

2012-01-12T14:13:00.004+02:00

It's been over a year, since the Arab uprising started. There are still questions unanswered, there are questions that we might never actually find answers for. But we're still looking. And like we've always been told: It's not the answer that makes you smart but the question.

I'm not sure this post will make things look better nor will make me, personally, feel better. But the questions are a must and are glued in my mind. I'll first start with the 5 whys that will lead to this post

Why are there still people who believe that revolutionaries are a threat to the society? Because a happy slave doesn't know he's enslaved.
Why are there still slaves? Because the State Tv is still broadcasting the same old shit.
Why is the State Tv still broadcasting lies? Back to question one + Because it's easy to manipulate developing countries.
Why is it easy to manipulate these countries? Because their dictators are born and raised by the filthy minds of the sick world rulers, who are nothing but slaves of money. Which leads us to a point where we can say that we're all slaves, but to the wrong object/person.
Why are dictators raised by world rulers? Because as human beings, we need guidelines before we grow rich/successful. And to be that there must be a rule model. And role models never die. Which means evil will always exist as an element of life just like its opposite.

Now:

Why do idiots/slaves/dictators never know they're that idiot/enslaved/stupid?
Does the verb "dictate" have anything to do with the noun "dictator"?
Why does the poor have to be handcuffed in jail while dictators walk like they're going on a field trip?
Does Mubarak move in a helicopter because he's a pilot? If yes, then I wanna be a parachute woman!
What's the point behind never having enough?
Why haven't we attempted occupying Maspero until now? (State tv owned building)
Why hasn't the economy recovered since the revolution but the couple of days when the internet connection and phone connections were blocked, the economy was perfect?
Does the manipulated know he's being manipulated? If so, then does the manipulator also knows when he's manipulated? (Colorblind theory, I guess never)
What's with procrastination? No no, I mean the filthy kind of procrastination. I guess governments too suffer from it, not just the average citizen.
Why does the coward judge without being in the scene? Other than being a coward I mean.
Why do we read the same questions but never the same answers?
Where has "moderate" gone?
Why do words never end, yet silence is stronger?
Based on the previous question: If writers write because they want us to know we're stronger than that, why wouldn't writers not write?
And, if silence works with everything, wouldn't the world be a beautiful place if everyone just shut up?

Cuase I'll do.

The Five [Egyptian] Stages of Grief

2012-01-04T15:46:00.006+02:00

If you're familiar with psychology studies, those words are not new to you.

Briefly, Kubler-Ross model, or better known as the five stages of grief, is basically a model of coping with death, from the denial stage to the acceptance stage.

The five stages are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. And to be quite frank here, this model is applicable in our everyday life, though on different levels and scales.

For the past few days I have been meaning to dedicate this blog to some politics, basically to vent some thoughts and reflections and to apply what I know in psychology on the Egyptian society and what we have become in those past few months, or maybe the whole year since the overthrown dictator.

So, let's try to apply this model on the developments of the revolution and the consequences and so on. Let's take for example the ongoing and the never-ending, in my personal view, clashes that happened in the 25th of Feb, 9th of March, 8th of April, 15th of May, 28th of June, 23rd of July, 1st and 3rd of August, 9th of September, 5th and 9th of October, 19th of November and last but probably not least the 16th of December.

Let's start:

Denial: At first when the Police and CSF withdrew from the streets and the army took to the streets to (protect) people, everyone was happy; and you can't really blame people because everyone thought nothing would be worse than Hosni. So when the Army first attacked protesters on the 25th of Feb, everyone denied its happening and here was the first uses of the word thugs to justify any inhumane acts.
Anger: Moving to the 9th of March when the disastrous issue of the virginity tests took place and everyone was angry and furious. And later on when only one courageous lady decided to speak up and defend her rights and sue whoever gave orders and/or did this. Not to mention the ongoing detaining of civilians and throwing them in military prisons. Which never stopped to this day.
Bargaining: Now let's make a deal, we'll appoint Kamal El Ganzoury as a new Prime minister so you people can go home and we'd get this whole thing over with so everyone can sleep at night- despite the innocents' questions about the blood of the martyrs and the beating of the protesters and detainees. Ganzoury is appointed, old people are satisfied because they thought like Shafeek and Sharaf, Ganzoury too should take his chances and we shall wait for him to do an action. [But nothing new ever took place]
Depression: We're close; we've injected the nation with so much depression that hope is almost vanishing and everyone is starting to just whine about their personal experiences and sufferings since this revolution started, but no one is happy because at least now we have a voice. This seems to be coming to an end anyways. Let's just sit home and weep for the martyrs and the economical conditions of the country, and wait. I'm obliged to mention here that when the internet and phone services were cut off, the government made a huge move that caused it the loss of millions of dollars, if not billions. None of the ignorant ever remembers this.
Acceptance: We've made it, by the end of 2011 everyone at home, specifically those who never bothered to go out and join the sit-ins in Tahrir or even the protests, everyone accepted Ganzoury, Tanwaty, the army, SCAF (Supreme Council of Armed Forces). I mean, what can we do? It's just 6 months and we'll have our own president finally, the one that we will vote for, the one that we will choose. Yeah right, because we're dreaming. Let's just accept this and go home.

مات الجدل

2012-01-01T16:36:00.005+02:00

أعلم أن المسألة قد ماتت في الأذهان و سقط الجدل و ماتت أساليب النقاش المقنعة ، و غرضي ليس الإقناع ولا التحايل ولكن مجرد استفسار بسيط جداً:

الكثير و الكثير من محبي الإستقرار و عبيد الديكتاتورية كانوا يطرحون نفس التساؤلات المبتذلة و التي نسمعها يومياً ، ولكن أكثر الأسئلة التي كنت أتمنى الرد عليها رداً يُخرسهم حتى تحمر وجوههم هو: هما أصلاً إيه اللي خلاهم يعتصموا و يوقفوا حال الدنيا؟

منذ قليل فقط ورد في مخيلتي هذا المشهد البسيط:

كلنا نواجه المتسولين و الشحاتين في نفس الأماكن كل يوم و كل أسبوع و يظلوا في نفس المكان لأعوام و أعوام دون أن يكلوا أو يملوا ، فيصبح وجودهم "ديفولت" في المنطقة و لا يعيرهم اهتمام المارة و ينشغل الجميع بالذهاب إلى أعمالهم كل يوم بدون أن تختلف نظرتهم لهذا الشخص أو الجماعة.

في نظري فهؤلاء حالهم شبيه إلى حدٍ كبير بالمعتصمين، فالكل يطلب شيئاً ما، والشحات مهماً كان كاذباً أو مخادعاً أو ما إلى ذلك ، فإنه إلى حدٍ ما فقير، و فقره هذا كان نتيجة لمجتمع سافر لا يبالي بالإهتمام بالفقراء، لذا فيصبح مطلب المعتصم هو نفس مطلب الفقير (على الرغم من أنه واردٌ جداً أن يكون المعتصم "ابن ناس قوي") ، و المطلب هو العدالة و العيش بكرامة.

عامةً ، ليس هذا ما أود قوله؛ إنما أود أن أشير إلى أن الفقير قد أصبح شيء مُسلم به في الشارع و لا أحد يعيره الإهتمام، بينما يُشكِّل المُعتصم أزمة مالية و إقتصادية و سياسية و خراب عجلة إنتاجية للبلاد. كيف؟ كيف و إذا كان المُعتصم هو طالب حق لا يعيره أحد الإهتمام حتى يكاد يكون كالمثل القائل "بنؤذن في مالطة"؟ كيف و قد ظل هذا المُعتصم يبيت في العراء و البرد القارس ليلاً يبحث عن سبيل للحرية من أجل الآخر النائم في العراء أيضاً ولكن دوناً عن إرادته؟

لقد أصبح المُعتصم يُشكّل خطراً للدولة بينما بات الجائع الفقير المتسول شيئاً مسلّم به في المجتمع حتى أصبح وجوده أو عدم وجوده أقل من عدد في إحصائية ليست لها أي فوائد إجتماعية.

الكثير من التساؤلات ، و الإجابة واحدة: مجتمع فاشي...

You "read faster" with a longer line length but "prefer" shorter

2011-11-15T15:44:00.004+02:00

Have you ever had to decide how wide a column of text you should use on a screen? Should you use a wide column with 100 characters per line? or a short column with 50 characters per line?
It turns out that the answer depends on whether you want people to read faster or whether you want them to like the page!

Research (see reference below) demonstrates that 100 characters per line is the optimal length for on-screen reading speed; but it’s not what people prefer. People read faster with longer line lengths (100 characters per line), but they prefer a short or medium line length (45 to 72 characters per line). In the example above from the New York Times Reader, the line length averages 39 characters per line.

The research also shows that people can read one single wide column faster than multiple columns, but they prefer multiple columns (like the New York Times Reader above).
So if you ask people which they prefer they will say multiple columns with short line lengths. Interestingly, if you ask them which they read faster, they will insist it is also the multiple columns with short line lengths, even though the data shows otherwise.

It’s a quandary: Do you give people what they prefer or go against their own preference and intuition, knowing that they will read faster if you use a longer line length and one column?

What would you do?

You Have “Inattention Blindness”

2011-11-14T16:05:00.001+02:00

This is an example of what is called “inattention blindness” or “change blindness”. The idea is that people often miss large changes in their visual field. This has been shown in many experiments.

So what does this mean if you are designing a website or something on a computer screen? It means that you can’t assume that just because something is on the screen means that people see it. This is especially true when you refresh a screen and make one change on it. People may not realize they are even looking at a different screen. Remember, just because something happens in the visual field doesn’t mean that people are consciously aware of it.

Source HERE

Of capitalism and 'Money'

2011-11-11T00:18:00.003+02:00

(Excuse me for the long post)

The generation of our parents, this generation of the 40's and 50's is mostly a generation that experienced a hard time with capitalism and the effort to earn their living. And by that I do not mean that the rate of consumerism was high, yes, people needed to consume, but mostly we'll find that the means of luxury were very, very simple; a gum with less than one piaster, a small ball to play in the streets - if there was balls in the first place.

Money to them meant nothing more than something not very essential, so long as they are blessed with the gift of life and don't need more than their basic needs, which are already there..kind of. Life was simple. People were less of consumerists and more of human beings.
Those are the people who grew up to have the clash with our generation, that of the 80's and 90's. Technology played the essential role for consumerism, first personal computers and phones, then laptops, smartphones, iPods and iPads. Being technology freaks was the companies' aim to rise with consumerism and the abuse of simple minds. You accepted it, I accepted it, we all did, unwittingly and defeated. It has become essential to use technology to be able to keep one's pace with the world, and even with work, which is the main capitalistic world, you cannot have a job without "Computer skills", and anything of that sort.

Back to parents and us: what I want to say here (Don't mind that I usually go off track and forget my main points!) is that this non-consumerist generation-our parents-has become, to us, some sort of tight-fisted society, while to us consumerism means to keep yourself updated with the rest of the world.
We are the money wasters and they are the tight-fisted. And nothing comes in between to pacify or save this gap.

What Capitalism does here, other than enslavement, is that it indirectly or even directly broadens this gap between us, and inside the same generation of ours. We're not equal, basic life needs to us are not basic life needs to our parents or to the poor. The more money we got, the bigger these basics are, and the bigger the basics are, the less aware we are of the poor. That's what Capitalism wants. That's what the governments want. And that's how exactly it is going.

I'm currently reading-almost done though-"Utopia" for Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq, and despite the fact that this novel is way more disgusting that I thought, and way darker than I imagined (I really had struggles at the middle and even thought of not finishing it), the novel describes exactly the course of the present into the future. I can't say nor want to believe it will be really like that, but after all the rich are already building their own colonies, the poor is dying yet still want to believe one of this new generation will revolt and save the planet. And we all wait.

On a final note, I loudly admit I'm an iPhone user and I'm a consumerist like we all are. But the point is to not dwell and to spend some time in being humans rather than money-wasters.
Think about it.

Socialism [HBBC]

2011-10-29T20:06:00.009+02:00

Meet the members here.
Topic by Windswept dreams AKA Noor El-Terk.

Disclaimer: I'm not a socialist. Not a communist. And definitely not a capitalist. I'm a part of the society, part of capitalism, yes, but never was pro. A mere human being, can't I be?

A few days ago I tweeted that what I got from the concept of Socialism was that it's the opposite of Capitalism (don't worry, I'm the one who got it wrong).
Out of nowhere, I got this reply:

Then I came across this: "Capitalism and communism stand at opposite poles. Their essential difference is this: The communist, seeing the rich man and his fine home, says: 'No man should have so much.' The capitalist, seeing the same thing, says: 'All men should have as much.' "–Phelps Adams

So, I asked the person to explain more, I got this:

And finally, a nice definition of Capitalism:

I've been roaming all week long between websites about Capitalism, Communism and Socialism. To be honest, I'm all against any political or economical system, but unfortunately I have to know about anything, even bullshit systems.
So here we go:

Capitalism: is generally defined as the economic system where the means of production are privately owned, operated for profit from investment, and in competitive markets.

Communism: is a social, political and economic movement that aims at the establishment of a classless and stateless communist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production.

Socialism: is an economic system in which the means of production are commonly owned and controlled cooperatively; or a political philosophy advocating such a system.

What makes the capitalist is the economic relationship between the people who work and the people who own the workplaces. Under capitalism those are two different groups. Under socialism they are one and the same.
We all know that Capitalist systems are the enslavement systems, which is why it's the dominating system globally.

Socialism, however, according to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: believed the consciousness of those who earn a wage or salary (the "working class" in the broadest Marxist sense) would be molded by their "conditions" of "wage-slavery", leading to a tendency to seek their freedom or "emancipation" by throwing off the capitalist ownership of society. Conditions determine consciousness and ending the role of the capitalist class leads eventually to a classless society in which the state would wither away.

Now I'm more confused than ever. I'll just go read the other perspectives!

خلط المفاهيم - HBBC

2011-10-18T22:00:00.006+02:00

الشِلّة

للعلم : الأعضاء النشطين اللي أسماؤهم بالبنط العريض

....يانهار مفاهيم مغلوطة

معلش إعذروني أنني مؤخراً أكتب بالعربية فقط و لكن كما قالت صديقتي إنجي "واضح إنك بتكتبي بالعربي لما تبقي مفروسة من حاجة".بس عامة أنا برضو بحاول أتعود أكتب بالعربي كتير عشان إن شاء الله أتحول لكتابة شعر بالعربية أو مقالات فكرية عن قريب.
أولاَ ، كلما أتذكر عبارة "خلط المفاهيم" بتذكّر فيديو قبيح نفسي يتشال من على يوتيوب أو حد يقول للناس إن الشخص (المُدّعي أنه شيخ) اللي فيه بيتكلم كلام لا عقلاني و جنوني.
" الليبرالية يعني أُمك متلبسش حجاب"...طب بالله عليكم لما حد يسمع جملة زي دي يقول إيه؟ فرضاً إنه حد بيحب الشيخ دا قوي و فرضاً إنه مؤمن بما يقوله الشيخ. أنا حزنت بجد ، الشيوخ أصبحوا بيستغلوا شهرتهم على حساب تطبيق ما يرونه صحيح ، و المصيــــبـــة الكبرى إن كل دا بيبقى باسم الدين. آه يا حسرة قلبي.
نظرية خلط المفاهيم لها علاقة شوية بنظرية التعميم- أو النمطية -بمعنى .. ممكن حد ييجي يقولك المسيحيين دول كفرة ؛ إزاي عرفت؟ في مسيحيين مؤمنيين بالأنبياء كلهم و مؤمنين بسيدنا محمد عليه الصلاة و السلام بس ببساطة شديدة مقتنعين بدينهم ، زي ما إحنا مسلمين و بنؤمن بالأنبياء و الرسل جميعاً بس إخترنا الإسلام. هي نظرية تعميم و خلط مفاهيم في نفس الوقت ، مش كُل مسيحي كافر و مش كُل كُفر معناه سوء أخلاق. على فكرة في ناس مش مؤمنة بس بتفكّر ، و في نفس الوقت في ناس مسلمة بس بتمشي وراء شيوخ عِمياني (اقرأ بداية المقال).
حاجة ثالثة ، إختلاف مفهوم ما عند شخص عن الآخر يقارب لإختلاف وجهات النظر في قضية ما من شخص لآخر ، بس الإختلاف هنا يأتي من جانب أن هذا المفهوم شيء مُسلّم به و لا تختلف القواميس و المعاجم على تعريفه. و لو لقيت شيخ أو شخص مرموق قام بتعريف مفهوم ما و قرأته في القواميس و وجدته شيء مختلف تماماً ، اعلم أن هذا الشخص مخطئ ، حتى لو كان عالِماً ، فلا يوجد إنسان معصوم من الأخطاء أو زلة اللسان.

مرة كنت بتفرج على برنامج على قناة الإخوان المسلمين - مصر 25 - و كانت السيدة الفاضلة بتتكلم في موضوع ، و في النص تطرّقت لِذكر السياسة و أشارت أنها ضد العلمانية ، ولكنها قالت "مش هنسيب مصر أبداً تبقى دولة عِلمانية"..ساعتها كان بقالي كذا يوم بتناقش مع زميلتي في الشغل (زميلة مثقفة و بثِق في رأيها كتير)على الفرق بين العِلمانية و العَلمانية و كيف أن العديد من الشيوخ و الشخصيات المرموقة و بدون ذكر أسماء ، كثيراً ما يختلط لديها المفهومين. العَلمانية يا حضرات و كلنا عارفين إنها فصل الدين عن سياسة الدولة ، و على فكرة العلمانية في فرنسا مثلاً تختلف عن العلمانية في بريطانيا و عن العلمانية في تركيا. فالعلمانية في فرنسا تعادي الدين بشكلٍ شرس ، أما في بريطانيا فالملكة هي رئيسة الكنيسة ، و في تركيا شكل ثالث خالص (مقتبس من مقالة لفهمي هويدي على بوابة الشروق) . أما في عصور بداية ظهور العَلمانية كان المصطلح غير كل دا برضه.
أما العِلمانية فهي عكس ما كانت تطبقه الكنيسة في أوروبا في العصور الوسطى (إتهام العلماء بالإلحاد إذا خرجوا عن فِكر الكنيسة) فالعِلمانية ببساطة هي ربط الدين بالدولة ( و يارب ماكونش بافتي!!) و مكتوب في ويكيبيديا إن العِلمانية تعتبر ديانة لوحدها اصلاً.

خلاصة الموضوع إن مصدر واحد للمعلومات مش كفاية عشان نبني فكرة معينة عن مفهوم ما ، و كما يقول المثل..متاخُدش المشكلة من طرف واحد ، اسمعها من طرفين ، و يا حبذا لو من ثلاثة كمان. فهقول لا تستعِن بمصدر واحد لبناء فكرة أو رأي ، اقرأ من مصادر كتير ، و ياريت تكوّن فكرة تحتوي كُل حاجة قرأتها ، متنحازش لحاجة واحدة و تقفل مخك بالجزمة. فكر شوية ، فكر كمان ، و إوعى تنسى إنك هتغلط ، بس المهم تدرك غلطتك و تفهم إن المفاهيم إللى في دماغك مش كلها صح. اللهم ارزقنا طولة البال.
و دمتم

عن الحرية المغلوطة

2011-10-12T22:45:00.001+02:00

أنا جاية أتكلم عن موضوع أعتقد إن ناس كتير هتعارضني فيه أو مش هتتفق مع وجهة نظري. بس عامةً أنا مش جاية هنا عشان أقنع حد ، لكم كل الحرية في الإختلاف مع وجهة نظري أو إبداء آرائكم الشخصية ، كله حلو منكم والله J الموضوع عن التحرش الجنسي ، بشكل غير مباشر شوية.

فاكرين من سنتين موضوع البنت التي تم التحرش فيها بشارع قريب من بيتها في الخليفة المأمون ، و استطاعت البنت الهرب ، بس ساعتها ناس كتير إختلفت آراءهم حول ما حدث؟ طبعاً الأهالي الكبار أو الناس المتشددة أو كده قالت ساعتها إن البنت راكبها الغلط من ساسها لرأسها و إنها يا نهار أزرق إزاي تلبس اللبس الفاجر اللي هي كانت لابساه دا ، على الرغم من أنني أتذكر جيداً إنها كانت لابسة لبس عادي جداً جداً مفيهوش أي حاجة بس الفكرة إنها مش محجبة ، و ممكن كانت جميلة شكلاً شوية فلفتت الأنظار أكثر (على الرغم من إن دا مش مبرر خالص و من إن مش دا اللي أنا عايزة أتكلم فيه).

الي عايزة أتكلم فيه و مضايقني من فترة بسبب أنني سمعت الموضوع من كذا حد ، إن البنات وجهة نظرها في الموضوع دا كالآتي: و الناس مالها؟ ماتلبس اللي هي عايزاه و المفروض الرجالة يغضوا البصر.

مش عارفة ، بصراحة أنا شايفة إننا كبنات بنضحك على نفسنا شويتين. فأولاً كدا ، لو هتقولي للناس كدا هتقولّك طب ما هو ياعيني مش لاقي يتجوز و دي غلطة المجتمع. أكيد إحنا هنعتبر التبرير دا تبرير فاشل جداً و مش منطقي. بس معلش ، مش برضو في التكوين الجسماني للبني آدم و هرموناته و شهواته ، مش كلنا عارفين إن الرغبة الشهوانية للرجال أكثر بكثير من النساء؟ بدليل إن حوادث الإغتصاب بتحصل من رجال مش من نساء.

حاجة تانية ، إنتي لو شايفة إنه المفروض يغضّ بصره و يتّقي ربنا..مش المفروض إنّك إنتي كمان تعملي اللي عليكي و تقدّري إن دي فعلاً حاجة صعبة على الرجال مش زي ما إنتي متخيلة؟ أنا يا جدعان مش بدافع بتاتاً-على الرغم من إنكم ممكن تفتكروا كدا- بس بجد أنا شايفة إن الحرية بحدود ؛ فا زي ما إنتي تعديتي حدودك و لبستي اللي يلفت نظره ، هوا هيتعدى حدوده و يجري وراء شهوته. و خلاصة الأمر إنني مقتنعة مئة بالمئة إن الحرية لا تعني شيئاً طالما آذت الآخرين و إستفزتهم لعمل حاجات مش كويسة. مفهوم الحرية عندنا مفهوم شخصي بس ، زي ما إنتي شايفة إنك حرة في لبسك (مع إنك بتجرحي الراجل اللي قدامك) هو برضو هيشوف إنه ليه حقّ يبصبص (مع إنه بيجرحك).

خلاصة القول ، الموضوع دا مشكلة من عند الطرفين ، إلا إذا كانت البنت-و اللي زي حالاتي و حالات كل صحابي و معارفي- لبسها عادي جداً و ممكن يوصل لعبايات كمان ، و لا زالت بتتعاكس ، فدا موضوع تاني تماماً مبغلّطش فيه البنت أكيد أكيد. و ربنا يهدي الجميع. و لنا الله.

فييل فري تو شير يور أوبينيون!

Stereotype [HBBC: 6]

2011-10-07T16:07:00.013+02:00

الموضوع دا من إختيار حضرتي...بما إنه معضلة في البلد الجميلة اللي إحنا فيها دي
للتعرف على بقية الشلّة اضغط هنا

ستيريوتايب باللغة العربية اللي هي النمطية ، أي كل فكرة لا علاقة لها بالفِكر بمعنى أصحّ. إمبارح و أنا و الشلّة قاعدين على تويتر دار بيننا حوار مثير للجدل و استمتعت به قوي بصراحة ، كان الحوار بين الستيريوتابس و الكليشيهات (بما إن الموضوع اللي قبل دا كان الكليشيهات) ، بعض الناس قالت إن المصطلحين قريبين من بعض قوي و يكادوا يكونوا واحد ، و البعض الآخر - زي حضرتي - شايف إن المصطلحين فيهم إختلاف ، ولو كان بسيط ، بس إلى حدٍ ما مرئي وواضح. أنا بالنسبالي الكليشيهات هي المبتذل من الكلام ؛ أي كل كلام أو فعل كان زمان حلو قوي و ليه طعمه ، بس من كُتر تكراره فقد المعنى و الإحساس بجماله.
أما الستيريوتايب و هي النمطية ، فهي ، من وجهة نظري ، عبارة عن كلمات معممة على الخلق كله ، وهي من رأيي نوع من أنواع الجهل و نظريات التعميم الخاطئة و التي تأتي لمجرد المقاوحة السخيفة.

أنا هجيب شوية أمثلة بقى عن النمطية و أتكلم عنها هنا :
1) الآيات الكريمة اللي الجنس الآخر بيرددها من غير تفكير و على حسب المصالح الشخصية و أولها "و اضربوهنّ" وإن من أزواجِكم و أولادكم عدواً لكم فاحذروهم" و ما إلى ذلك من آيات كتيرة قوي فاهمينها غلط و بنرددها و خلاص
2) الأحاديث الشريفة اللي برضو بنفسرها على مزاجنا و منها "النساء ناقصات عقل و دين".
3) الأقوال الكثيرة المترددة في المجتمع اللذيذ الجميل بتاعنا و هي لا تُعدّ و لا تحصى...أي و الله...إحنا شعوب بتحب العنصرية و التعميم على كل فئة من المجتمع ولو كانت أحسن مننا

طب هاحكي لكم موقف طريف ، ولكن مؤلم ، حصل في الشغل من فترة:
من ضمن الحكاوي اللي بتتحي وقت الفطار اللذيذ و الذي لا يخلوا من مناقشات جدلية تدعوا إلى الأفش و التنشنة و السخافة ، كنا بنتكلم عادي جداً على زميلتي اللي مبتحبش تبقى برة لما الدنيا تظلم ، و بتحب تقعد في البيت أكثر مما بتحب الخروج و كدا ، جِه مديري قال "أنا زمان كُنت شايف إن الست مترجعش البيت بعد الساعة سبعة" ، طبعاً كلنا رحنا باصينله كدا و اللي هوا...نعم؟؟ إزاي يعني؟ ما علينا أنا ماستغربتش قوي عشان أنا عارفة إن في رجالة كتير بتفكر كدا. بس الصاعقة اللي جت على نافوخنا كُلنا لم قال الكلمتين الجايين دول..سِكِت كدا شوية و راح قايل "و بعدين لو هنتكلم بالدين بقى و كدا...الآية بتقول وَقَرنَ في بُيوتِكنّ"...عايزين تعرفوا أنا قد إيه كنت شايطة ساعتها و عايزة أقوله والنبي بطّلو الجهل اللي فيكو دا بقى!!!! المهم رَُحت بصّاله كدا و قلت "معلش يا محمد أنا مش موافقة ، ولو هنتكلم بالمبدأ دا يبقى منشتغلش بقى...ولا إيه؟" راح طبعاً قايل لأ الشغل دا زي الفل و ضحك...كنت عايزة أقول لفظ قبيح ، بس سكتّ. يعني هوا بسلامة قدركو كدا ،عايزين الستات تنزل عشان الفلوس بس ، و عشان تقضي مصالح تهمكم ، و بعد كدا تفكروا في قال الله و قال الرسول؟ الله...هوا دا الدين بتاعنا و هوا دا تفكير الرجالة اللي بتصطنع التدين. بعدين بس بقى بلاش أتكلم عالإحصائيات اللي بتورينا الستات قد إيه مش واخدين حقهم في الشغل أصلاً ولا بياخدوا نُص الأتعاب.

أنا لاحظت إن معظم النمطيات اللي الناس بتستخدمها لها علاقة وثيقة جداً بالعنصرية سواءاً كانت ضد الدين أو الجنس الآخر أو اللون أو الحجم أو أو أو...اللي يقولّك مسيحي بس كويس ، و اللي تقولّك هوا أسمر بس قمور ، و اللي يقول المسلمين دول إرهابيين. كلها حاجات بتجيب أمراض نفسية و عقلية متعددة و أهمها الجهل

آخر حاجة عايزة أقولها عشان واضح إن الموضوع دا مالهوش نهاية و بصراحة ممكن أفقد هدوئي في النهاية. ممكن بس نفكّر شوية قبل ما نتكلم؟ ممكن نحطّ مشاعر الناس أولوية في حياتنا؟ عشان كلّنا بقينا متقمّصين دور العارف كل حاجة و مش عايز يعرف تاني. نبطّل جهل بقى..و ندّور و نبحث و نجيب أدلّة..و أديني بأوجّه الكلام لنفسي برضو... بطّلي جهل يا نعمة. و شكراً

بي.إس : البوست دا نمطي قوي

The dream that consumed me!

2011-09-29T22:13:00.002+02:00

Two days have passed and I still can't forget the death I dreamt about; was it really death that made me so persistent and made me hold on to life more, or was it just a metaphor in the dream, telling me to be stronger, in hard times? I don't know.
Of course I don't know how it started, but in the middle of the dream I was gun-shot three times in less than a moment of time; the first was straight at my heart, the second at my chest, the third at my chest from the right side a little bit. Thing is, I know that if you are dying in a dream and you don't wake up before you actually lose your last breath, you die in real life, which is a fact that I experienced before. I once was shot at my heart as well and was bleeding on a bathroom floor to death, and then I woke up with the most terrible heart and left arm pain ever.
Anyway, I didn't die in the dream, instead I kept walking and walking down the streets, and the best thing in the dream was that I uttered the Shahada even twice while walking. I tried to fix things, do things. I don't really remember dying in the dream (most probably I didn't, since I'm alive now and here), I remember, though, saying the Shahada for the third time before something critical happened.
My dreams are generally insignificant and without a meaning, but some dreams are really hard to forget - only because you feel like they tell something, rather than speculate something!
Ever since this dream, I don't know, I have one of the weirdest feelings ever; I do wanna die a decent death - and by that I mean martyrdom. But it was great, it was really great dying with bullets and uttering Shahada knowing that I was dying for a purpose.
Confession: Death dreams are consuming my sleep so much lately, and especially gunshot dreams, I don't know why. Does this have to do with anything related to the revolution? But I've had those dreams even before that, I remember pretty well. And Does this mean anything about death itself, or it's actually related to life?

ربنا يرزقنا حسن الخاتمة

10 Things You Didn't Know About Sleep

2011-09-28T13:04:00.003+02:00

We can only dream about faces we have already seen, whether we actively remember them or not.
Parasomnia is a type of sleep disorder that makes you do unnatural movements despite being asleep.
12% of people dream only in black and white. This number used to be higher but since the advent of colored television, more people dream in color than before.
People who do not dream generally have personality disorder.
British soldiers were the first to develop a method in staying up 36 hours without sleep; when fatigued, they put on special visors that emulated the brightness of a sunrise and it woke them up.
It takes two weeks to starve to death, but 10 days without sleep will kill you.
Within 5 minute of waking up, 50% of your dream is forgotten, within 10 minutes, 90% is gone.
Men have dreams about other men 70% of the time. But women dream about men and women equally.
People who are born blind experience dreams involving emotion, sound, smell and touch instead of sight.
What goes on in your sleep is this: Your brain recharges, your cells repair themselves and your body releases important hormones.

Source HERE

Dow Chemical: Unethical actions

2011-09-27T00:23:00.007+02:00

Dow Chemical already had a sinister reputation before they acquired Union Carbide, in 2001. Dow Chemical put a lot of money into its development and manufacturing of napalm for the U.S. military, a chemical which was infamous in the Vietnam War for giving people horrific burns and damaging a generation of unborn babies.

Union Carbide, though, is directly responsible for the deaths of around 8,000 Indian people in December 1984, and the birth defects that followed. The Bhopal disaster occurred when a pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, owned and operated by Union Carbide Corporation, leaked large and deadly amounts of Methyl isocyanate, a highly poisonous gas. So many people were affected because the workers at the plant were so poor that their families set up homes outside the factory gates.

Union Carbide offered $350 million in compensation, the Government of India said that the damages cost $3.3 billion; the Government, in the end, had to settle for $470 million. Throughout the years, UCC have had to fund hospitals and response centers after being nagged by officials, but many still say that what UCC have donated is negligible when compared to the human cost of the disaster.

Dow Chemical, who are the wealthier new owners of Union Carbide, have yet to make significant reparations to the people of Bhopal.

--I'm posting this because Dow Chemical is one of the companies we, at my company, publicly get news about, and I do recognize it's one of the biggest Chemical companies worldwide. FML!

Source: Listverse

Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions

2011-09-25T14:40:00.003+02:00

This is a wheel for emotions created by the professor Robert Plutchik, where you can find 8 basic emotions and 8 advanced emotions composed of two basic ones.

عُقدة الخَواجة -HBBC: 3

2011-09-18T23:54:00.007+02:00

.اضغط هنا للتعرّف على بقية الأعضاء

. الخواجة المتعقد : موضوع من إختيار الأخت الكريمة مروة

الأسبوع اللي فات و إحنا قاعدين بنفطر في الشغل.. طبعاً لازم السياسة تدخل مع كل حتة جبنة في الزور ، مديري قال جملة ، أو وجهة نظر بعض الناس بتقولها مؤخراً عن الثورات العربية ، أنا عن نفسي مقتنعتش بيها بس حسيتها منطقية إلى حدٍ ما ، على الرغم من إنها مبالغ في تقديرها.. وجهة النظر تأتي كالآتي : بعض الناس شايفة إن الثورات العربية الحالية ما هي إلا مؤامرة من أمريكا و دول العالم الأول للثورة على الديكتاتوريين و تحرر الشعوب بأنفسها لتتحول فيما بعد إلى دول علمانية لا دينية تنسى الهوية الإسلامية و الهوية العربية

بِغض النظر إني لا أتفق مع وجهة النظر دي ، بس معرفش ليه من ساعة ما سمعتها و أنا فعلاً أفكار نظرية المؤامرة مش راضية تطلع من نفوخ أمي

أولاً كده ، أنا هربط صلة بين اللي قلته دا و بين عقدة سي الخواجة : أنا بالنسبة لي مبدأ عقدة الخواجة ما هو إلا ناتج من نتائج و أهداف نظرية المؤامرة السحيقة ، بمعنى ، اللي أخدناه دا مش من أجانب برضو ؟ و مش كثير منه من إحتلال برضو ؟ نفس فكرة دول المغرب العربي اللي مش عارفين يتكلموا لغة عربية صح بسبب الإحتلال الفرنسي ، لكن للأسف الإحتلال الفكري أسوأ بكثير من الإحتلال الواقعي الحقيقي.

عارفين الناس اللي بتقول مبارك عيّشنا في سِلم لمدة ثلاثين سنة و أمريكا و إسرائيل مدخلوش مصر أبداً طول الفترة دي؟ طيب...الكلام دا هرتلة في هرتلة...عشان كلنا عارفين إن أمريكا مش محتاجة تدخل بجيوش عشان تموّتنا ، بس ممكن تدخل فكرياً و تدخّلنا في متاهة خمسين ألف عقدة خواجة : فساد الأخلاق و عدم وجود هوية واضحة للشعب - إحنا بجد شعب "كونفيوزد" و مش عارفين نمشي ورا مين ولاّ مين ، بس أهم حاجة...إحنا لازم نمشي ورا حد ، لازم نبقى ذيل حد ، مش صح إننا يبقى لينا هويتنا المستقلة ، بس يا سلام لو مشينا وراهم...اللي هما نفسهم اللي "بيقولوا" و مصدر "سمعت كذا"...ولاّ إيه؟

المهم إن نظرية المؤامرة بتلعب دورها داخلياً بشكل قذر ، إزاي؟ هتلاقي أبسط حاجة في محلات الملابس..الهدوم الطويلة و الجيبات إبتدت تتلاشى و تنعدم من السوق. التيشرتات الي بِكُم إبتدت تبقى ظاهرة نادرة أو غير موجودة من أساسه

نيجي على لحظة دخول المحال : إنتَ يا إما هتسمعلك أغنية مصري سيس من بتوع إسمو إيه دا اللي كلنا عارفينه ، أو أغنية إنجليزي سيس فحت برضو ، أو أسبانية أو فرنساوية أو ما إلا غيره ، بس في الغالب بتبقى سلو- على الرغم من إني مسمعتش الأخيرة دي كتير

علامة "صنع في" : التجار يقولولك دا تركي أو إيطالي أصلي يا فندم، وهو محصّلش إنتاج أوسخ حتة فيكي يا مصر ، طب بالنسبة للكواليتي؟ مالاحظتوش أن محلات الماركات بنلاقي فيها حاجة كده زي بواقي البضاعة؟ يعني مش إحتلال فكري و نظريات مؤامرة بس ، لأ و كمان عامليننا زبالة العالم!

و الأنيل و الأضلّ إن الناس بتحب الخامات الرديئة دي لمجرد إننا مجبرين ، و بتشوف أسعارها هايلة ، و يا سلام لو كان فيه تخفيضات على الأسعار ، الدنيا تزقطط في عيون الغلابة اللي مستحوذ عليهم فكر عمره ما هيسيبهم طالما إنهم قابلينه أصلاً

خلاصة الكلام ، تحرر الشعوب مش من برة ، و مش بس من تغيير أنظمة ، عشان مينفعش نغيّر و منتغيّرش ، دا إسمه تخلف فكري و تراجع دولة مش بناء دولة. فبما إننا في وضع ثورات و كده..ممكن نثور على هويتنا ، قصدي هويتهم ، و نبني إحنا هويتنا من أول و جديد؟

! بس كده

Things I don't tell about Myself - LBC

2011-09-09T22:13:00.005+02:00

This is my weekly post with the Loose Bloggers Consortium (LBC) including Rummuser, Anu, Ashkok, Gaelikka, Grannymar, Conrad, Padmum, Anki, Will Knott, Maria The Silver Fox, Noor,Paul, Plain Joe, Rohit, Magpie, Delirious, and myself, where we have a Weekly topic to discuss. Please visit their blogs to get different views about this. This Friday's topic has been chosen by Gaelikka and Anu.

I'm so mad I actually missed last Friday's topic on the culture shock, too bad I was having such a hard time.

Most people will talk about the imperfections, right? The paranoid part of us that gets us feeling everyone's hatred on their way to our hearts when we mention our negative traits, no? I don't know but, I think the positive parts are the ones supposed to be hidden.

Someone once told me about a man who proposed to a girl and told her about all his flaws, literally, whether he smoked, was an easily-provoked person..everything, and then let her decide. Some people would say this is so like low self-esteem, but I actually liked what the guy did; and like they say "If you can identify your own flaws, then you've already won half the battle", or something of that sort..

If I actually tell you the things I don't tell about myself here, the contradiction here would be just perfect. So let's give a hint: I don't always talk about the things that obsess me, or the things I do excessively yet find absolutely ridiculous and lame. I don't talk about my feminine side, especially that I don't always like it. I don't talk about emotions, and not always insecurities.

I don't talk about my negativities nor posotivities, I talk about anything that would hide neither, yet reveal both.

And..Don't ask me to make sense here please :D

Forgive and Forget [HBBC:2]

2011-09-09T20:38:00.009+02:00

Welcome to The Half-Baked Bloggers Consortium's (HBBC) second post. Meet the members here.

This week's topic is Forgive and forget, chosen by Noor Al Zubaidy. Please take the time to view the members' blogs just as you viewed mine in order to get different perspectives about the same topic.

The Forgs

I don't know which comes first actually, do we forgive first then forget? or forget then forgive? Do you first remember the pain, feel the hatred and then remember that you'll never be able to forgive? Or you feel the hatred then remember the pain and know that you'll never forget?

Personally, for those past couple of weeks, miserable weeks if you ask me, I completely felt the bliss of having the capability to forget. And now that we're taking the forgetfulness part first, I got this question in mind: Have you ever wondered about the pain of those who always say the words "I never forget a face"? Have you ever thought that this is, at times, not a great thing to brag about? And that it's actually an obvious lie?

Sometimes the people who have the most beautiful faces, are the ones you really need to forget, are the ones you really need to know that your ability to never forget a face can turn into a curse, to fall upon you and haunt you in your dreams and turn their sweetness into ebony nightmares. Don't brag about not forgetting a thing; this is something Allah has granted us with. Forgetfulness is a true bliss.

If we take it linguistically, forgetting comes before forgiving, but if we take it emotionally, I guess you need to forgive that person for the certain emotions they evoked within you, or forgive the emotion itself for how it shifted everything good in your life into terribleness. And then comes the lame, yet true saying, it's about time we forget.

Okay, I hate cliches, but let's be real, if there was no God and there was no time, how will we actually forget?

Then comes lessons, if you forgive and forget, and also forget the lessons, you are a curse of your own kind, and a curse to your own poor self. The lessons come with the package, so if you lose them, know that your forgs have lost the uncommon letters and become one common word that does not even make sense.

You need to know how the process goes. Or else, forget about forgetfulness, and don't mind forgiveness.

On Death..

2011-09-05T12:29:00.008+02:00

A dear college colleague of mine passed away. The saddest part is, I didn't even know she was sick.

إنا لله و إنّا إليه راجعون

There is definitely something wrong in this world, with the death of too many young people. I guess the end really is that near..

اللهم أعِنّا على طاعتك و ارزقنا الجنة..ولا تحرمنا من النظر إلى وجهك الكريم

HBBC: Introduction for the articles [Edited]

2011-09-01T22:53:00.009+02:00

Welcome to The Half-Baked Bloggers Consortium's (HBBC) first post, where Maha Mohamed, Ammar Al-Majali, Rana Safi, Maryam, Yara Hani, Noha Hanafy, Noor Al Zubaidy, Deppy, Nouran Ziad, Noor El terk, Salima Al Masrouri, Mariam Tarek, Sara Amr, Yasmine Fayez, Rania Khaled, Engi Amin, Ibhog, Abeer Zaki, Hea, Christ, Hagar Haggag Yomna Arbad, Salma M San, My Essam and I voice our opinions about a weekly topic chosen by various members. This weekend's topic is Self-love, chosen by Nema (me). Please take the time to view thier blogs just as you viewed mine in order to get different perspectives about the same topic.

Article...

Apologies again for the lack of words and positivity I'm going through. Soon insha'allah it shall fade.

After a year and half - What the blog means..

2011-08-25T10:26:00.003+02:00

Since many people/followers asked me to explain the blog title and I had to dig deep with details..here's what it means:
Haiku is a Japanese poetic form that I never really seemed to fathom nor did I ever attempt to write. I still don't have the capacity to hide so much in so little words.

Haiku 俳句 is also a Japanese word that means hurry up or quickly (hī'kū).

Why?
I share here everything random, yet useful I find online, which is still a very very small part of this huge world, but still makes a difference to know; and there comes the description of the blog: The teeny tiny things that matter.

Meet the HBBC Members [Updated]

2011-08-24T23:05:00.019+02:00

HBBC: The half-baked bloggers Consortium. Where bloggers and non-bloggers will be posting their points of views about political, economical, social, sarcastic, psychological and religious topics.
We'll be tackling an issue/topic every weekend insha'allah.

First and foremost, special and deep thanks to my friend Noor Al Zubaidy for introducing me to the original Consortium Members, some awesome bloggers and pretty decent people :)

HBBC Members and their blogs (if they are bloggers):

Please take the time to visit the blogs, and take the links from here so you can share them when we take off insha'allah on the 2nd of September :)
Thank you all for the support and positivity!

Illusion of asymmetric insight

2011-08-22T01:38:00.002+02:00

The Misconception: You celebrate diversity and respect others’ points of view.

The Truth: You are driven to create and form groups and then believe others are wrong just because they are others.

The illusion of asymmetric insight is a cognitive bias that involves the fact that people perceive their knowledge of others to surpass other people's knowledge of them. The source for this bias seems to stem from the fact that observed behaviors of others are more revealing than one's own similar behaviors.
Relatedly, people seem to believe that they know themselves better than their peers know themselves and that their social group knows and understands other social groups better than other social groups know them.

Sources: YouAreNotSoSmart and Wiki.

Pompeii: The Cloud of Death (Part II)

2011-08-21T12:51:00.004+02:00

This documentary explains the whole story, without me philosophizing. Here is what you might want to know.

Some words and definitions you might want to know:

Pumice: A light, porous, glassy lava, used in solid form as an abrasive and in powdered form as a polish and an abrasive.

Pyroclastic Surge: a fluidized mass of turbulent gas and rock fragments which is ejected during some volcanic eruptions.

Reference

Plinian Eruption: also known as 'Vesuvian eruptions', are volcanic eruptions marked by their similarity to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 (as described in a letter written by Pliny the Younger.

Reference

Credit goes to the awesome blogger Deppy for sharing the link with me on Part I :)

Comment:

From the religious side, the experts explanations on the eruption did not honestly convince me; it cannot be a coincidence that the eruption happens every two thousand years which means if we calculate it properly, we're about to witness another volcanic eruption of Vesuvius pretty soon. AND, I think the documentary explains the corruption of the nation. Which if we measure it this way..a corruption always leads to eruption.

P.S the translation at the bottom is Norwegian, just in case you were wondering =D

Animosity - Loose Bloggers Consortium (LBC)

2011-08-19T23:42:00.002+02:00

This is my weekly post with the Loose Bloggers Consortium (LBC) including Rummuser, Anu, Ashkok, Gaelikka, Grannymar, Conrad, Padmum, Anki, Will Knott, Maria The Silver Fox, Noor, Paul, Plain Joe, Rohit and myself, where we have a Weekly topic to discuss. This Friday's topic is Animosity. Please take the time to view the other bloggers' points of views about it as well :-)

Your heart is sick, it needs to be healed somehow, perhaps by curing your soul. Just don't let go.
I remember Moez Massoud's episode about envy and animosity (A Muslims activist and preacher who holds a program called Revolution on the self), the way he described animosity and how we generally degrade the greatness of the trait made me feel bitter; like we're actually degrading everything bad we're doing, maybe even on a daily basis.
I don't know how bad is that within me, but to be brutally honest, I do know it exists, and it can creep up inside any one of us and consumes their soul. Some things are hard to control, and that's why fighting the self is one of the hardest things in life.
You know that the simplest thing to do to make others despise you is to be a failure fighter against your own self, you will procrastinate fixing anything within you and enjoy watching life goes by, and only earn more enemies than friends.
Without further ado, because I didn't think I can actually blog about this, I wish we'd understand the self more in order to understand each other better.

Pompeii (Part I)

2011-08-19T01:44:00.005+02:00

I'm trying to do a research on the Italian city Pompeii, during the Roman Empire, a city buried underneath a massive volcanic eruption. The reason why I'm interested in such a thing is that it's nearly impossible to believe that a whole city was buried under a volcano just like that; there must be a godlike wisdom and reason for this.
Here is a brief history taken from here:
Pompeii, also known as the forgotten city, was a Roman settlement that was devastated by volcanic eruptions in 79 A.D. The city was first occupied by Romans in the 6th century and converted into a Resort city. The volcano that was responsible for the destruction of Pompeii is called Mount Vesuvius. The eruptions from the volcano were so strong that the buildings and the people were covered in twelve thick layers of mud and ash. After the city was covered in volcanic ashes, it was slowly forgotten and erased from the history books until it got rediscovered in 1738 by workers working for King of Naples.
Before Pompeii succumbed to the eruptions, it used to be a blossoming township and a progressive commercial port of the Sarno River in Italy. The most notable buildings that have been excavated from the ashes are a Roman basilica and an amphitheatre. The excavations also include many intact wall paintings, pottery and coinage. Pompeii was one of the earliest excavated cities in the world, where archeological work started in 1738.
The above picture is a neat one from now. Here are a couple of pictures of the buried nation..

And even animals..

What I'm trying to grasp is the info my sister told me; she did a research on that some time ago and read that the people of the city were so engulfed in lust, ecstasy and a worldly life lived completely to the fullest. Paintings of concrete sexual intercourse were easily seen on walls. Everything was just about satiating their needs. And that's what I'll try to get info about in part two insha'allah.

Chemophobia

2011-08-18T02:37:00.003+02:00

Though it literally translates to “fear of chemicals,” this term is used by some psychologists, scientists and organizations to describe those concerned about the “industrial,” “synthetic,” “artificial,” and “man-made” particularly with regards to food and drink. An article by the American Enterprise Institute on chemophobia boldly states “The false idea that our bodies have become ‘toxic waste dumps’ is not just wrong but counterproductive.” Do they really think there’s no correlation between the skyrocketing rates of cancer and the increase of chemical additives in the food supply? It’s probably only a matter of time before psychiatrists use this word to describe people who resist chemotherapy for cancer (i.e. Daniel Hauser has “chemophobia”).

In the third world countries like us, what would we say about this?

Source: Listverse

قصيدة من الطفولة

2011-08-16T11:31:00.013+02:00

أنا مش هتكلّم كتير هنا ، هحكي بس قصة الأنشودة ، أو القصيدة دي

القصيدة دي من ذكريات طفولتي التي مش هنساها ، الذكرى الحلوة ، بالرغم من إن القصيدة مؤلمة و حزينة ، لكن لا زالت بتعبّر عن حالنا الحالي. ببساطة شديدة القصة اللي عمري ما هنساها إبتدت في عربيّتنا هناك لما كنت لسه في الإمارات ، كنت تقريباً لسه في أولى إبتدائي و مكنتش فاهمة حاجة في الدنياالمعقدة -الخالية من البراءة يعني - إلا إن في ناس في فلسطين بتتقتّل و العالم ساكن و مبيتكلمش من حرب 48 و من قبل كده بكتير. بابا سمعنا القصيدة في سيارتنا ...أنا فاكرة الشريط كان لونه إيه و فاكرة إحساسي ساعتها قوي قوي قوي زي ما يكون حلم بيتردد كل ليلة في نومي. جسمي قشعر ، على الرغم من إنّي دلوقتي بفكّر إزاي بابا كان بيسمّعنا حاجات كثيبة كده ، بس لما كبرت فهمت إنّي فعلاّ كنت محتاجة أسمعها ، عشان لو أنا مش عايشة في وسطهم و حاسّة بيهم ، لازم أحس بيهم في أي حاجة و أكبر على كده عشان أتعود و لما تقوم الثورة العربية الكبرى أبقى مبسوطة بجد. الحمد لله إن لسه الناس فيها أمل أصلاً تغير!

دقِّة الأنشودة مش على قد كدا بس دا اللي لقيته للأسف ، لو حد لقى دقة أفضل أبقى شاكرة والله.

آخر حاجة ، أنا عايزة بس أكتب مقطعين بحبهم في القصيدة و شايفة إنهم معبّرين قوي في الزمن دا. ممكن لو مش هتسمعو القصيدة كلها تقرأوا الكام بيت دول

الحـــــــــــــرُ يعـــــــرف ما تريــــد المحكمــــــــة

وقُضاتـــــــــه سلفـــــــــاً قــــــــد ارتشفــوا دمه

لا يرتجي دفعاً لبهتان رمـــــــــاه به الطغـــــــــاة

المجرمون الجالسون على كراسي القضـــــــــاة

حكموا بما شاءوا وسيق أبوك في أغلالـــــــــــه

دا واحد...و الثاني

كذبوا وقالوا عـــن بطولتــــــــــه خيانــــــــــــــــة

وأمامنا التقريـــــــــر ينطــــــــــــق بالإدانــــــــــة

هذا الذي قالوه عنه غداً يردد عـن ســــــــــــواه

ما دمت تبحث عن أبِيٍّ في البلاد ولا تــــــــــراه

اسم القصيدة "نم يا صغيري" و لينك القصيدة كاملة هنا

Art and Artists are two different things!

2011-08-15T00:22:00.007+02:00

"This is a post from deep within"

I often wonder about the conclusion or the consequence I will get from writing all those thoughts down on my blogs. I often confuse writing my own thoughts with writing thoughts that would address humanity in a way that is unforgettable, with feelings that are palpable and words that are thinkable. I never got to experience the importance of my writings two years from today; every word was a mere consolation to my own struggles, or shall I say, simple experiences.
I think the first thing that tugs every artist into that precise kind of art is the self-struggle they are put through along the phases of their lives. There is always a need to run away from everything, to find shelter and a beautiful escape into something - and then the escape becomes the addiction, the habit, the talent. Everything then takes a path that we all know: casual pieces (either in music, writing, painting or drawing..etc) that are shared only on a personal level. And then things go step by step until you find yourself unable to be extremely happy UNLESS you're doing your own special art. It's a cure, but only if you know perfectly well how to take advantage of that.
Then you get to a point where you suffer with your incapability to create -- another phase of life probably interferes with your artistic thoughts, and then you either become numb, or you become so miserably exhausted from all the attempts that are left on your desktop or your folder as drafts. Too many draft. Just too many that you sense failure dragging you downwards, though inwardly, you're hysterically addicted. Still are.
This is the point I need to talk about the most in this article; the point where you start questioning your own talent and whether or not it's doing people any good.
Does your music inspire people to write more purposeful lyrics to be sung?
Do your portraits speak about something beautiful God has created, for people to ponder, deeply?
Do your writings hold ideas that can change the world in a way, or lessons and stories that let people know they are never alone? That we're all in this together and all we need is to understand that our thoughts are just about the same in different minds?
Let's face it, many of us never had these purposes when we started loving that artistic difference within us. Perhaps none of us now thinks they can truly, thoroughly change the world with some mere artistic piece. But you know, you can only achieve what you really believe in. Or say, what you really fight for before death's visit, let's just not be idealistic here.
For now, please remember that your art isn't yours, or let's say it's not yours alone. Your art is for the whole world, even if you think it's awful. The way we have different tastes is the reason why artists are still creating, because some people will loathe them, other people will fall in love.
Please right your purposes if they're wrong, or create them if you only use your art for your own consolation. Please put in mind that your art is an important factor in the lives of others. Compose lovingly. Portray inspiringly. Write wholeheartedly.
On a final note, never forget that you're a great source of inspiration to everyone, even if you don't get to see that. Here is me telling you.

Inspire on!

Image Source

My Childhood - Loose Bloggers Consortium (LBC)

2011-08-12T20:56:00.007+02:00

This is my very first post with the Loose Bloggers Consortium (LBC) including Rummuser, Anu, Ashkok, Gaelikka, Grannymar, Conrad, Padmum, Anki, Will Knott, Maria The Silver Fox, Noor, Paul, Plain Joe, Rohit and myself, where we have a Weekly topic to discuss.

I remember writing a blogpost here some time ago that partially talked about my childhood in a way.
Like everyone else, I wanted to grow up, no matter what that meant to anyone. At some point in my life, I really wanted people to stop telling me "You only get to understand this when you grow up". Sad how I can now repeat the same thing, only to myself though.
I thought the worst words you can tell to a broken heart were those words, no consolation or, like the quote in The Book Thief, any wordly tricks to make us feel better. Sometimes all you do need is an honest consolation for the pain, and then when reality strikes you numb, you'll surely get to learn what that consolation actually meant.

To be quite frank, I was one stubborn child, I knew that what I had in mind must happen. I knew that I wanted to be different, insanely different. I remember back then when I used to live outside Egypt (UAE), I had a friend who was way older than myself, and by that I mean that she was 19 or something. And I was 6.
She was my neighbor. She was Algerian, which means I was lucky enough to understand her language. She talked Arabic too well with me. (In case you don't know, Algerians talk French more than Arabic, because of the French colonization). Mum used to tell me off for the age difference between us.
Which makes me jump to the conclusion question: What difference did it make, if we had the same definition of a true friendship?
I probably will never forget how beautiful she was, how nice she was to me, as a child. We will never meet again, however, I will never forget how she taught me what friendship meant no matter how old.

I dreamt of being a Gynecologist. Reason? Because I knew too many women are shy enough to go to male doctors. Yes, dreams of a child are so innocent!
And then somehow, and I really don't know why or how did that start, my story with poetry took off.
It was every Friday. Coincidence? I don't think so!
There was a weekly newspaper dad used to buy, it had many writings of young poets. I used to collect them and guard them in my desk. Then I started writing them down on my agenda so that I may memorize them or read them whenever I wanted to remember war and martyrs, because most of them were about Palestine, the martyrs of Palestine, and war on Arabs.
I still remember a few lines of one of them:

أبُثُّ إليك وفاة العرب فهل يا نِزار توارى الغضب
أبُثُّ إليك وفاة أبي و أمي و أختي بِلامَ سبب
فهل يا نزارُتوارى النهار و هل يا نزار تموت الشُعب

I probably will never forget them!
I remember them more than I remember the very first piece I ever wrote. And I remember that back then, mourning the Arab world has become my ultimate thought.
Maybe that's the only reason for my poetry having this dismal touch?
Maybe..

Kübler-Ross model

2011-08-10T12:48:00.002+02:00

In other words, the Five Stages of Grief. We all know them, but I just felt like they are important now, in this stage of our lives. Please consider.

1. Denial — "I feel fine."; "This can't be happening, not to me."

Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual. This feeling is generally replaced with heightened awareness of possessions and individuals that will be left behind after death.

2. Anger — "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; '"Who is to blame?"

Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. Because of anger, the person is very difficult to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy.

3. Bargaining — "I'll do anything for a few more years."; "I will give my life savings if..."

The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay death. Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made with a higher power in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. Psychologically, the individual is saying, "I understand I will die, but if I could just do something to buy more time..."

4. Depression — "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die... What's the point?"; "I miss my loved one, why go on?"

During the fourth stage, the dying person begins to understand the certainty of death. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time crying and grieving. This process allows the dying person to disconnect from things of love and affection. It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up an individual who is in this stage. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed.

5. Acceptance — "It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it."

In this last stage, the individual begins to come to terms with her/his mortality or that of a loved one.

Source: Wiki

Changing Education Paradigms - RSA Videos

2011-07-25T15:20:00.002+02:00

This is a pretty interesting way of thinking. Gotta watch!

If you want to follow them on youtube

And there's also an iPhone app, it's pretty awesome!

The Not-so-political post

2011-07-24T23:32:00.002+02:00

Today I woke up with this thought. I really don't know whether it was a thought or it really was a dream that paved its way through reality and struck me numb.
So let's call it a dream; it was about calling a friend whom I haven't called for three months (this is true) and finding out that she had passed away some time ago. I was of course too speechless to react or say anything, not even an Al baqaa' lellah. I was left with too many regrets that tore at my heart without a single consequence, or at least not a moral lesson for now.
Is this really what's happening now? I mean, I know it's always been a possible eternal farewell once we leave a friend go their separate way, but at these current circumstances, you never really know what's gonna happen next on the political side.
It could've been me, it could've been you. If today it didn't happen, there is a greater chance tomorrow that we'll be in this together, maybe even carried by the same people who will try to help us get some medical aid. You don't know why they won't go after you, because if you think about what you do on daily basis, you're no less than any other human being that wanted freedom before and was brutally punished for going public about it. You just don't know.

You know when you try to do something good and you fail, and then you do it over and over and over until you get this slight flicker of light that guides you through to keep going? Well, it's equally there, for the good and the bad. We're going in a parallel lane now; just as we'll try hard enough to topple the whole regime not just the leaders, the remnants and thugs of Mubarak's regime will always try to seek that flicker of light somewhere.

"If you don't know how to do it, use the ignorant first, then you'll drive a whole ignorant society that fights freedom, involuntarily "
You'll always find this, and the system is playing its dirty games and they're working perfectly fine. It's a way to go, isn't it? It's easier to try to play on the side of the naive and ignorant so you can guarantee a great success. It's always been this way: If something happens with the system, we'll always find that particular category in the society to educate. Educate..

It's such a confusion to decide whether you're too tired (though on a personal level, I've done nothing of what the activists, for example, did and still do) of this drama, stupid dirty and lame games, or too energetic to die another day for this country - though either way, it's just another day to fight. And another day to pray for the future of our Beloved.

In a country where the ignorant are cocksure and the intelligent are so full of doubt;
Please hold your faith in your heart and play on the good side!

The Book Thief [Full Review]

2011-07-22T20:05:00.005+02:00

Something you should know
This novel is narrated by Death -Literally-

The book thief, as the back cover says, is a story of Liesel, a girl whose job is to steal books, amid war, street bombing and Jews. About too many Jews.
What caught my attention was first a friend, then the title of the book, and then a comment on Goodreads.

Plot:
It's about addicting books, about addicting words, thinking they're our only savior. Sometimes they actually are, but other times they're a curse.
I could really relate to this novel and to many of the girl's thoughts because I always seem to be struggling with words that I once wrote this quote to myself: "Everything is so much easier in words than how it really seems alive".
To not spoil anything, bookworms and writers would really understand this novel perfectly well as it is written and weep with it along each chapter and/or part.
What I liked best while reading was the tragedy and pain mixed with hilariousness and comedy, perhaps black comedy, but it made me-literally-laugh out loud. Yet at the very end I had to cry, and if you know me pretty well..I don't really cry in movies and barely in books.
The end was a shock to me, it taught me too many things that we keep forgetting as life keeps sucking the breath out of us each and every single day. I'll mention some down here.

The language:
I learned some German words! Mostly some cussing, but I honestly felt like I want to learn German, even for a flick of a second.
The overall language wasn't that hard, it was very neatly chosen and, as usual, I've got a dozen new words to learn.

The Symbolism:
The comment on Goodreads said this: "heavy-handed on the symbolism."
I knew once I read this sentence that this book is for people like me. I do agree at first it was not that easy to understand what this symbolic phrase meant, but as I went by, phrases seemed to be working just fine in my head and well interpreted. If they tell you "Don't judge a book by its cover", I'd say, in this novel, don't judge it by the first few chapters, because by the time you understood the plot very well, it won't be hard to get the hidden meanings within the phrases.

The Narrator:
At first you won't get how this is going, but this novel really is narrated by the life-taker aka Death; which makes it way more interesting than any other novel. He seemed to be a friend or a lover first, and then an enemy, or just the fate everyone will one day meet. Death, in this novel, is a great lesson.

Lessons:

If you're certain that what you'll do isn't wrong, do it here, do it now, because tomorrow may just be a little too late.
When there is pain, there is also a hidden consolation, or a warm hug out there.
Friendship, it's way more than how you define it..
Sometimes words will fail you, but there will always be a chance to right the wrong.
You'll certainly get mad at the wrong people sometime.
Fate is a beautiful thing to understand.

Quotes:

"But then, is there cowardice in the acknowledgement of fear? Is there cowardice in being glad that you lived?"

"A book thief requires many things.
Stealth. Nerve. Speed.
More important than any of those things, however, was one final requirement.
Luck"

"Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.
That was the business of hiding a Jew"

"There is air like plastic, a horizon like setting glue. There are skies manufactured by people, punctured and leaking and there are soft, coal-coloured clouds, beating like black hearts.
And then.
There is death.
Making his way through all of it.
On the surface: unflappable, unwavering.
Below: unnerved, untied and undone."

"Certainly, war meant dying, but it always shifted the ground beneath a person's feet when it was someone who had once lived and breathed in close proximity."

"For some reason, dying men always ask questions they know the answer to. Perhaps it's so they can die being right."

"Tell me something. Because I don't understand . . . Tell me, how she can sit there ready to die while I still want to live? Why do I want to live? I shouldn't want to, but I do."

"I see their ugliness and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. Still, they have one thing that I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die."

"The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn't be any of this. Without words, the Fuhrer was nothing. There would be no limping prisoners, no need for consolation or wordly tricks to make us feel better."

On a final note:
I would certainly read this novel again, and entitle it as one of my favorite reads.

Entry #6

2011-07-03T23:04:00.006+02:00

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."
— Bertrand Russell

"In the space between yes and no, there’s a lifetime. It’s the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it’s the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; its the legroom for the lies you’ll tell yourself in the future."
— Jodi Picoult (Change of Heart)

10 Movie Characters From Real Life

2011-06-23T14:31:00.005+02:00

1. Lucy
Movie: 50 First Dates
Real name: Michelle Philpots

2. Zorro
Movie: The Mask of Zorro
Real name: Joaquin Murrieta

3. Viktor Navorski
Movie: The Terminal
Real name: Mehran Nasseri

4. Rocky Balboa
Movie: Rocky
Real name: Chuck Wepner

5. Indiana Jones (1981-2008)
Real name: Hiram Bingham III

6. Danny Ocean
Movie: Ocean’s Eleven
Real name: Vicotr Lusting In Real Life

7. James Bond
Real name: Sidney Reilly

8. Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell
Movie: Top Gun
Real name: Randy “Duke” Cunningham

9. Andy Dufresne
Movie: The Shawshank Redemption
Real name: David McMillan

10. Doc Emmet Brown
Movie: Back To The Future
Real name: Ronald Mallett

Source

Modern Art - Impressionism

2011-06-23T14:06:00.001+02:00

The impressionist style of painting is characterized chiefly by concentration on the general impression produced by a scene or object and the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes to simulate actual reflected light.

Impressionism is a major movement, first in painting and later in music, that developed chiefly in France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Impressionist painting comprises the work produced between about 1867 and 1886 by a group of artists who shared a set of related approaches and techniques. The most conspicuous characteristic of Impressionism was an attempt to accurately and objectively record visual reality in terms of transient effects of light and colour. The principal Impressionist painters were Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Berthe Morisot, Armand Guillaumin, and Frédéric Bazille, who worked together, influenced each other, and exhibited together independently. Edgar Degas and Paul Cézanne also painted in an Impressionist style for a time in the early 1870s. The established painter Édouard Manet, whose work in the 1860s greatly influenced Monet and others of the group, himself adopted the Impressionist approach about 1873.

Source

Prosopagnosia

2011-06-14T00:28:00.001+02:00

Prosopagnosia: is a phenomenon in which a person is unable to recognize faces of people or objects that they should know. People experiencing this disorder are usually able to use their other senses to recognize people – such as a person’s perfume, the shape or style of their hair, the sound of their voice, or even their gait. A classic case of this disorder was presented in the 1998 book (and later Opera by Michael Nyman) called “The man who mistook his wife for a hat”.

P.S sometimes I come very close to this point! :D

Freedom Tunnel

2011-06-13T12:29:00.004+02:00

The Freedom Tunnel is the name given to the Amtrak tunnel under Riverside Park in Manhattan, New York City. It got its name because the graffiti artist Chris "Freedom" Pape used the tunnel walls to create some of his most notable artwork. The name may also be a reference to the freedom one may find in this tunnel, the freedom to live unobserved, the freedom to create artwork, and freedom from rent.

Often, the artwork is centered under the light giving the space the feeling of a chapel or great cathedral.

Source: Wikipedia.

Over the Edge

2011-06-01T23:25:00.009+02:00

What shape did medieval people believe the earth was?

Wrong. Since around the fourth century BC, almost no-one, anywhere has believed the earth to be flat. This misconception that people where ignorant of the shape of the earth comes from the partially fictional text ‘The Life And Voyages Of Christopher Columbus’ (1828), which incorrectly stated that Columbus set out to prove the earth was round. Truth is, nobody would have disputed the theory. Evidence shows that almost all cultures of the world worked out, through mathematics or just observation, the spherical nature of the Earth.

Source: Listverse again!

Quote:

"There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow." -Orison Swett Marden

Stolen Quotes from songs

2011-05-25T16:47:00.002+02:00

If I told you things I did before,
Told you how I used to be,
Would you go along
with someone like me?
Young Folks - Peter Bjorn and John

You were never supposed to leave,
Now my head's splitting at the seams
Radical face - Welcome home

Would you always? Maybe sometimes?
Make it easy? Take your time
Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear

Isn't life under the sun just a crazy dream?
Isn't life just a mirage of the world before the world?
Stillness of the move - Dirty projectors

All the words are gonna bleed from me
and I will think no more
And the stains coming from my blood tell me to go back home
Seven Nation Army - The white stripes

You are not ill and I'm not dead
Doesn't that make us a perfect pair?
The Modern Leper - Frightened Rabbit

You're resting on your laurels and
stepping on my toes
Whose side are you on?
What side is this anyway?
Moth's wings - Passion Pit

Success is so forbidding
But it makes me think I'm winning
Over and over again (Lost & Found) - Clap your hands and say Yeah

All your diction dripping with disdain
Through the pain, I always tell the truth
Oxford Comma - Vampire weekend

There were always golden rocks to throw
at those who admit defeat too late
Postcards from Italy - Beirut

People, they don't mean a thing to you
They move right through you
Just like your breath
An Honest mistake - The Bravery

It's bugging me, grating me,
and twisting me around
I'm endlessly caving in and
turning inside out
Hysteria - Muse

Source : Jonk Music

A Collective Post

2011-05-18T23:29:00.005+02:00

Misquotation:

"The ends justify the means." –Niccolò Machiavelli.
A more literal translation, according to Peter and Julia Bondanella of Indiana University, is "One must consider the final result."

Cognitive bias:

Fundamental attribution error: A tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior.

Operation Wrath of God:

After the Terrorist group Black September kidnapped and murdered 11 Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics in 1972, the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad decided to seek revenge under Operation Wrath of God. During this time, covert Israeli assassination units killed dozens of suspected conspirators across Europe. The string of assassinations spurred retaliations and criticism of Israeli. The film Munich outlined these events.

Sources: Wikipedia and Listverse

Entry #5

2011-05-17T01:02:00.001+02:00

"The biggest lie on the planet: When I get what I want, I will be happy."
— Author Unknown

The pleasure of the drunk

2011-05-03T21:45:00.004+02:00

"Write drunk; edit sober" -Ernest Hemingway.

Inspiration is my warrior of light!
I've never been so inspired. It feels like I'm colored with all the colors that exist in our world and in different worlds. Like I'm walking through every thought I once abandoned and put on the shelf like an old book. Inspiration is like the hand that wipes the dust off abandoned books and cleans the shelf. The hand that takes yours and leads you to a path where everything is possible, where imagination is the air you breathe and words are the water you drink. Where ideas are palpable and every little thing triggers you to write.
It makes you walk down the street looking at everything just differently, not how your eyes perceive them on daily basis. You write poems on smiles, compose songs on laughs, draw the world on hope, and paint the sky on hand touches. It makes you so vulnerable to falling in love, in love with just anything and everything; the simplest things you would've never thought of. Moreover, it is your light to appreciate even the ugliest things, for their entity could one day be an inspiration to you, or any drunk-on-inspiration artist.
And then, you ponder. You realize that a look is a constellation, a tree is a haiku piece, sunset is love song, winter is Neruda and summer is Shakur. You get that you, mind, body, soul and heart are the element of what your imagination perceives. And your muse is your addiction.
And I'm addicted. I'm addicted to that imagination that makes me so weak before the pages of my notebook and the spaces on my blog. I'm addicted to words, to the laughs, to smiles, the sky, the sundown and sunrise, to strangers and friends, to colors and seasons, to darkness and light. I just can't get enough.
And finally that I'm drunk, I don't want to be sober ever again. It's a pleasure to be addicted.

P.S Neruda is Pablo Neruda, and Shakur is Tupac Shakur. Both poets of passion.

Pay it Forward and Beyond

2011-05-02T23:25:00.003+02:00

You want to change the world, right? I know. We all know. We all have this dream in common, it's like the trait that is born with us. It's like an every-day habit. However, once it's a habit, it is usually forgotten and folded with every other daily act.
We always refuse to be satisfied with the smallest things lest they perish in no time; it's always the oceanic differences that we want to make, why? Because the more we give, the more we want. The more we sacrifice, the more we expect to be appreciated. Sadly, it's hardly measured this way.
It's the fact that whenever the sacrifice is built on expectations, failure is a must-and then comes point zero: dissatisfaction with everything we do just because failure won the battle. It's sad, it's so sad that failure to us is not an option; it's impossible to fail, it's impossible to not find reward for what we give. It's just shameful.
But if you think about it, every little thing you do gets the attention of someone, it just depends on what you choose to do. An act of kindness, a cuss, a smile, a song you play, a word you wrote, a joke, a fight, an attempt to understand people around you. It's the smallest things that we refuse to accept just because their impact is small on the surface.
However and in fact,

It's when you smile for an old man who has been in pain that you change a life.

When you tell a girl she's beautiful that you make her day.

When you call a friend just to say Hi that you are remembered forever.

It's when you do a random act of kindness to a stranger that you give them so much hope for a better future. (I just remembered the Pay It Forward project).

When you give a hug randomly and spontaneously.

When you give a hand to someone.

Tell someone that you think of them.

It's when you do to people without thinking of yourself nor of rewards.

Bit by bit. Everything will start small, and once you spread those acts of kindness, you have unimaginably changed a thousand lives. And in the end we all die leaving a thousand things unforgotten. We all change the world somehow. But to the worst or the best, you alone choose.

Thank you for reading, I've probably just changed a life myself! =)

Entry #4

2011-04-20T22:34:00.005+02:00

I didn't post random quotes in a while. Here are a few:

"Let me tell you a few things about regret… There is no end to it. You cannot find the beginning of the chain that brought us from there to here. Should you regret the whole chain, and the air in between, or each link separately as if you could uncouple them? Do you regret the beginning which ended so badly, or just the ending itself?"
-Janet Fitch.

"Just then, someone plopped down hard into the chair on my left, knocking me sideways into the wall; it was jarring, and I hit my elbow on the molding there, right in the funny bone, which sent a tingly zap all the way up to my fingers. And suddenly, just like that, I was pissed. Really pissed. It’s amazing how all it takes is one shove to make you furious."
-Sarah Dessen.

"Impossible is not a fact. It is an opinion".
-Muhammad Ali

A year and a day difference

2011-04-16T19:33:00.006+02:00

I wanted to do this yesterday but I think I was too lazy.
A year ago I posted a Kyrielle piece, exactly on the 3rd of January 2010. The poem was about Egypt, I was feeling patriotic and I wanted to write something that would make me feel different about my poetry, satisfied that I'm not just expressing, I'm writing my country.

A Kyrielle: is a French form written in quatrains (a stanza consisting of 4 lines), and each quatrain contains a repeating line or phrase as a refrain. Each line within the poem consists of eight syllables. Rhyme scheme is aabB ccbB ddbB

Rise [Kyrielle]

'Tween two thoughts in my mind lie you
A tranquil aura to pursue
A spring-deprived look in your eyes
Home, tomorrow the sun will rise

Charcoal tears make life incomplete
A dreamer's smile is bittersweet
Despair is destined to demise
Home, tomorrow the sun will rise

Ink shan't hold deterioration
Spring will be your one salvation
Tho' hope, away, a thousand skies
Home, tomorrow the sun will rise

2010 ended with people's wrath growing and growing after Khaled Saeed's terrible death by torture and the forgery of elections. And then 2011 came and everything was so fast, the church explosions, the Tunisia uprising, and Egypt was silent. People created an online revolt just to vent and cry in silence. But then I wrote another poetic form called Pleiades, poem entitled "Wrath", the date was the 4th of January 2011. Both poems were written at the same minute but not hour (:18)

A Pleiades: Only one word is allowed in the title followed by a single seven-line stanza, six syllables each. The first word in each line begins with the same letter as the title.

Wrath [Pleiades]

Wrapped in fury, thoughts burn-
Wringing the mind. Comfort..
Without ease, hunger to
Winter's wind. Breathe out your
Written revolution:
Words stained with their clean blood.
Wonder; a still revolt.

Finally, I am posting this just to show you my amazement, I don't write many poetic forms, and it happens that both were written in a specific form, about Egypt, and just when it was time for wrath and depression, Allah sent glory.

6:59 AM

2011-04-11T16:10:00.002+02:00

I know I usually don't post these kinda poems, but I love the simplicity in this poem

6:59 AM - Riley Dog

I’ve been told
that people in the army
do more by 7:00 am
than I do
in an entire day

but if I wake
at 6:59 am
and turn to you
to trace the outline of your lips
with mine
I will have done enough
and killed no one
in the process.

Automatic Writing

2011-04-09T22:25:00.003+02:00

Today I was reading a list of psychic abilities and I came across one that I really really like :D

Automatic writing:

Or psychography is writing which the writer states to be produced from a subconscious and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content.

It would be a bit scary to write from a spiritual source. I guess there are always drawbacks.

15 Ways of Distorted Thinking

2011-04-02T00:58:00.003+02:00

So this basically talks about each and every one of us!

1. Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them, while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. A single detail may be picked out, and the whole event becomes colored by this detail. When you pull negative things out of context, isolated from all the good experiences around you, you make them larger and more awful than they really are.

2. Polarized Thinking: The hallmark of this distortion is an insistence on dichotomous choices. Things are black or white, good or bad. You tend to perceive everything at the extremes, with very little room for a middle ground. The greatest danger in polarized thinking is its impact on how you judge yourself. For example-You have to be perfect or you're a failure.

3. Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again. 'Always' and 'never' are cues that this style of thinking is being utilized. This distortion can lead to a restricted life, as you avoid future failures based on the single incident or event.

4. Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you. Mind reading depends on a process called projection. You imagine that people feel the same way you do and react to things the same way you do. Therefore, you don't watch or listen carefully enough to notice that they are actually different. Mind readers jump to conclusions that are true for them, without checking whether they are true for the other person.

5. Catastrophizing: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start "what if's." What if that happens to me? What if tragedy strikes? There are no limits to a really fertile catastrophic imagination. An underlying catalyst for this style of thinking is that you do not trust in yourself and your capacity to adapt to change.

6. Personalization: This is the tendency to relate everything around you to yourself. For example, thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc. The underlying assumption is that your worth is in question. You are therefore continually forced to test your value as a person by measuring yourself against others. If you come out better, you get a moment's relief. If you come up short, you feel diminished. The basic thinking error is that you interpret each experience, each conversation, each look as a clue to your worth and value.

7. Control Fallacies: There are two ways you can distort your sense of power and control. If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you. Feeling externally controlled keeps you stuck. You don't believe you can really affect the basic shape of your life, let alone make any difference in the world. The truth of the matter is that we are constantly making decisions, and that every decision affects our lives. On the other hand, the fallacy of internal control leaves you exhausted as you attempt to fill the needs of everyone around you, and feel responsible in doing so (and guilty when you cannot).

8. Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what's fair, but other people won't agree with you. Fairness is so conveniently defined, so temptingly self-serving, that each person gets locked into his or her own point of view. It is tempting to make assumptions about how things would change if people were only fair or really valued you. But the other person hardly ever sees it that way, and you end up causing yourself a lot of pain and an ever-growing resentment.

9. Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem. Blaming often involves making someone else responsible for choices and decisions that are actually our own responsibility. In blame systems, you deny your right (and responsibility) to assert your needs, say no, or go elsewhere for what you want.

10. Shoulds: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break the rules anger you, and you feel guilty if you violate the rules. The rules are right and indisputable and, as a result, you are often in the position of judging and finding fault (in yourself and in others). Cue words indicating the presence of this distortion are should, ought, and must.

11. Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid or boring, then you must be stupid and boring. If you feel guilty, then you must have done something wrong. The problem with emotional reasoning is that our emotions interact and correlate with our thinking process. Therefore, if you have distorted thoughts and beliefs, your emotions will reflect these distortions.

12. Fallacy of Change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them. The truth is the only person you can really control or have much hope of changing is yourself. The underlying assumption of this thinking style is that your happiness depends on the actions of others. Your happiness actually depends on the thousands of large and small choices you make in your life.

13. Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities (in yourself or others) into a negative global judgment. Global labeling ignores all contrary evidence, creating a view of the world that can be stereotyped and one-dimensional. Labeling yourself can have a negative and insidious impact upon your self-esteem; while labeling others can lead to snap-judgments, relationship problems, and prejudice.

14. Being Right: You feel continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness. Having to be 'right' often makes you hard of hearing. You aren't interested in the possible veracity of a differing opinion, only in defending your own. Being right becomes more important than an honest and caring relationship.

15. Heaven's Reward Fallacy: You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You fell bitter when the reward doesn't come as expected. The problem is that while you are always doing the 'right thing,' if your heart really isn't in it, you are physically and emotionally depleting yourself.

Source: EWU

Fahrenheit 451 [Full Review]

2011-03-30T13:49:00.006+02:00

"It was a pleasure to burn."

I don't actually know how to begin this review; it's hard to describe this book in a mere review on the blog. I could actually consider this book atop my favorite books after The Palace of Dreams for Ismail Kadare, if not even before it.
I'll try to sum up the review and not spoil many things.

The plot:
Book burning. Guy Montag is a fireman whose job is to burn books.
The plot was the first thing that tugged me in to buy this novel in the first place. If you don't know, it's amongst the top dystopian novels of all time. The very, very first page of the novel was the most beautiful thing ever, why it's different than any other novel I've read so far, is because from page 1 in chapter 1 to page 165 of the last chapter, everything was intriguing, catchy, confusing, dark and conspiracy-soaked.
The fact that the novel was relatively short, was another reason for having enjoyed it; everything was to the point, I didn't feel bored for a second, it was very fast-paced that I could hardly hold my breath.
Finally, the open ending in the novel is something to admire, since I could barely see a reasonable ending for everything inside it, I have to say it was perfect.
I was robbed of the feeling of finishing this novel, because it didn't end, it's how our lives are and it will never end until we choose to end it. I loved that.

The language:

I was waiting impatiently to get to this part; the language in this novel was pretty simplistic, sometimes I'd find difficulty in the descriptions because of my English, but it wasn't something major.

The descriptions: they were outstanding, beautiful and very inspiring, it made me really admire the imagination of the author.

The metaphors: I was somehow confused by the amount of things he said that gave hints to other things, I got to understand some parts only after reading some of the reviews online. Despite this puzzlement, I was enjoying the indirectness in his words, the way he wanted us, the readers, to think, because of the fact that we are readers reading about book burning, so we must have our own justifications.

The repetitions: That's the one thing I completely utterly enjoyed. Some repetitions were so vague, some seemed pointless, but overall, every repetition meant something. Every line looked like the previous but somehow different. They pretty well fit the insanity in the plot, and the outstanding dullness in the protagonist. And finally, I was inspired. Really inspired.

The dialogue:
I pretty much liked all the dialogues of Montag, the protagonist, with Clarisse, Faber and Captain Beaty. Every one of them held something true, in this life, felt in reality, fed on conspiracy and dystopia. Some things were beautifully said (I'll point them out in the quotes at the end of the review), some descriptions were perfect. The book burning theory and the paradox of being a fireman to start fire not put it out is simply..all about our life.

This novel indirectly talked about everything governments are oppressing people to not contemplate, that's why I definitely recommend it to each and every one who doesn't appreciate books, to everyone who wants to read more, and while reading it live with your imagination to make it real, what would you do?

Quotes:

"Let you alone! That's all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?"

"A book is a loaded gun in the house next door"

"If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn."

"Forget them. Burn all, burn everything. Fire is bright and fire is clean"

"If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war."

"I don't talk things, sir. I talk the meaning of things.I sit here and know I'm alive".

"that's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want."

"Those who don't build must burn."

"Well, that's one way to get an audience. Hold a gun on a man and force him to listen to you. Speech away."

"live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds"

"oh God, the terrible tyranny of the majority."

Those are not all the quotes I loved. But I'll say enough for now.

My rating: 5/5 (first time to ever rate something as perfect)

Literary Quotes

2011-03-26T01:56:00.003+02:00

"An artist cannot translate the passionate intensity of life without working in passion. Scholar’s scholar, critic's critic, but the artist burns and beats and blows and jumps and rushes. It's all a matter of virtue, i.e virtuosity"-Jack Kerouac.

"But I'll add, that there is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas." -"The Idiot" Dosteovesky.
(Stolen from Noor's review :D )

"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." -Sylvia Plath

حبة حبشتكانات

2011-03-23T23:56:00.006+02:00

أنا بس هسأل شوية أسئلة محيراني...و مش هحطلها إجابات حتى ، بس لو قدرتوا تفكروا فيها معايا يبقى كتّر خيركوا..

المفروض إن الواحد ميسكتش على المحتل الأجنبي...فا مابالكوا بالمحتل الوطني بقى؟؟ اللي مننا فينا؟

الشعب كله يطالب بالديمقراطية ، بس في نفس الوقت مبيحاسبش نفسه على ديكتاتوريته...تقريباً كده الناس فاكره إن الديكتاتورية هي ضرب و خلاص. نسينا فرض الرأي و عدم إحترام الرأي الآخر. نسينا رفض أي تعليق أو نقد من الخارج.

إحنا إزاي عندنا بلاهة و بلادة و قلة تقدير للكلام اللي بنقولوا دا؟ إزاي مثلاً تروح تقول لشخص "ربنا هيحاسبك عاللي عملته" ؟ دا على أساس إن دا هيخلي ركبه تخبط في بعضها؟ دا على أساس إنك عارف أصلا يعني إيه ربنا هايحاسبه؟ و بتتكلم على أساس إن و يعني إيه إن شخص يستغل شهرته في إنه يالجملة دي عادي حاجة كده في الحياة اليومية؟

هو يعني إيه "حرام" ؟ و "واجب شرعي" ؟ و يعني إيه إن شخص يستغل شهرته في إنه يتكلم كلام الناس تمشي عليه من غير ما ياخد باله إن دي مصيبة في حد ذاتها

إحنا إزاي بقينا نتكلم في أطنان براميل بترول و ثروات تقدر بمليارات الدولارات بالسهولة دي؟ إزاي دي حاجة بقت بتضحك أوي كده؟ إنها لكارثة...

إحنا إمتى ابتدينا منحسّش ببعض بالطريقة الصعبة دي؟ بزعل أوي أوي بجد لما حد يقوللي "أنا النهاردة حصل لي الموقف الفلاني و فهمت إنتي قصدك إيه" ياسلام؟

(أنا كمان بعمل كده عامةً...متفكروش إني بستعبط)

أسئلة كثيرة و الإجابة في جعبة الحياة :D

To Kill a Mockingbird [Full Review]

2011-03-06T21:36:00.007+02:00

"Shoot the bluejays of you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird"

The plot: I have to say I was kind of disappointed at the plot and the narration of this novel. If you intend to read this novel, you have to be very patient because at least the first half of the novel is quiet boring and pointless-at least to me. The chapters are very slow-paced and you need to take out what you can in order to finish them and get to the good parts.

The language: I kind of thought it was hard to read, and for a person who has much admiration for literature and language like myself, the language was poor, not of the narrator's, but of the era itself; I didn't really mind it as much as I thought it was hard and sometimes not understandable.

Characters: Mostly, I loved the father, I really admired his patience and the way he was trying to raise his kids and make it up to them for having lost their mother at a young age. I admired his calmness and the way he handled frenzied situations. His way of analyzing and defending at the court, knowing that it's a lose-lose case. Away from the two main characters, who are the girl and her brother, I think the father is the most important and beautiful role in the novel.

I don't really have much to add to this novel, I didn't think I would be so eager to finish it only to know what's gonna happen not because I was utterly enjoying it; overall, I think I can give it 2.5/5, but I still gotta say I enjoyed how the author, Lee, put out the ugliness of racism in the 30s. It's a good-but-not-great novel.

P.S I remembered "Broken April" and "Chronicle in Stone", both for Ismail Kadare while reading this and I couldn't help but compare, I probably haven't read several poetic novels for one author as for Kadare.
"Chronicle in Stone" was also narrated from the heart of a young boy, but the humor was felt more than this novel.
"Broken April" also had to do with the killing of the innocent only because they committed the sin of living in this world.

Lastly,
Quotes to remember:

"I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it ــــ seems that only children weep. Good night."

"You got it backwards, Dill. Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them."

"The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious - because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority.We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe-some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others-some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men."

"In the name of God, do your duty (out loud). In the name of God, believe him (to himself)."

P.S Never miss out contemplating chapter 20, I'd say it's probably the best chapter in the whole novel (:

The Ideological Revolution

2011-02-21T16:28:00.001+02:00

Everyone's venting, everyone's cursing; contradictions and paradoxes are everywhere. Friends have become enemies, normal people are calling themselves oh-so-politically-aware. Philosophies are a daily thing now, I stopped hearing any I-don't-knows, and eventually, I got bored of reading-basically, I hate reading now as much as I love it.
I do not know if I'm wasting or winning time, the more I read, the more I forget, and the more I know, the more ignorant I feel. There are a thousand questions in my mind that I fear if I let out, they will never make me feel better about anything; I don't know if we'll ever get the right answers, or at least get the wrong ones.

First we topple a president, then appear the pro-regime people; seriously, what kind of ignorance is this? What surprises me (or okay, I no longer act surprised anyway) is that they are people of a lower financial level, I guess not to mention the social level (A reason out of many?)
Second comes the media, which is something I have never really trusted: the number of martyrs, let's see..if not too many then it's hypocrisy and mendacity, if too exaggerated then it's the disorder and chaos they're trying to create out of an already-full-of-wrath revolution. I just don't get it.
Rumors: Check twitter, then facebook, then the tv, you'll most certainly find different news, what to believe is up to you; personal advice: ignore all what you find nonsense and form an opinion out of the reasonable, it will of course confuse you, and that's the point! Just keep looking and faith will find its way to your heart
Fetna: The fact that everything has its negativities and positivities, Facebook has evoked a revolution, a double-faced revolution to be frank, a revolution and an anti-revolution by another revolution (would rather call it protest though). It was miserably hilarious to read opinions with no justifications or plausible proofs, words of anger from the other side, a battle inside a battle, and infinite nothingness.

"Never forget public ignorance is the government's best friend." -Anonymous.

If we can measure the things we have learned with the things we have unlearned, I'd say we gained nothing: How do you consider political awareness yet disrespect for the other opinion a lesson? I mean not to defend, I only mean to go back to our routes: "مقابلة الإساءة بالإحسان", a lesson many of us have forgotten despite the unity.
How about considering we're all on the same boat now? Think about it..

I can only think now that I could never let out what's really within me, I just beg and pray, hope and plead that things will turn out to be something, we are already writing history; Please don't turn this ugly because your words are capable of another ideological revolution.

"I imagine that yes is the only living thing." -E.e Cummings

Pricelessness

2011-02-21T01:53:00.003+02:00

I love you Egypt!

الشعب يريد .. بناء النظام

2011-02-14T14:26:00.003+02:00

Allow me to share this article for the film director Amr Salama:

أقدر أقول و بدون أي مبالغة إن ده هيكون أصعب مقال أكتبه في حياتي.

هحاول أخلي كلامي مرتب و مختصر على قد ما أقدر، و سامحوني إن لم أستطع النجاح في ذلك.

أولا بحيي الشهداء، و الجرحي، و المفقودين، و الناس اللي خططت للثورة، و الناس اللي أعتقلت، و كل الناس اللي نزلت، و كمان الناس اللي حرست بيوتها، و الناس اللي ماكنتش فاهمة و حاولت تفهم، و الناس اللي كانت فاهمة غلط و غيرت رأيها، و الناس اللي ماغيروش رأيهم بس عايزين يعمروا معانا مصر من جديد، و بحييهم كلهم بنفس التقدير و الإحترام.

بكمل تحياتي لكل شريف في جهاز الشرطة رفض يقوم بأي تجاوز، كل شرطي كان رحيما قدر ما إستطاع، و كل شرطي كان عنده الشجاعة لينزل الشارع ليقوم بمهامه من جديد، و كل شرطي سينزل في الأيام القادمة، و لكل شرطي يحاول أن يحسن صورة جهاز الشرطة، و كل شرطي شعر بالعار و تأنيب الضمير لأي جرم إرتكبه، و كل شرطي لن يستطيع أن يكمل مهامه لأي سبب مقتنع هو به و يرضي ضميره.

تحياتي للجيش المصري، و أقوله إن كلمة "لبست جيش" مش هتتقال ثاني، و هيبقى شرف لأي مواطن مصري أن ينضم لك، و أقول لك أن مشاعر كل المصريين برؤيته للدبابات و المدرعات جعلته يشعر بلمحة من ملاحمكم و بطولاتكم، و جعلتنا نعلم معنى كلمة شرف من جديد.

للإجمال بحيي شعب مصر، بحيي شعب جعلنا نصدق معاني الكلمات.

بحيي شعب قتل السخرية من الكلمات التي كان يريد القلب أن يحبها.

بحيي شعب أعاد فعلا تعريف الكلمات.

بحيي شعب أسمى مصر بإسمها الحقيقي.

و بعد التحية.

و بعد المعاناة و الإستشهاد و التعرض للأخطار و التصميم و النصر.

و بعد الدماء و الدموع و الإبتسامات و دقات القلب.

نخش في الصميم.

لم يسقط الشعب النظام فقط، لقد أسقط عدو أخطر و هو الحجج.

طول عمري كنت بقول إن الرئيس السابق حسني مبارك كان عاملنا خدمة ثلاثين سنة و كان مدينا حجة زي الجنيه الدهب.

و كان الشعب المصري يستخدمه بكل من يتبعونه كأفضل حجة لأي شيء، و كان هو يتفنن يوميا هو و من معه في إثبات أن هذه الحجة مقنعة و كافية لكل مصري نفسه في حجة.

لكن من الآن، لم يعد هناك أي حجة، لم يعد هناك من يمنعك، و إن وجد من يمنعك فعليك به، إسقطه فقد علمت طريقك و كسرت خوفك.

من الآن تستطيع، و حط تحت تستطيع ألف ألف خط.

من الآن دستورك في دماغك، قانونك هو أخلاقك، خططك هي أحلامك، أمنك هو روحانياتك، واجباتك أصبحت مسؤولياتك، أصابع اللوم تحولت لأصابع تقدر تبدع و ترسم و تبني.

ماعنديش ذرة شك إن إحنا جيل هيبني أحسن وطن، و أنا أحلامي إننا هنكون عالم أول، مش أحلامي بس، لأ ديه أهدافي، الشعب اللي قدر يحلم، و يثور، و يتحدى الموت و إنتصر، يقدر يعمل أي حاجة في الدنيا، الشعب اللي عنده الحضارة إنه يثور بكل تحضر قادر يعمل حضارة تجعل الحضارة الفرعونية فيلم كرتون بالنسبة لمستقبله القادم.

و الله العظيم شعب مصر النهاردة أحسن من الفراعنة، الفراعنة كانوا ملوك متفاخرين ديكتاتوريين و باقي الشعب عبيد، كانوا يملكون علم معانا اليوم أضعافه في أيدي أصغر من فينا، بنوا حضارة نستطيع اليوم أن نتفوق عليها، لو فقط كملنا نصدق حلمنا، و عرفنا إيه هو هدفنا.

و الله العظيم نصرنا النهاردة أهم من نصر أكتوبر مع عظمة إنتصار أكتوبر و تضحياتها، إحنا عدونا ماكناش عرفينه، كان مننا، كنا بنحاربه بأسلحة مختلفة، بحبنا و إيماننا و صبرنا.

و الله العظيم إحنا دلوقتي نقدر نعمل إنجازات تخلينا مانحتجش نتباهى بالماضي ثاني، بالعكس نتباهى بالحاضر و نوعد بمستقبل أفضل و إحنا متطمنين.

لو شايفني جيل رومانسي، أفكرك إني نفس الجيل الرومانسي اللي كنت واقف في التحرير، اللي كان بيحلم ببكره أصبح إمبارح، إمبارح عملت إنجاز ناوي إني لا أتباهى به، بالعكس، أتباهى بكل يوم بعيشه و أنا عارف أنا عايشه ليه و هيوديني فين.

و أنا مش بقصد بالجيل الشباب بس، أقصد بالجيل كل الأعمار اللي في قلبها روح الشباب اللي قادرة تحلم و تجري ورا حلمها، الجيل الشاب في قلبه، حتى لو سنانه وقعت و شعره بالنسبة له ماضي.

من النهاردة خد المبادرة، من النهاردة هتخصص وقت من وقتك لبلدك، مش عشان إنت ملاك، لأ عشان عارف إنه هيرجعلك، من النهاردة هتبقى إيجابي و هتشارك، مش عشان دم الشهداء و الجرحى اللي نزلوا عشانك بس، لأ عشان كمان مستقبلك و مستقبل أولادك، من النهاردة، هيكون النهاردة هو النهاردة، بتعيشه و إنت بتصنعه.

أنا كل ما بحاول أفكر حتى لو للحظان في عظمة اللي إتعمل ببقى هيعيط في لحظة، و اللي بيطلعني من الحالة ديه هو التفكير في بكره، إعلموا أن ثورة خمسة و عشرين يناير إنتهت، و بدأت ثورة مصر الحقيقية.

ثورة بناء بجد، ثورة بتثور فيها على أكبر عدو في الدنيا، العدو ده نفسك لو حاولت تخليك تكسل أو تلوم الآخر، أو تكره، و تستسهل، أو تفسد، أو تنافق، أو تاخد حق غيرها.

ثورتنا الجاية أصعب بس أحلى، نتايجها بتتأخر بس أقيم، ثورة بتبني طوبة بطوبة، بس كل ما تخلص و تبص على إنجازاتها هتلاقي هرم، هرم جديد بتاعك إنت، مش بتاع ناس عمرك ما شفتهم، تبني مسلة بتاعتك مش بتاعت ناس ماتعرفش مين هما، تبني حضارة ناقش على طوبة فيها إسمك مش إسم مش متأكد لو نطقك ليه صح و لا لأ.

كل شاب نزل و عرض حياته للخطر هو أشرف عندي من إخناتون، كل دكتور أنقذ جريح هو أشرف عندي من آتون، كل واحد حمى بيته هو أشرف عندي من مينا موحد القطرين، و كل واحد من النهاردة، حتى لو ما شاركش بأي شكل في الثورة، بس عمل حاجة إيجابية و بنى في بلده هو أشرف عندي من كل حضارة مصرية تكونت و ماتت قبل أن نولد و قرأنا عنها في الكتب كما كتبها ناس لم أعلم عنهم شيء.

أنا فخور إني مصري، مش بسبب أي حاجة حصلت إمبارح أو من آلاف السنين.

أنا فخور إني مصري بسبب النهاردة.. و قررت أفضل فخور بكل نهاردة.

Between protesting inside and out

2011-02-10T20:48:00.004+02:00

I have spent the whole last week trying to find out which is more important in religion: The family or the country. It reminded me of this saying "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"; I seriously couldn't find out by myself, and the more I want to use religious book, the more scared I become to find the answer.
Now, it's not about being scared to die, it's about not wanting to fail, even though something tells me that if I ever go out for war behind my parents' back and die a martyr, Allah will forgive me for it; I only fear that my family would forever live in guilt or regret--I don't want that to ever happen.
I don't know how right it is to actually not let go of your children, especially when they're girls, just because they will be harmed-so what's the point of going, huh? The point IS to sacrifice your soul for the country, the point is to be able to understand that freedom requires loss of souls, partial loss of happiness, loss of many pleasures, in order to deserve democracy.

I have already discussed with some friends the reasons behind parents' attitude since the 25th of January, and to sum up the whole thing, here are the main reasons:

The typical Egyptian parent attitude of "enti bent w hatetbahdeli w tetma7aki fel regala, ed3elhom a7san".
Stay around the neighborhood and protect your home first.
Strictness: a much worse attitude.
The pessimistic Egyptian parent: "elshabab elly henak de kollaha 3eyal seyya3, hatrou7i tet3aksi w teegi".
And finally, the over-concern.

A friend asked me on the very first days f the revolution: "Would you let your children go if you were a parent?". I said I'd let them go but go with them myself, because I have to support how positive and energetic they are, but to actually kill that enthusiasm within them, that would never, ever help in writing history.
I'm done with my words, I just want every parent, who didn't let their children go, to know this: You have made a lot of sacrifices for your children, perhaps one of them should be letting your children go help write a new history, it really, really aches everyone who didn't go, and God knows if they'll ever wake up to witness a new change that they can participate in.

Sincerely,
A torn-apart citizen who never got to be a protester.

The child to my feelings

2011-02-06T01:52:00.009+02:00

To blog or not to blog, and what to actually blog about? That is my serious dilemma. I'm usually 24/7 on my blog(s), if not writing then reading and analyzing my old stuff and trying to improve-either with writing or with a reader's external point of view.
So, since the only thing people, who are home, keep discussing is Egypt and the ongoing crisis, and since it has actually become an international issue. I'll also take my leap and express:

I'll start off with quoting Amr Salama: على فكرة طول عمري بقول إني بحب مصر، بس عمري ما فهمت و لا حسيت بحبي ليها زي دلوقتي.. أنا فعلا بحب مصر.. قوي

These words awoke this feeling within me; I, too, would have never ever fathomed why I loved this country, not to mention that I spent nearly 12 years abroad, and if you think about it you'd feel like I'm barely Egyptian, but I don't count my years.
I thought it's about friends and family, about its atmosphere in Summer and its hugs in Winter, I still think those are some reasons to love your country, but lets be more realistic here:

1- The people:

They made me cry; Christians protecting Muslims while doing their prayer? Seriously? I have never seen such a thing in the ENTIRE history.
Protesters beating security forces for having injured someone they don't even know.
The comedy-or shall I say black comedy-of the people, even in their darker days.
The songs, I would sometimes sing with them in front of the Tv, too bad I couldn't sing in the battlefield.
Their ability to fight and stand strong for their rights (sad some people think they're wasting time)..
The hospitality, the friendliness and the atmosphere they create, a thing of real beauty, heavenly beauty!

2-The Places:

Tahrir: Always and forever will be my favorite place to hang out. Back before the revolution it used to give me a feeling of being home, of "liberation". And now I know soon enough when I revisit it insha'allah, I promise to stand there for a moment with closed eyes and an open heart, and re-play all the videos I have watched on youtube and facebook, and relive the moments myself.
Game't Al-dowal, Dokki, Asr Elnile and Elgala2 bridge and Ramsees: I've been seeing all these places covered with heads, only heads and the sound of voices breathing desired freedom- I sometimes wish they'd never stop!

I believe those people out there made some, who were careless about praying, pray just when seeing the enormous number of people standing there praying even with Security forces trying to drown them in water and distract them.

My country has risen, it has become internationally popular, with the words "Walk like an Egyptian" written everywhere. To have seen the people here become stronger is a thing, and to have seen the whole world asking the sick government to step down for my people is a whole new beautiful thing =)

For those protesters out there, I'd like to send a message: If the government will keep its ugly conspiracy going for some time, I want you to know this: you have taught us how to speak for our rights, you have made many people politically aware of many things, you have given us faith in our country and strength to love it even more, you have made us speak up our minds like never before, you have made heroes out of yourself and of many people who followed, and you have given us freedom by being there, and freedom by writing this, you and only you!

I do thank Allah for having lived to see these historical days, and I hope the day will come for me to tell my children about you!
الحمد لله

P.S my words are a mere glimpse of my feelings.

Useless Information

2011-01-16T23:18:00.005+02:00

A rat can last longer without water than a camel.
Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.
The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.
On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.
The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple, and silver.\
The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
The original name for butterfly was flutterby.
The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
Roses may be red, but violets are indeed violet.
By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.
Sherlock Holmes NEVER said "Elementary, my dear Watson".
An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to take more than 3 steps backwards while dancing.
The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them. Not to mention the other drawback to passing gas in such a confined space....
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave
The Guinness World Record for holding the most Guinness World Records is set by Ashrita Furman , who has broken over 303 official Guinness World records.

Actually, I find some of them very useful and fun =D
Source: Richardpettinger

Just-World Fallacy

2011-01-14T01:07:00.001+02:00

The Just-World Phenomenon is when witnesses of an injustice, in order to rationalize it, will search for things that the victim did to deserve it. This eases their anxiety and allows them to feel safe; if they avoid that behavior, injustice will not happen to them. This peace of mind comes at the expense of blaming the innocent victim. To illustrate this, a research study was done by L. Carli of Wellesley College. Participants were told two versions of a story about interactions between a man and a woman. In both versions, the couple’s interactions were exactly the same, at the very end, the stories differed; in one ending, the man raped the woman and in the other, he proposed marriage. In both groups, participants described the woman’s actions as inevitably leading up to the (different) results.

Interesting Fact: On the other end of the spectrum, The Mean World Theory is a phenomenon where, due to violent television and media, viewers perceive the world as more dangerous than it really is, prompting excessive fear and protective measures.

I'm reminding you of what usually happens here in Egypt =D

Ease

2011-01-03T01:47:00.002+02:00

Stolen from Noor =D

Reflections on Twenty-ten

2010-12-30T22:04:00.006+02:00

I'm going to list the things that I've learned over the year, so that whenever I come back to this post, in case I forgot my lessons, I'd remember them with (hopefully) a smile (:
I will post something similar on my other blog, but since it's more personal, let's stick to the general points here and the personal ones there.

Reflections:
1- Patience (ongoing).
2- Not judge according to one side of the story.

3- Depression is not what we go through in our daily life (Check this post).
4- The things I have mentioned in the books reviews I have read this year, including the quotes. In other words, to read more!
5- Persistence is what will always keep us going.
6- At the end of the tunnel you'll find what you choose to see.
7- I have learned to live with my imperfections and try to fix what could be fixed.
8- To pray more. The feeling I get when I pray now is so much different than before..
9- It only takes a leap of courage to do it (:
10- Pain is an awfully good teacher to the "be stronger" lessons.
11- When you accept your end, you'll actually start to be even more positive than before!
12- Reading is an addiction that only the crazy will appreciate.
13- Friends, I keep learning that friends are the most dazzling gift Allah has given us.
14- At the hour of breakdown you will still remember the people who love you, and it will make you feel better.
15- You are never, ever, EVER...alone.
16- Nothing can stop you if you want to and can do it!
17- There are too many people who need your heart to sympathize with them, you do that and you'll be rewarded sooner or later.
18- Pretense sometimes is an awesome way to deal with whom you have no escape but to deal with.
19- Crying actually makes us stronger, on the long run though.
20- Love will never perish =)

A totally random post

2010-12-25T01:38:00.005+02:00

The concept, I like it. Even though I would not find the exact word for each hour, it's fun.
Let's give it a shot: eight and eleven a.m are "nightmares or sudden awakening for no apparent reason" (just noticed this a moment ago btw). Nine and ten are "the deep sleep". Twelve is "the re-organizing-of thoughts". One and two are "imprisonment". Three and four are "preparation-for-salvation". Five is "ponder". Six is "Freedom". Seven is "indulging". Eight is the same as image, or shall I say, the climax. Nine is "blankness". Ten is "the wish upon tomorrow". Eleven is "stay with me". And twelve is "Tell me more".

I think that will make me reconsider how to use my hours more!

"B"robability!

2010-12-23T04:14:00.001+02:00

ya3ni bsra7a such creative ad =D Love the facial expressions haha.

Dwell in thought..

2010-12-22T01:05:00.005+02:00

I thought this photo is breathtaking :)

"If you’re feeling frightened about what comes next… Don’t. Embrace the uncertainty. Allow it to lead you places. Be brave as it challenges you to exercise both your heart and your mind as you create your own path towards happiness. Don’t waste time with regret. Spin wildly into your next action. Enjoy the present - each moment as it comes - because you’ll never get another one quite like it. And if you should ever look up and find yourself lost, simply take a breath and start over. Retrace your steps and go back to the purest place in your heart, where your hope lives. You’ll find your way again…" -Julia Brown, Everwood

"Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility: For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears." -Khalil Gibran

Lost Symbol [Full Review]

2010-12-20T18:12:00.009+02:00

Quoting: "So many twists—all satisfying, most unexpected...Let's just say that if this novel doesn't get your pulse racing, you need to check your meds." —San Francicso Chronicle.

Spoiler Alert

Although this novel can be described in a thousand words, I can't find the exact words to describe it. From the very Prologue to the last chapter, it was deep-cave dark, mystifying. The twist and suspense were the main factors that kept me going. I loved so many things in this novel so I'll try as hard as possible to pen at least half of them.

Point: It felt so real that I could hardly tell I'm reading a sci-fi novel, I thought I was reading a pure science book. I got to learn so many things. Enlightenment!
Point: The end of each chapter provoked me to read another one even when I was too sleepy to concentrate, something triggered me to continue reading, and, with full attention.
Point: The symbols were so very well-chosen to perfectly serve the plot of the novel. I thought it was intelligent!
Point: I loved the fact that most of the science explained in this novel is actually real science, which proves that Brown is not just a novelist, he's way more than that.
Point: The history of the son was intriguing, it was...almost perfect for the novel.
Point: I now know more Latin words (YAY!) which is a language I've always wanted to learn, for some reason I still cannot figure out.
Point: Something I learned from this novel is to not take things literally as read, and to search for a thousand hidden meaning within one word. Which is also what poetry teaches me.

Some general points:
Point: At some point, I thought the novel was gory and outrageous, Mal'akh's parts, some descriptions were disgusting, especially the sexual ones. The description of him, however, was well enough to be pictured even by poor imagination.
Point: Some chapters were sort of lame for the suspense, because as a reader, and a regular Dan Brown reader (I'm not, I've only seen the movies Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons) you'd know that he would never kill the protagonist, Robert Langdon, even though the way he used science to prove the opposite I have to say was impressive.
Point: Sometimes I couldn't fathom the meanings of some words because of the intensity of the novel's plot that at first I thought of giving up on reading. And I actually have some parts that I didn't understand. I'm definitely googling some of them!

Things I learned from this novel:
* Some Noetic science facts.
* Stoicism.
* Total Liquid Ventilation.
* Rosicrucian Philosophy.
* The origin of many words such as Revelation.
* TGA (Thermal gravimetic analysis).
* Dura mater and Pia mater.

Some facts I liked:

"Since the days of Michelangelo, sculptors had been hiding the flaws in their work by smearing hot wax and then dabbing the wax with stone dust. The method was considered cheating, and therefore, any sculpture without wax—literally sine cera— was considered a "sincere" piece of art. The phrase stuck. To this day we still sign our letters "sincerely" as a promise that we have written "without wax" and that our words are true."

"Robert Langdon had often heard it said that an animal, when cornered, was capable of miraculous feats of strength. Nonetheless, when he threw his full force into the underside of his crate, nothing budged at all."

"Perhaps you've heard about the brain scans taken for yogis while they meditate? The human brain, in advanced states of focus, will physically create a waxlike substance from the pineal gland. This brain secretion is unlike anything else in the body. It has an incredible healing effect, can literally regenerate cells, and may be one of the reasons yogis live so long. The substance has inconceivable properties and can be created only by a mind that is highly tuned to a deeply focused state"

"If I hand you a violin and say you have the capability to use it to make incredible music, I am not lying. You do have the capability, but you'll need enormous amounts of practice to manifest it. This is no different from learning to use your mind, Robert. Well-directed thought is a learned skill. To manifest an intention requires a laser-like focus, full sensory visualisation, and a profound belief"

Some Quotes to remember:

"If enough people begin thinking the same thing, then the gravitational force of that thought becomes tangible"

"Wide acceptance of an idea is not proof of its validity"

"I beg you to remember that wealth without wisdom can often end in disaster"

"If the infinite had not desired man to be wise, he would not have bestowed upon him the faculty of knowing" Philosopher Manly P.Hall.

Final note: I would not recommend this novel to anyone, only the people I know who are wise enough to fathom the info in it the way it is, some parts were just too dark for say a beginner reader, or an innocent mind. Unless, they'll take it as just a book.
So if you're familiar with conspiracy theories and theorists, go for it!

On Appreciation

2010-12-20T03:35:00.001+02:00

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create —so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating." -Pearl S. Buck

"Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share." -Mark Z. Danielewski

It's not JUST Déjà Vu!

2010-12-20T02:28:00.003+02:00

Dutch psychiatrist Hermon Sno proposed the idea that memories are like holograms, meaning that you can recreate the entire three-dimensional image from any fragment of the whole. The smaller the fragment, however, the fuzzier the ultimate picture. Déjà vu, he says, happens when some detail in the environment we are currently in (a sight, sound, smell, et cetera) is similar to some remnant of a memory of our past and our brain recreates an entire scene from that fragment.

Below are names for some of the many ways in which the déjà experience may manifest:

* déjà entendu - already heard
* déjà éprouvé - already experienced
* déjà fait - already done
* déjà pensé - already thought
* déjà raconté - already recounted
* déjà senti - already felt, smelt
* déjà su - already known (intellectually)
* déjà trouvé - already found (met)
* déjà vécu - already lived
* déjà voulu - already desired

Neppe (in conjunction with Prof. B. G. Rogers, Professor of French, University of the Witwatersrand) in 1981 suggested the following additional terms:

* déjà arrivé - already happened
* déjà connu - already known (personal knowing)
* déjà dit - already said/spoken (content of speech)
* déjà gouté - already tasted
* déjà lu - already read
* déjà parlé - already spoken (act of speech)
* déjà pressenti - already sensed
* déjà rencontré - already met
* déjà rêvé - already dreamt
* déjà visité - already visited

Déjà rencontré appears preferable to déjà trouvé for the already met experience because it specifically relates to interpersonal situations.

-Source: How Stuff Works.

Blogger note: I must say I don't pay attention to the type of the experience. Now I shall do!

Planning Fallacy

2010-12-19T01:07:00.004+02:00

The Planning fallacy is the tendency to underestimate the time needed to complete tasks. The planning fallacy actually stems from another error, The Optimism Bias, which is the tendency for individuals to be overly positive about the outcome of planned actions. People are more susceptible to the planning fallacy when the task is something they have never done before. The reason for this is because we estimate based on past experiences. For example, if I asked you how long it takes you to grocery shop, you will consider how long it has taken you in the past, and you will have a reasonable answer. If I ask you how long it will take you to do something you have never done before, like completing a thesis or climbing Mount Everest, you have no experience to reference, and because of your inherent optimism, you will guesstimate less time than you really need. To help you with this fallacy, remember Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

Interesting Fact: “Realistic pessimism” is a phenomenon where depressed or overly pessimistic people more accurately predict task completion estimations.

Source: Listverse again!

And..this feeling..

2010-12-14T01:34:00.001+02:00

"No matter how careful you are, there’s going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn’t experience it all. There’s that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should’ve been paying attention.
Well, get used to that feeling. That’s how your whole life will feel some day.
This is all practice"
... Chuck Palahniuk.

On the True Self..

2010-12-10T01:33:00.007+02:00

"Even now I’m not really sure which parts of myself are real and which parts are things I’ve gotten from books."
... Go Ask Alice, Anonymous

"The hardest thing is facing yourself. It’s easier to shout ‘revolution’ and ‘power to the people’ than it is to look at yourself and try and find out what’s real inside you and what isn’t when you pull the wool over your own eyes. Your own hypocrisy, that’s the hardest thing, and that’s what I’m involved in."
... John Lennon

Source: I took a deep breath

Do not stand at my grave and weep

2010-12-10T00:34:00.002+02:00

This is one of the poems that resemble the beauty in meaningful simplicity. I just love it.

By Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there, I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Inscription on a Tomb- Jorge Borges

2010-12-07T22:58:00.003+02:00

"Let not the rash marble risk
garrulous breaches of oblivion's omnipotence,
in many words recalling
name, renown, events, birthplace.
All those glass jewels are best left in the dark.
Let not the marble say what men do not.
The essentials of the dead man's life--
the trembling hope,
the implacable miracle of pain, the wonder of sensual delight--
will abide forever.
Blindly the uncertain soul asks to continue
when it is the lives of others that will make that happen,
as you yourself are the mirror and image
of those who did not live as long as you
and others will be (and are) your immortality on earth."

— Jorge Luis Borges

Pareidolia

2010-12-07T22:28:00.003+02:00

Pareidolia is when random images or sounds are perceived as significant. Seeing clouds in the shapes of dinosaurs, Jesus on a hot pocket, or hearing messages when a record is played backward are common examples of pareidolia. The common element is that the stimulus is neutral, it does not have intentional meaning; the meaning is in the viewer’s perception.

Note: This gets funnier when they mess up your mind to awaken the pervert side of you. [Bam, this sucks!]

You Who Never Arrived-Rainer Maria Rilke

2010-12-07T00:55:00.000+02:00

I love this poem..

[ You Who Never Arrived ]

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and un-
suspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods--
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house-- , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced
upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back
my too-sudden image. Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...

Like the Gentle Wind..

2010-12-07T00:43:00.000+02:00

"Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life." — Bob Marley

Availability Heuristic

2010-12-07T00:25:00.003+02:00

The availability heuristic is a phenomenon (which can result in a cognitive bias) in which people predict the frequency of an event, or a proportion within a population, based on how easily an example can be brought to mind.
This phenomenon was first reported by psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, who also identified the representativeness heuristic. To see how availability differs from related terms vividness and salience, see availability, salience and vividness.

The Availability heuristic is gauging what is more likely based on vivid memories. The problem is individuals tend to remember unusual events more than everyday, commonplace events. For example, airplane crashes receive lots of national media coverage. Fatal car crashes do not. However, more people are afraid of flying than driving a car, even though statistically airplane travel is safer. Media coverage feeds into this bias; because rare or unusual events such as medical errors, animal attacks and natural disasters are highly publicized, people perceive these events as having a higher probability of happening.

Source: Listverse and Wiki.

Inner World

2010-11-22T23:24:00.001+02:00

"Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they’ve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe."
Neil Gaiman.

Question is: How brave are you to show this world to people around you?

The Nevers!

2010-11-19T23:46:00.001+02:00

Modern Reading Habits!

2010-11-19T00:00:00.002+02:00