After #EarthHour is over, it will be just like Iftar in #Ramadan: binge consumption.

— Kinan Jarjous (@jarofjuice) March 31, 2012

And herein lies the problem: we want to feel part of something that is much bigger than us; we participate, and when it is over, so is the participation. That is not to say that everyone will go back to heavy consumption, but through observation it is safe to assume that when Earth Hour is over, the majority of people will go on like nothing has ever happened. Unless the event coincides with a solar flare that will fry out the grids (and not just read on the news that they might), I hardly doubt many people will go beyond the hour. Just like when a large proportions of Muslims who observe Ramadan and fast all day end up binge-eating after sunset, missing out completely on the concepts of preservation and discipline. Dare I say that the amount of food wasted daily at Iftar around the world can feed a continent for that day? Food for thought.

So how are social causes any different? Yes, it is all nice and fun to be part of something — but where is the belief and the passion that go along with it?

Perhaps, then, wrapping the event around a challenge is actually a good idea; when you commit people to a challenge, they’re more likely to commit to the cause. And in the recent years with everything “going green” trending worldwide, all these green movements are starting to shape up. The fundamental reason behind this is what while the majority of people will go on with their power-hungry lives, those who go beyond the hour are making an impact. They’re spreading the awareness and are becoming role models for other people to follow.

The underlying principle here is not necessarily ”saving the planet”; it’s about discipline in consumption. Let it be power or water  or food or whatever resource. Earth is truly finite. Our lives are finite. Every single aspect of our lives is composed of fleeting moments. Why is it when the water is cut off, we manage to brush our teeth and do the dishes and other things with a bottle of water, whereas when it’s flowing out of the tap, we’re opening the tap all the way? 

Earth Hour — and most other things like it — are not just an hour-a-year social movement; they’re habits. So make conservation, and discipline, your habit.

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And I won’t sit here and talk about how terribly hypocritical I feel about going to eat sushi in Dubai when my own parents in Syria probably have little to go by on (and they’d never say). I won’t talk about how many times I’ve cried reading the news and how many texts and phone calls are beings written and made to make sure my friends and family are OK. There is really little point in expressing how difficult it is to go to work every day, to study, to go to gym, to do some photography work, and pretend and live life as though nothing is going on, because life is going on for me as it is for everyone in Syria and Palestine and every place in the world where a rocket falls.

Complaining about how little time there is to get anything done and have time for myself is something I’ve discussed many times and still fail to grow the balls to say “no” to things and pay attention to myself. And talking about all the “inconveniences” of life is really just arrogance because there are a billion things I forget to be thankful for and all these “inconveniences” are imposed or self-imposed perceptions.

Saying “sick and tired” and being sick and tired of being sick and tired really will not solve anything.

Image Credit: window by ~stareater

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1. Against All Odds

 

Our story begins on a fine White Christmas morning in Nomsburg, a calm village cocooned between Mt. Nomsingheim and Mt. Table Nom. Little Johnny, like all boys his age, is being dragged by his mother, Alice, to visit the family. “Holidays are all about being with family,” she says, trying her best to keep hold of Johnny. “But where’s dad! He’s not coming! And neither are Charlie and Jen!” Sad little Johnny; he woke up late this morning.

 

Robert was busy with his choir, singing all sorts melodies in an attempt to instill a feeling of warmth in the bitter, cold day. Robert is no stranger to bitterness; he’s not leading the life he aspired to live, but has to. Often, he parallels his life with that of Alice whenever she comes to church, carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Everyone in Nomsburg knew of her marital problems; her husband, Tim, has pretty much been the catalyst in creating everyone else’s marital problems. Only problem with Robert is that he has to keep his problems to himself.

 

Meanwhile, Charlie and Jen are having a blast at the local fair, the only place in Nomsburg with a green patch of land. “Glad we woke up early,” cheered Charlie gleefully at his sister, “Imagine having to go see Aunt Betty.” Who would blame them? Aunt Betty is not exactly a role model for anything that’s good in the world; the only reason she’s not dead is because God doesn’t want her up there. “I know, good grief I would murder myself,” Jen replied dismissively. “Now give me that popcorn.” Fun times for Charlie and Jen. Sad little Johnny.

 

Stumpy (yes, the Gnome — you think I’d keep the little guy out?) has a nice life. Though everyone looks down on him — more than looking down at him — he’s actually a happy midget. He has no debt, he quarrels with no one, he has no Gnomette to make his life miserable, and more importantly, no one gives a shit about him so no one ever meddles in his life. Lucky midget.

 

Tim. Classy man with a refined taste in china, tea, tobacco, and hats — but not in women. He slept with everyone in Nomsburg except Alice… well of course he had to when Charlie and Jen had to be conceived. Not Johnny though; that sad little kid is a bastard. Poor little Johnny. Anyway, Tim had no intention of going to see Aunt Betty either; he believes she should stay in an asylum. Probably why she lives in Nomsburg.

 

In the bigger picture of things, though, Nomsburg is a charming, peaceful little place… until Johnny finds out who his real dad is anyway. But no one cares about his dad. He’s just a Gnome, after all.

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What I learned from the experience — other than the letters occupied wider space and have become more ornate since I stopped writing in my journal — is that not only is it rewarding (oh, the joys of handwriting a long essay!) but it is more personal, genuine, and full of soul. But more importantly, it gave me the time to think.

With a computer and a keyboard, and like the millions worldwide, I have become quite adept at typing fast. I won’t go into the whole identity dissociation with the fonts — that’s another topic; however, it gave me the chance to slow down my thoughts and communicate them more effectively.

In typing, I can type just as I would think out loud; indeed, some of my posts here or in my “digital journal” have been just that: an ad verbatim written version of my thoughts, unadulterated and often nonsensical. It makes sense then that, when writing an essay in college, I have been told to always “sleep on it” and re-read the text at a later time. 

While writing, however, my hand cannot keep up with my thoughts so my only option is to slow my thoughts down. By the time I finish writing the current sentence, my brain has already given the next four or five sentences another thought and has reworked them; in fact, often by the time I am done writing a single thought, I no longer feel the need to write the other ones as my brain has found no relevancy to the current subject or has resolved the conflict by the time I finished the manual work.

The digital age has created a generation of professional ranters — and I am one of the biggest, to be honest with myself — and I keep wondering how different and more insightful would we be had we given ourselves the chance to count to ten before writing something. Very often, this works wonders. I have had the urge to write something — be it a thought or a rant — and, instead of doing so, I have given myself a couple or so minutes to think it through before I post anything online. In particular, if I was on twitter I would write a lengthy tweet which, by the time I manage to paraphrase into 140 characters, ends up being scrapped because my brain has had the time to process the logic and the emotions, not just the latter.

And probably that’s the greatest learning from writing, and certainly from almost everything “old school”: patience. The patience to give ourselves and the people around us a second chance. The patience to ponder how things came to be and how the universe works. To enjoy a slow conversation that does not have to cover a hundred different subjects. The patience to spell out “fourteen” instead of writing the digits in a sentence. The patience to craft someone a gift instead of purchasing a mass-produced, soulless item. The patience to add a personal touch to our writing, our loved ones, our work, our hobbies, and whatever we produce, be it physical or an act of kindness or expression of the self.

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A few days ago, I was driving to work and part of my regular route takes me through the formerly-dreadful roundabout on Al-Khail road, which was jammed in traffic. The culprit turned out to be dead traffic lights, giving everyone authority over the road and resulting in a semi-deadlock.

That scenario to me became symbolic of how we conduct our lives.

We love freedom. We fight for freedom. Many across this region have been, and many have died in the process. All of us want our voice to be heard; we want to share our opinions on issues that matter to us on a personal level and at the community level — without being thrown in jail for doing so. We all want to leverage globalisation and technology to propagate our ideas (conscious or subconscious) into the digital realm of this universe. We want to be liberated from shackles that have been limiting our movements, choices, and opportunities for generations. And we all want to do so because we believe we’re entitled to. As a matter of fact, we are.

But.

We love control. We are wired to compartmentalise, label, assess, assign, leverage, and conduct our lives in an “orderly, proper” fashion. We want to feel empowered and the way we believe we do it is by gaining control. We want to control how people correspond with us. We want to control our social aspects of our lives. We want to control our kids, how the family treats guests, how dinner is prepared, and our conduct. We want to control other people’s ideas, influence, power, resources, and habits. We want people to conform to our ideas — whether we do so through concious coercion or subconscious manipulation — because our ideas are just too damn good.

But.

We abhor being controlled. We want to be free from this “order”. We want to “think out of the box” and “liberate our senses” and “free our emotions” and “be tolerant” and “learn from differences” and and and.

And… what do you get when you give people freedom? A deadlock in a roundabout. Because not one goddamned person — myself included — would want to wait for others to pass by if I could squeeze in a bit to the right and wiggle myself out to the other side of the road. We are opportunists and we take the opportunity of this new-found freedom by trying to control it. It’s all ours. OURS! Freedom is finite and is to be exercised at the expense of others.

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, pull back the curtains, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” — Frank Zappa

Has it always been like this? Most probably — but then there’s so much of it now, I have to stop and ponder why all of this is happening. There are some dimensions at play, but if I want to look back at history, there are only two constants: time, and discontent.

Indeed, being in a state of continuous dissatisfaction is what drives innovation and what drives people to break the status quo. That’s the good side of it; when the good rears its ugly butt, you get greed. Infinite greed, and that’s what is the core issue of many of our problems today. And time? Because of all of this more more more approach to living the world, we end up with stressed and highly fragmented minds. We want to reach our destination in the fastest time so we can do as many things as possible so that we have time to do even more things — most of which do not add any value. We labour during the day and moan after hours and hardly 5% of the population is truly satisfied with what they do and spend no more time than required to do what they do.

Here’s how it works: in the yesteryears, people had more time to do less things. Now, we have less time to do more things. What this results in is fragmented minds, fragmented lives, empty days and time lost. You get all sorts of books on the subject matter as well as numerous articles online. Almost every other day I come across an article with a new way to get things done or to better your “time management”. Sorry, but time is constant; it should be called “Clutter Management”. We end up discontent and we want to be free from all of this and we want to do it by taking control of what’s around us.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work. When we live in an age with a brief attention span, our lives jammed with deadlines (and what a dead, flat line life we live), and we are continuously dissatisfied and want to do something about it but can’t — because you know, someone else is exercising their freedom at your expense — we do not sit and ponder the interesting aspects and big questions of life.

We let scientists do that, and we google the results at one point. When we have the time.

Photo credit: Illusion of Freedom by ahermin

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1. The Social Farce

Should have been.

Though in Syria I tend to spend my time completely offline, this visit was a bit different and more often than not I had an impulsive urge to share what I was doing with everyone, especially stories that my grandmother narrated to me on the balcony as we observed the streets and prepared Freekeh. Yet I was completely disconnected — and other than email on my mobile phone, I was completely cut off from the outside world.

The first week I suffered from severe withdrawal symptoms. I had dreams of shrinking URLs and twitpics. I created conversation scenarios in my head and lived them, whether they be on twitter or Facebook. Quite sad, right?

When I accepted the fact that I could not use social media, I was flown back to Dubai. Armed with my new-found self confidence that I can remain unplugged for a longer time, I deactivated my Facebook (quite a dumb thing to do as I use many services with the FB login, but that’s another story) and uninstalled all applications (twitter, G+, etc) from all my devices and browsers.

And I came to this conclusion:

• It is so w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l to be away and focus for once in my life! To have the time (shock) to read books and go out and do other things! To not have to deal with links about Google Plus on Google Plus! 
• Living without social media is d-r-e-a-d-f-u-l. I miss how enriching interactions are and how I felt I was part of a community.

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An Indian Muslim vendor separates the seeds of a pomegranate at a roadside stall in preparation for Muslims breaking their fast at sundown in Mumbai, India on August 19, 2010. (SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images)

There are plenty of wonderful blog posts on Ramadan, including this one from last year by Mich and an updated version for this year here. Practically any news outlet is now talking about Ramadan, in any way or another, and marketing it as a product.

This is my concern.

Everywhere you will read something along the lines of “Ramadan is a time of reflection” and “it is a time of prayers, feeling for the poor, meditation, and sharing” among other things. Then in the next line you would find ill-crafted text that goes “Join us at our luxurious and exclusive Ramadan tent with open buffet for only AED 400 per person”. Then a little asterisk leads you to the fine print which mentions that your AED 400 does not include your shisha and the 15% tax. 

Right.

In case you are interested, this is an image of what feeding the poor is like, just in case the exclusive tent does not have charity envelopes for you to donate in:

A child sits with a plate of food that was distributed as part of the holy month of Ramadan, at a refugee camp in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday, Aug. 14, 2010. (AP Photo/Mustafa Quraishi)

Here’s a list of things I do not like about how Ramadan is being practised these days (generally as well as locally):

- Marketing products you hardly ever needed with plasters boasting a Ramadan discount or something along the lines of “in the spirit of Ramadan”.

- The endless barrage of TV soaps and shows, most of which are pointless and have nothing to do with the “Ramadan spirit” or “time of reflection and meditation”. Unless you’re a mosquito that can’t avoid anything glowing, that’s hardly meditation.

- Speaking of glowing, what’s with the jewellery industry crafting gold and diamond necklaces specifically for Ramadan? Is it a status symbol that I wear a ridiculously priced (and usually terribly designed) piece of jewellery that shows my religious support?

- People storming markets and grocery stores as though they have heard that there is no more oil in the world to transport anything further and what you have is all what you would eat till you die from starvation. People should be eating less during Ramadan — you’re shaving off more than half of the day fasting — yet somehow gluttony has become synonymous with Ramadan.

- Ill-tempered people. Okay I understand you have not had your coffee and you have not had your cigarette. That’s the point of fasting: testing your temper and tolerance. Fasting is not an excuse for you to be bad tempered. It is a motive for you to control yourself. I can understand some random bursts here and there — we are human, after all — but to still be a crazed lunatic as Ramadan comes to a close means you have missed the point.

- Speaking of lunatics: people driving. I do not need to elaborate.

- What pisses me off the most: Non-fasting people should not eat and/or drink in front or close to those who fast “to protect their feelings”. I appreciate your concern but Muslims should toughen up and stop victimising themselves with fasting excuses. Again, it’s testing your temptation. If you’re not fasting, you should be able to eat and drink as you please. If you don’t want to out of respect, that’s your choice, but having a law that can put you in jail because of eating and drinking in public is uncalled for. In malls, you see food outlets closed with very few open and barricaded to hide those who are eating. Seriously? My friends in Lebanon and Syria thankfully report otherwise.

I can go on and on but that would bore you. So if you have any other gripes at how people practise Ramadan, please mention it in the comments. 

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“It made us so mad. Such an injustice. We have decided, we will marry them,” said Ibrahim Kayyis, a 32-year-old baker from Jisr al-Shugour, a town that was stormed by troops. To reclaim their “honor,” families in Syria have been known to kill raped female members. Even if families allow such women to live, they are not eligible to marry. “We sat and discussed that we want to change this. We don’t want to change just the regime in Syria, but also this kind of stuff. So we will marry them in front of everyone,” Kayyis said.

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My director asked me a few weeks ago: “What do you think is the future of social media?”. I replied with silence; I did not know what the future of social media is, because I believe it is built around a psyche that is adept at being delusional yet can be broken by an odd individual. I believe that that we are ushered into an era where we believe that we are empowered. We believe we have power because we now believe our voices are heard. We believe we can change our world because the rest of the world is now watching. Common folk like you and I and a horde of other people. Our ideas are becoming a by-product of the corner of the massive pool we happen to swim in. And, indeed, we have seen countless examples of this “empowerment”.

But we never stop to ask why we have been empowered, and where is this en masse cognitive process going – and who is driving it. We never stop and wonder that we are being heard in most cases because the recipients are exercising mob-control. We almost never consider that instead of being heard, we are being herded.

When there were little options and little opportunities, people knew what they wanted. People knew the market, each other, their needs, and their desires. Now, people have little knowledge of what they want, and, if they do, they need reassurance from their peers.

Here I am in an era with an infinite amount of options none of which is satisfactory. I am in an era which screams FREEDOM when everyone is a prisoner of their own mind. I am in an era where we juggle between many gadgets and services and our to-do lists get bigger and longer. We need tables and sheets and agendas and Excel and three hundred web-apps to keep track of what we’re doing and keep track of all the other apps we use to keep track of us. Every single aspect of our life has become a target for a service, and then we have services and apps which attempt to consolidate our fragmented lives into one “box”.

Our minds have become so fragmented that we fail to see how broken the system is.

There is a difference between riding the bandwagon and doing things right – though anyone at this point can still theorise at what is right and what is not. Every time I hear “social” I begin to imagine a group of silhouetted individuals in a grey, bland room with flashy rings and teeth and a projector displaying some random infograph (which have become a commodity right now and information unusable within days) plotting their next strategy to brainwash people en masse.

If I were the word “social” I would have killed myself right now.

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And here’s the first example of double standards, coming from yours truly:

The content of this post is a personal opinion of mine and not a reflection of any bloody entity I have worked in, working in, will work in, studied in, serviced, or been serviced by, sexually or otherwise, metaphorically or in the literal sense, in this life or the next, in my dreams, be they wet or dry, real or fictional, in any country on this planet, terrestrial, aquatic, aerial or virtual.

credit: sh4hid

Now on to the main point: WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE DOUBLE STANDARDS?! (including – but definitely not starting – with myself)

Here’s a prime example I have been experiencing since I lost my job in 2009: Almost every company I apply to is seeking a professional candidate (side note: please drop these stupid terminologies, HR) with a myriad of impossibly complex skills to perform tasks that a well trained monkey will be able to perform, eventually. Most notably are soft-skills such as your amazing ability to motivate yourself to move forward while the company closes all doors of hope in your face and subjects you to endless psychosomatic torture.

So the interview goes smoothly for a few minutes before the interviewer’s eyes widen at the blasphemous text which claims I am studying Masters. “Oh, you’re studying,” remarks the now-doubtful interviewer, “how will this affect your working hours and commitment?”

Seriously? You seek a person who is self-learning, self-improving, multi-talented, multi-tasking, multi-anus, and instead of commending their pursuit of self-everything you start questioning business impact? How about you change attitude and say “Oh wow, that is impressive. We would certainly put your skills into good use in improving how we conduct our work and bring in fresh insights to our dinosaur of an organisation.” A couple of friends abroad tell, and some here (from Abu Dhabi) tell me that their companies pay their tuition as an incentive to continue their education.

I lost count of the number of times me and my friends have been rejected or put on the sideline because we are trying to better ourselves.

If you just want to meet your bottom lines, then change the job descriptions and change your screening criteria. If you want competent people who have the potential of doing things differently or better – whether or not they eventually do so – then be more receptive.

I am not kissing ass here but I am glad my boss has so far been receptive.

Now, moving on: WHY THE HECK IS EDUCATION DOUBLE STANDARD? It feels as though the mediocrity of education is directly proportional to your investment. Wikipedia is the most comprehensive school you can ever find – and it’s free. I am not undermining formal education of course – but at least provide a service that is equivalent of how much money I am investing. The frustrations I have towards my college is enough to warrant a cardiac arrest; in fact, I probably will just drop dead on my graduation day – which, by the way, has been pushed six months because of a course offered only once a year (which is ridiculous considering it is a foundation course).

There is just so much I have to say – companies and brands which force their employees to only use their products (examples are cigarette companies and soft drink companies and probably condom companies). Brand loyalty? Through chronic exposure? Or how about companies which claim to be pro-free-speech and support global causes (such as uprisings and the such) yet at the same time ask you to remove any remarks made about clients? Are we now instruments to our organisations that we cannot voice our own opinions without consent? The same companies whose employees tweet and post about the backwardness of authoritarian rule will themselves practice such methods in their organisations.

I grow sick and mentally deranged every day as I read the same tired news all over the web, news outlets, and the only thing that’s noisier than a baby: twitter. So much bullshit going on and I have no idea what’s what any more. Almost everyone on this planet have become pawns and puppets of circumstances. The term “social media expert” has changed from “unemployed and tweeting” to “client bitch” instead of “on-line business enabler”. Whatever is “trending” or in the flow – everyone else flows the same way.

We are *all* striving to be unique and proudly exhibit our uniqueness yet we struggle with the sense of belonging with everyone else and become like everyone else. We all have different capacities in accepting/changing double standards around us – but the cardinal sin is to be in our own.

That’s how it has become post Web 2.0, and on some level I envy the “backwards” people who are content with the little things they have. At an era when reading a book has become a luxury, it is time to say no to bullshit.

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What I am talking about here is my workaholism. The irony of things is that I love to relax and do nothing sometimes, yet I am addicted to work. I always keep myself busy. With my current financial situation I sometimes have no choice, yet I know a lot of the times I am being too hard on myself.

Discipline is good, but I am burning myself out. My priorities are jumbled up because everything is a priority to me. I haven’t seen my friends in a long time even. Aaargh!

I know I have to take a holiday and I know I have to mix some fun into my life. My brain is a bit exhausted and I am working hard instead of working well.

I’m thinking of giving a fresh look at everything I am doing, from work to daily habits, and see what I truly value in doing and filter out things I do for the sake of being OCD like, for instance, saving each and every photo I find on some sites and sort them by date, author, alphabetically, subject, or a combination (yes, I am that anal).

Time to get my mojo back!

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Suicide rates worldwide range about 10-14 people per 100,000. That’s anywhere between 650,000 to a million people per year. People joke and say that we’re the best swimmers among the 200 million others when our parents copulated. But it’s much more than that. You’re 1:200 million of that specific mating session. Don’t forget the many times your parents have been trying – or not, for that matter. Add another layer of complexity by the odds of your parents existing because of their parents, and so on and so forth, and you’d find that the probability that you – as the person reading this – existing now is staggeringly impossible.

Yet you exist (and, if you’re a bit of a pessimist, so does Justin Bieber).

Want it more complex? Look at the friends you’re close with and the people whose life you touch and allow your life to be touched by them. What are the odds that they – just like you – sprung to life, and, against other odds, crossed paths with you?

People talk about finding purpose in life, a calling; a mission. Some people find it, some people make up something, and some others don’t. Others don’t even bother. Nothing wrong with any of those.

The point I am trying to make here is that everything around us that we come in touch with – right here and today – is against their own odds yet we currently co-exist.

Where we take things from here is not only making a choice on our behalf, but possibly affecting the odds of a billion other things around us, current and future.

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Many events have transpired in the past month that were more worthy of blog space and mental energy than a couple of movie reviews. Indeed, the Egyptian Protests are taking the Arab and most of the rest of the world by storm, as well as our daily, petty problems which, small as they may be, eventually force us to throw in the towel and hope for a better day when we wake up.

For long, I have had the urge to write about many things… things of seriousness and love and humour and nonsense. I kept them in my head instead, until this very moment as I write these thoughts down.

What makes us careless to attend to ourselves? The more I observe twitter, or Facebook for that matter, the more I see people trying to find themselves amongst a crowd. That is not necessarily a bad thing, of course, however, I do feel that perhaps taking some time off to find myself without the crowd is what I need. I’ve put many friends and activities on hold as I pursued the unnecessary, online and offline. I got caught up in my busy schedule that I visited my best friend on the second day after his major operation.

I have so much to write about that I forgot why I started writing this post to begin with.

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Gulliver’s Travels 3D

The movie is less than decent and effectively ruined the story I loved back in my childhood days. There were some moments of dry humour but the overall production values were a jumble; some scenes looked good enough and the rest were disappointing. It’s 2011 and somehow camera manipulation between giant and midgets is inexplicably disastrous. I also fail to see why the movie advertises itself in 3D as apparently there is nothing 3D-ish about it. As for the story… a used condom has more interesting travel tales to tell. View trailer here.

The Mechanic

Movie is average; better than the one above for sure but has an uneven pace. It starts off slowly, a prominent guy gets killed without much character development for you to care about, and eventually picks up into lots of explosions and shooting. Story is predictable with absolutely no twist whatsoever. View trailer here.

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Blogging truly has become a luxury, hasn’t it? It is no fault but my inability to properly manage my time; there is always a distraction around every corner and my mind is addicted to distractions. Perhaps out of general boredom, or out of inquisitiveness, I am not totally sure. However, what I am sure of is that I need to earn my minutes back.

In any case, our wonderful Dina tagged me in an interesting post; a small interview that I would usually avoid but not this time. I will not tag anyone so you are free to write up a post if it tickles your fancy.

I have some posts coming up as well and will be in the process of writing them in the duration of this weekend. In the meantime:

If you blog anonymously, are you happy doing this? If you aren’t anonymous, do you wish you started out anonymously, so that you could be anonymous now?

I have another anonymous blog that is on private and it serves as my online diary in the case where I don’t have access to my notebook and a pen. However, I don’t write there much, and I don’t regret what I write here (and I cleaned up many posts already). “Jar of Juice” started out as a fun-filled, humorous blog and the paradigm is slowly shifting towards personal thoughts and writing. I don’t regret the change of direction and the blog should always be a reflection of who I am.

Describe an incident that shows your inner stubborn side.

Any hopeless romantic is inherently stubborn and persistent in the matters of the heart. In other areas of life, though, I am quite easy-going.

What do you see when you really look at yourself in the mirror?

Someone lost but happy to be so; great things are bound to happen even if they take their time.

What is your favourite summer cold drink?

My favourite drink of any season is water.

When you take time for yourself, what do you do?

Write.

Is there something that you still want to accomplish in your life?

I still (hopefully) have many years ahead of me and there are many things I would like to accomplish. However, the centre theme of accomplishments is tangible change on the human-level. I don’t believe I will be a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs and not because I lack ambition or talent or opportunity, but because my definition of success does not have a dollar or another anonymous value. Yes, a nice sum of money won’t hurt anyone, but it is not the only defining factor for success in my book.

When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the shy person, or always ditching?

Started with shy, then over-achiever, then back to shy and then ditching. Now it’s a mix of the three.

If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment in your life, what would you see?

The moment you realise that “there is chemistry”.

Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog, or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people and events?

I have no shame in admitting my faults and defeats and mistakes and in sharing my joys and laughs and sorrows.

If you had the choice to sit down and read a book or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?

I’d rather be writing a book… but for that there would be many books read and many phone calls, conversations, dinners, intimacy, hardships, and life experience to happen. But strictly between the two – reading a book, if I am not having a phone call with a loved one (is that not, on one level, like reading a book?).

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The baker, Gustav, is a wonderful gentleman. Stocky built and a heart of gold, he recently opened shop in the district and gathered a cult following in a relatively short time. Though he was not there that morning, his minions have prepared everything for me: Croissants, bagels, sourdough, hot-cross buns, viennoiserie, and panettone, though I would never be particularly fond of raisins. But Marie liked them.

By the time I finished with nonsensical business transactions (I would always have to spend an inordinate amount of time insisting to pay for the bread), the streets were slightly warmer and the sun was breathing life into the district. Some early risers were already on their way to work. Slightly envious, but grateful to what I have, I made my way back to my building.

Marie was already eating bagels.

“How dare you?” I snapped with a pinch of humour. “You know it is a Thursday and breakfast is on me!”

“I must be getting old, then,” said the disappointed Marie, as she placed her cold bagel in a bag. For the birds I presumed.

“Never worry, I brought panettone for you!”

“That’s is so LOVELY! What a fabulous way to start the Christmas spirit.” She grabbed the bread and dug her fingers inside, emphasising that she would have it all for herself.

“Don’t worry, raisins are too morbid for me.”

“I don’t belIEVE you!” aghast, and I never wondered why. “When I become Queen I will order nothing but raisins to be served!”

“And I would then have to dethrone you.” I sat down and admired the viennoiserie collection. I concluded that the Gods themselves ate nothing but baked products.

“So tell me so-” she was interrupted by an overflow of bread in her mouth. After she swallowed: “oh excuse me, but the bread is just too good! – ” and I thought of what the bread felt like between those lips – “so tell me something, did you manage to find work?”

“Yes, in loose terms. I am working part time now.” I indulged in the viennoiserie.

“You need to tell me more as I make tea.” She stood up and headed to one of the forgotten corners of the building I never adventured in. “I can hear you don’t worry!” she continued as she disappeared from sight.

“I should be getting an OK by January!” I yelled into nothingness. I could hear her trying to find spoons in what I assumed to be a metal factory.

“Oh that’s great!” she replied with a few moments’ delay.

“I do like the work; it is quite interesting!” I was running breathless with being loud and made my way into the labyrinth corridors, hunting for the little kitchenette. “I believe I have good chances on this one!” I continued, while looking left and right into empty hallways.

“That’s good news! Better than your old job then?” Her voice was clearer. I was heading in the right direction.

“Yeah I think-” and I had to stop in my tracks as I was an inch too close to bumping into her she was trying to make her way back.

We were both startled, and for a long minute I looked at nothing but a little piece of crumb on her lips. Our eyes met. I glanced back at the lips. Swallowed. Looked into her eyes. I don’t recall either of us breathing. I don’t recall the tea settling in the cups. I could hear nothing but my head throb.

I regained my breath. Slightly lifted my hands -

“Here’s your cup!” with the most wonderful blush I would see for years.

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Like most other short story books by any author, you get a mixed bag of good and not-so-good stories, but the positive side of things is that you can always skip the ones you do not like. With M is for Magic, unfortunately, I did skip many stories – many were already included in previous collections I have read, and others did not trigger my interest.

However, there were three notable stories I particularly liked. The Case of Four and Twenty Blackbirds is quite an interesting take on Humpty Dumpty, turning the whole story into an in-depth criminal investigation. The second story I liked was Troll Bridge, which tells a tale of the relationship between a kid and a troll. At face value it is a decent enough story, but with a little bit of a creative effort on your part you can project the scenario into your adult life.

The piece I particularly loved the most was Sunbird, primarily due to its nature: food. It is the story about a group of very rich friends who have eaten everything possibly edible (with over zealous descriptions), except the elusive Sunbird. I found the story particularly fascinating. Again, I was probably hungry.

Overall, M is for Magic is a good book, however, if you want a better collection of short stories I would recommend Fragile Things by the very same Neil Gaiman,

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1. Book Review: Fragile Things
2. Book Review: Aesop’s Fables
3. Book Review: Samarkand

Mind you I am not against the medium. Believe it or not I actually do work in a media agency that has a strong social media function. However I do not find the need to be part of the 80% of people who claim to be a Social Media Adjective and some Legendary Entrepreneur because I retweet Mashable and think that opening an online scarf shop is the next big thing (if it really is, though, well done on becoming an entrepreneur at that stage).

Back to the film: It’s surprisingly good. Not that I thought for a minute I would be very interested in knowing how Facebook came about – this is a Hollywood film afterall and is bound to be full of fiction – but it is because of the story telling and the plethora of interesting and funny actors.

While we tend to think the geniuses behind the big websites we use are a bunch of basement dwelling robots (and maybe, they are, and that is their choice if they’re happy with it), the film narrates the story of the personal struggles of the main characters with coping with the idea that they’re on to something. You can truly feel the zest and energy of the film as The Next Big Thing on the way happens.

However fictional the story is, it did a great job in creating a believable tale of intimate human relationships filled with humour. For a “drama” documentary it felt like a two hour sitcom. And I don’t see why not; if you’re going to add some fiction around someone’s life you might as well make it sweet and funny rather than bitter and grim – especially that Mark is still alive and kicking, something which I found an odd thing to do but someone had to jump on the social media bandwagon.

If you take out the fact that we’re talking about Mark and Facebook and social media then you end up with a regular weekend comedy in home pizza night with the friends type of movie. And quite frankly I think this is what the aim of the film really is.

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1. Movie Review: Quantum of Solace
2. Movie Review: The Unborn
3. Movie Review: Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland

On December 26th, 2008, on my dad’s birthday, I did something that was a result of exactly the opposite of everything I believed in. I grew up being taught, in school and at home, that honesty is a virtue. It is a moral code everyone should live by and follow. It is the essence of everything beautiful in life. Just like the innocence of children.

Whoever walks in integrity walks securely - Proverbs 10:9

من يسلك بالاستقامة يسلك بالأمان – الأمثال ١٠:٩

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3. Oddball of a World vol.3

Your Choice

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“I wish in a couple of years time I am done with this… that I live life as I want to live it… even if it means living on the edge, financially, and barely making ends meet. I want to experience the thrill of that little pay-check that would make me afford something. I want to do all the things I wanted and freelance and be busy all day but LOVE being busy. I want to be in the creative world, live simply, humbly, remove all these materialistic things that don’t make any sense. I want to feel true happiness. I want to smile from the inside, for once.”

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The event was hosted by Arif Naqvi, Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer, Abraaj Capital, and Fadi Ghandour, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Aramex. The panel of entrepreneurs included:

• Ahmed Bin Shabib, Founder, Shelter
• Rashed Bin Shabib, Founder, Brownbook
• Peyman Parham Al Awadhi, Co-founder, Wild Peeta
• Mohammad Parham Al Awadhi, Co-founder, Wild Peeta
• Sulaf Al-Zubi, CEO (UAE), INJAZ al-Arab
• Anas Bukhash, Managing Director, Ahdaaf
• Amel B.Makkawi, Owner and Director, Art Sawa

“I made the decision two years ago to stop going to conferences talking about entrepreneurship” [pause] “Except this one… because it is different.”

“Private equity is everything that is not public equity.”

It means you don't need antihistamines to work

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An Israeli motorist runs down a masked Palestinian youth who was among a group of boys throwing stones at Israeli cars in the mostly Arab east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.

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