Monday 31 January 2011

Tough Days.

I am bracing myself or trying to, for tough days ahead, not allowing to let things get out of control, constantly putting them back in perspective, re-placing them in the grand scheme of things, re-arranging them so as they do not take up the whole place, all the space...

But it's tough. It's been tough and has not eased much. I was hoping with time and some distance it would...but it has not.

It is persistent - a bit like some strict teacher always pushing me back into self reflection and not allowing me space for vagaries...a bit like an unwanted guest that overstays his time and invades my hours, a bit like some dependent lover who is constantly craving my attention...a bit like a demanding god who is never satisfied...

I am sure there is more to it...one of my secret fantasies, my secret wish is to crack open the coding behind it all, maybe then the tough days will mellow under the Sun Light.

Yes am hoping.

Saturday 29 January 2011

Not so Smart.

Finally, finally, finally...seriously and rigorously tested the "smart" phone, nothing smart about them, or maybe there's nothing smart about me.

Ohhh, Ahhh, touch screen...smooth skin.

Did you ever use a touch screen in your life ? I tell you, a catastrophe. You touch the A, you get a Y, you touch the M you get a C, you touch an X you get an L.

And that damn thing keeps taking your picture without your consent. Here you are lying in bed, and you're just fiddling around with it, you know, some kind of preliminary and it just pounces on your face and clicks itself, flashing at you in the dark. Then it starts vibrating and ringing all over the place. You think to yourself - my that was quick.

Anyways, that damn thing keeps pressing my wrong buttons. Let's take the smart out of Phone and out of me.

Thursday 27 January 2011

Web Illusions...

This net is full of illusions, exaggerations, misinformation, lies, manipulations, perversions, and plain bullshit.

It is imperative for me to filter people, their stories and any other info produced. Seriously filter.

Many people, like MANY, in fact the great majority on the net are full of crap, brimming with it, acting out their fantasies, their illusions, their myths, their make believe, their mental illnesses...

I am so fucking disappointed by the low, cheap, level of people I have encountered here. A catastrophe. Truly a catastrophe.

Wednesday 26 January 2011

Seeking Refuge...

Both worlds bore me to tears.

The real and virtual world have the same effect on me. People bore me.

Even before they open their mouths, I can already tell them what they are about to tell me...I can already read their lips before they move them...

Has everything become so predictable ?

It's like a Stampa
a prepaid, preprepared seal,
the kind you order 2 weeks in advance,
the kind you stamp your letters with, a the bottom of a page or on the back of an envelop...


I already know the letter's content, however original the seal may be.

Has it got to do with a homogeneous mass culture, to the extent that everyone has become so very much the same, so alike ?

Like they've been molded, fabricated, by the same machine with a precise exactitude, on the same production line, like some index on a Dow Jones, like some indicator on the movement of a stock exchange...because this is what it feels like, exchanging one stock for a replica other.

Am still waiting to be enchanted.

Enchanted.

Meanwhile I seek refuge from the crowd mentality, from the Devil of sameness, from the Shaitan of dullness, from the Iblis of duplicated stamps.

On the Masses...

I've always qualified myself as a conservative revolutionary. I am not quite sure what it exactly means and though it comes across as totally contradictory in words/concepts, for me it feels quite comfortable, and nothing paradoxical about it.

Simply put I don't trust the mass effect. That is not to say that people's grievances are not real, not valid, and that they should not be addressed, but it is to say that taking the masses as an indicator of anything terribly enlightened is a humongous political mistake.

Anyone who has studied mass movements knows all too well, that mass momentum is short lived, the astute strategist will capitalize on its short life span and turn it to its political advantage.

Mass movements are easily ignited and easily tamed provided the timing and context are favorable, and provided that an intelligent leader understands what makes his own people tick and what appeases them.

If the leader (also called government) has been divorced from his people, and the gap has widened with time, he creates the optimal conditions for his own downfall. If the leader has repeatedly ignored his people's pleas, his downfall is ultimately guaranteed.

Opponents know how this works, and they exacerbate this distance, this gap, by exaggerating it even more through propaganda...

I am putting it all in simple terms. But this is basically how the whole thing functions.

If you like, it's like having a woman you neglect for a long time, and then suddenly she turns against you. You think it's all out of the blue, totally uncalled for...well think again. Women (in context of relationship with opposite sex) and mass movements have much in common.

Basically put, all things being equal, there are leaders and there are those who are led. And leaders can't remain leaders if they take things/status quo for granted for a long period of time.

And all the rest is ideology.

Monday 24 January 2011

Unbearable

This has truly become unbearable, and it's been going on for over 4 years with no respite.

Some readers, whether here or on Twitter, people I don't know and have no contact with, are always ready to pounce like a bunch of wild hyenas at the slightest word, sentence, I utter.

The last in line are a couple of females, who sent me emails calling me dirty, filthy, messy, etc...

In the not so distant past, it was males who would compose mails with death and rape threats, or just plain insults or a mix of both.

On Twitter, it's the same story.

I write addressing no one person in particular. Yet, I have been the recipient of the most vile forms of harassment and it is not stopping. I wonder if any other blogger has gone through the same crap I go through daily.

Short of closing everything down, which is probably what these scum are really hoping for, I don't know what to do anymore.

I block email addresses, cancel, delete to no avail.

Fucking psychotic men and women, online psychopaths, trolls and severely deranged people must be stopped.

I have enough on my plate as is. This can't continue anymore.

Sunday 23 January 2011

Arabic Tango

There is a whole wide world of sounds beyond the West and thank God, thank Allah for that.

Most non Westerners have no problem listening to Western rhythms, but the opposite is not true. Th Western culturally conditioned ear can only listen to its own echoes - most of the time some cheap crass that goes under the name of a musical hit.

I wish to ram the difference in, very much and gladly so.

Hence this beautiful rendition by Sumaya Baalbaki of an old Arabic song. Not too sure if the original is Asmahan, AbdelWahab or Farid Atrach. Does not matter, what matters is Vive la Difference.


Friday 21 January 2011

Transistor Men...

I've written about this matter more than once but I feel this great urge to do so again.

For me as a woman, nothing is more off putting than a man who monopolizes a whole conversation, like hours of a "conversation".

He talks, talks and talks some more...he talks non fucking stop. Regardless of the topic, he has to talk, always, all the time...It is either his most favorite subject - himself, or any other subject for that matter...

This type of man has swallowed a radio, a transistor. He has a chronic case of verbal diarrhea.
He thinks he's interesting, or witty or informed, all he shows is that he is a lousy listener, a self centered ego maniac who does not give a hoot about the person in front of him, and who uses his interlocutor as some dumping ground, some sounding board for his "fascinating" shit.

The message that this type of man sends: I am only interested in hearing myself talk.

It is not the talking that bothers, it's the total lack of dialog. It's non existent.

Men like that ought to refrain from dating, calling or whatever the fuck they intend to do, when in the throes of their verbal trots. Try some Imodium, works wonders with the runs. Short of that, just shut the fuck up.

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Unforgettable Memories.

There are certain people I will never forgive...not even on my death bed, not even beyond my grave, not even on the Day of Judgement. Hell is specially tailored for them.

Sadr City is one of them...but not only...

Or do you think that this an exercise in futility, or that you may get away with it? you know who you are, singular and plural...

Not so, not so.

All has been recorded, even my unforgettable memories.

Monday 17 January 2011

Forged by Fire...

Some people are chosen to be forged by Fire...

You take the hardest of metals, usually iron, subject it to intense heat, then hammer it and beat it into shape. This is one level of understanding. The crude one.

The blacksmith or 'forgeron' in French is used as an allegorical character for the Transformer, who takes your crude self and shapes it into something beautiful...that almost always necessitates an intense Fire.

Akin to the blacksmith, there is the alchemist, who also transmutes low grade minerals into Gold, again through a process of distillation by Fire...

The Blacksmith and the Alchemist are one and the same...and the end result is always beyond the wildest of your imagination.

Saturday 15 January 2011

Kalam bi Balash

We have a nice saying in Arabic - Kalam bi Balash,- meaning Talk is Free of Charge, some equivalent of Talk is Cheap.

Everyone talks, most talk to say nothing. And the majority like to make elephants fly...but we have this Iraqi joke -- elephants fly but not too high...

Happy Crash.

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Constriction.

I read something that made much sense to me -- we are victims of inner-critic constrictedness.

We believe in all kinds of boundaries, all kinds of injunctions, all kinds of shoulds...

And we basically pathologize anything that does not fall within those parameters, those imposed (from without/within) shoulds.

I suppose it takes much courage and some measure of equilibrium to "de-constrict" that inner without totally silencing the critic - who is not always necessarily a negative voice.

Sunday 9 January 2011

Intangibles...

Some things in life are simply intangible. No amount of words, descriptions, allegories, metaphors, explanations, theories can successfully capture them. These are the daily little miracles, the little secrets that stir in the heart like murmurs from a tranquil water stream...

One can pass them by, so easily...if one is too engrossed with figuring out life. Yet sometimes they impose themselves, like some stark reality, quietly, without making too much fuss or noise, just there...like a pebble, a stone, a rock, just there...that cannot be contoured, staring at you in the face...telling you by its mere presence - yes am here.

Friday 7 January 2011

Can't get over it

It's been nearly 8 years, can't accept it and can't get over it...

I am so dumbfounded that Iraqis are not realizing the extent of the destruction...they are blinded by sect, by their fucking ayatollahs, imams and sheikhs....

I can't believe how desolate we have become, how desperate, how lost...I can't fucking believe it.

I am disgusted with Iraqi men who have forfeited us, am disgusted with all of them. I want, need to throw up in their faces as a sign of revolt.

I see them outside with their fucking cigars, their sports car, their designer clothes, these nouveaux riches whores and pimps...I see our blood all over their fucking ugly faces, over their computers, and internet and doooooolars. They can't even fucking pronounce the word dollar...

These cunts of the occupation, opportunistic motherfuckers...I fucking hate all of them...these are the ones the Americans love alongside with the Shia cunts...the Americans adore them, because they are spineless whores, easily bought and easily sold...just like your average american...your average american - what is your average american, but some wanking, numbed, overweight dick who is still trying to figure out where his balls are...and the american woman, did I say woman ? oh am so sorry...must have been a typo.

They make me violently nauseous.

Yours truly disgusted.

What The Fuck Am I Doing Here ?

This is a question I ask myself daily...

Am I still secretly holding on to some hope ? I must be fucking mad to believe so.

I am so tired of this shit, I am so tired of explaining, rehashing, rehearsing...I am dealing with full fledged idiots...it's so fucking irritating. It's fucking pathetic.

Everyone accepts that some pimpled asshole is trying to find himself/herself...

Am an Iraqi woman and am trying to find my grounds...am as entitled as those pimpled assholes, even more so.

Need to throw up...people never failed to make me sick.

Wednesday 5 January 2011

The Internet Generation

I need to calm down a little from the other post, that I left half way.

I am wondering if there's any point me writing on this blog at all? From what I've managed to gather after all those years, and from the comments, echoes, messages, mails, etc...I've been receiving for the past 5 years, I can tell that this audience is a youngish, politically immature, inexperienced, ignorant and a very uneducated one.

It's like they collectively share the age of a 13 year old - politically, philosophically, psychologically, some pimpled students who get their knowledge and life experiences from the internet...some idiots who get all excited from an article or a piece of news believing they figured it out all, discovered the ultimate truth in that masturbatory brain of theirs...

I am wasting my energy here, my energy, talents and skills on fucking retards.

Tuesday 4 January 2011

The Reader

I have absolutely no control on who reads me, what their backgrounds are, their level of understanding, their comprehension skills...no control whatsoever.

I have no control on who choses to understand what, how and when...if some take my words literally, always, this is not my fucking problem it is theirs. If people can't read between lines, if they don't get some of the irony, some of the hidden jokes, the twists, the double meanings, messages, again this is not my fucking problem.

I write what I write...the rest is your business.

Now get off my back and stop messaging me with your idiotic complaints.

Monday 3 January 2011

Injunctions and Beliefs...

You care to admit or not, you first foundation is beliefs...you are made of a belief system...
Yo believe a whole load of shit to be true...you bought the whole package, and even if you don't actually possess it, you hope by the force of your belief in it...you will eventually get it.

You, of course never questioned the package to start with, you just accepted that you must struggle for it.

I have news for you. Santa does not exist, and no you are not God's favorite, just by virtue of being...this is fucking illusion that has been rammed into your heads by your Oprah, your Tele Evangelist millionaires who are betting on your cash, by the Paulo Coehelo's and Deepak Chopra's of this world...who made millions out of your misery and quest...but they hardly ever taught you the simple shit...the simple truth...all you need, all you desire, all your questions, your answers are closer to you than your jugular vein...

Here I am telling you all of this...for FREE...I am not a guru, I don't need an ashram, a cult or to be on the New York list of best sellers --- all I need is just a good computer and a pet to keep me company. But the latter is optional.

I don't expect you to participate in my workshop, nor to attend my lecture, neither to buy my latest book, talisman, incense, or chakra opening gadget...

My philosophy is terribly simple, my metaphysics rudimentary, my esoteric knowledge so practical...and can be encapsulated in a few words.

Use what you've got, all of it...good and bad...

And trust blindly in the alchemy of Transformation.

Sunday 2 January 2011

Mind Over Matter

This Room is cold, can't sleep. Will very likely raise hell later on today to Ze Management, who will present Ze excuses, and most likely the heating won't get fixed...knowing how everyone operates around here.

I tried taking my mind off the fact that it's cold, by working the mind over matter principle. Has not worked yet, my feet are frozen. Impossible to fall asleep with cold feet. Mind you, I would never fall for anyone with cold feet either...but that's another matter.

I remembered this mind over matter thing - my first introduction to it was when a friend got me a t-shirt and on it was printed " Mind over matter. If you don't mind, it does not matter."

Funnily S.remarked yesterday, in a casual way - well he tried putting it as casually as possible. He said : You're weird. Things that really matter to others and they're willing to kill for, don't matter to you. And things that don't matter to others, matter to you.

He refused to get into specifics, even though I asked for concrete examples. He just said - it's an impression I get from you. And we left it at that.

During the ride, I thought about what he blurted, out of the blue. He's correct on that count.

There are many things people are willing to kill for (metaphorically speaking - so don't get all heated up) that totally fail to impress me. In other words, I don't give a damn. And there are other things that people totally neglect or hardly pay attention to, and for me these are the things I really care about.

I wonder what happened to that t-shirt. I must thank the giver again. And they better fix that damn heating soon.