The Worst Form of Lonliness !

7 Reasons 21st Century Making You Miserable

"The more we're able to edit the annoyance out of our lives, the less we're able to handle it."
This is how I've been feeling recently because of that fact that I make sure that I do not get exposed to any source of annoyance. It makes me almost powerless when I'm in a noisy place because my head is so used to quietness that it  can't bear noise anymore !

"The problem is that peacefully dealing with incompatible people is crucial to living in a society. In fact, if you think about it, peacefully dealing with people you can't stand is society."

If we had a chance to pick the society we want to be in , we'd probably choose to be living among people who are similar to us . And living among homogeneous groups is more like living isolated because living alone can't give us the chance of having new experiences in real life.

Oussama Rahbani in the Presence of Prince of Wales

I Long For My Mother's Bread - English Subtitles

"Snatch My Passport From Me" !

Something I had to learn and to get used to is, filling official applications. I filled hundreds of university applications and other less important ones. The biggest puzzle which always hindered me is, the question of ethnicity. Going through the check list ( Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Indian, etc..), and thinking that I'm none of those! I'm not dark enough to be black. I’m not fair enough to be white. Saudi Arabia is in Asia, but I'm not sure if "they" mean people from Asia, the continent to refer to “Asians”! Many people come to me and start talking in Spanish, but I've never been to any Spanish-speaking country, even though I identify with many aspects of their culture. “Indian” refers to Native Americans and I'm not Native American. Here is what I'm looking for in the list, “Others”! But too bad ! I have to specify if I want to check “others”! What about Middle-Eastern ? But some friends told me that Americans use this term to refer to people from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Is it good a good idea to identify myself as Saudi ?What about checking ( Others) and specifying ( None) ? !

Why do I have to categorize myself only according to the limited categories they have ? Why do you I have to be only the different nationalities they know exist ? I'm not Asian and I'm not white nor black. I’m not Saudi, I'm Hejazi which I'm sure they don't know, because it's not on their list ! So, don't I exist only because they don't have Hejaz in their list ?!

I'm NONE, because I belong to the sky, to the sea, to the sun and the moon, to birds and trees, to stones and mountains, to deserts and snow, and most importantly to the big human family.

I’m none because my passport does not say to which place and to what people I truly belong. Certainly I'm NONE in a country that emphasizes my difference every time I fill an application !

Here I'm reminded of Marcel Khalife's song Passport, which is written by Mahmoud Darwich, who was born in Israel and carried the Israeli passport, but actually was Arab who happened to be born in the Israeli borders. Here are what Darwish's says :

"They didn't recognize me in the shadows
That absorb my color in the passport
And my wound was to them an exhibition on display
To a tourist living to collect photographs

They didn't recognize me...Don't leave
My palm without a sun
Because the trees recognize me
Every song of the rain knows me
Don't leave me pale like the moon

All the birds that followed
My palm to the door of the distant airport
All the fields of wheat
All the prisons
All the white gravestones
All the borders
Every handkerchief that was waved
All the eyes
Were with me, but
They dropped them from my passport

Stripped of my name, of my identity
On soul I nourished with my own two hands
Today Job yelled filling the sky
"Don't make me into a lesson again"
Oh gentleman, oh gentleman of the prophets
Don't ask the trees their names
Don't ask the valleys who their mothers are
From my forehead bursts a sword of light
And from my hand springs a river of water
All the people's hearts are my nationality
So snatch my passport from me"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJyKmW9STuk&feature=related

And I cry with him : SNATCH MY PASSPORT....

Two in One !

This is a story who was born in Madinah ( formerly Hejaz, currently Saudi Arabia).When she was just three years old , she moved with her parents to Canada and after that to London since her father was working on his Masters and PHD degrees there. She heard her parents speaking in Arabic at home , but she also heard and spoke with her teachers in English in preschool.She went  back to live in Saudi Arabia when she was in her early school years and had a difficult time adjusting to the Saudi ways. She was very shy in school and her teachers complained that she barely talked in class ! In fact, she was shocked by the strict harsh way of teaching! She could not understand why teachers were yelling at students and why students feared them that much ! But she did fear her teachers, especially the maths big loud teacher who threatened girls that she would beat them with her long ruler if they don't memorize the multiplication table! No wonder , she hated maths!
The girl continued to live in Madinah until she was 24-years-old , but she never felt that she belonged there! Actually, she always felt that she was acting a role that was never meant to be hers, but she was already  on stage and she had no other option but to do it !
In 22nd  June 2007, she found herself  a graduate student  in the United States and thinking that she will finally get rid of the alienation she felt in the country she was born. A few months later, she realized that she would be living a new kind of alienation and a new kind of loneliness!
The girl is not quite here and really there! She is stuck in the cruel misery of the East , and confined with the crazy materialism of the West! She speaks Arabic with Arabs and speaks English with Americans and non-Arabs. She thinks she started to think in English , but she feels that she can not feel except with her Arabic side ! Certainly she feels with her English side as well, but she definitely thinks about what she should be feeling according to the American cultural expectations! She is absolutely playing a double- role , but in the case of the English role she consciously causes her reactions whereas she reacts unconsciously with the Arabic role !
Which one is she ? The Arab girl or the Americanized girl ? To what degree did she get rid of her cultural  heritage ? To what degree did she embrace the American ways? Is there a way out of the trap of those two contradictory worlds ?
Let's dive into her memories , thoughts, visions and words and see if we can find her a way out !