I had a dream!

4 April 2008

It is year 1984, although I am not quite sure. I shouldn't be grown up and all if it was so. We are living in a gigantic, gloomy, soviet-like apartment complex. It is as though the whole country is boxed into it. Most of it is comprised of large, windowless cubicles; with greasy-gray walls, cracked floor and battered rusty-iron tables. Posters are abundant; and an overwhelming smell of filth, tobacco, and bad coffee fills the place, altogether creating a suffocating atmosphere of misery. Groups of weary, fearful men are roaming the place…

Suddenly, the scene changes: I am inside a small, neon-lit detention cubicle faced by one of these men. He is a middle-aged, grim man with an untrimmed, short grayish beard and a tough complexion. For a second it looked as if his face combines all the hatred in our world...something about him was sickening and formidable. Simply, you can identify him as the big boss.
Although I don't remember the details of questioning, but he suddenly comes up with the brilliant idea that we are no longer allowed to live in the complex. Not to be evicted, instead, to be...evaporated. He orders his men to “get us”. They receive the order with almost ecstatic eagerness. Off they go, like wolves after their prey. A dreadful feeling of approaching doom filled me instantly, an instinct sensation of imminent threat. An unexplained catastrophe was about to fall upon us.

I don't know how or why, but I had the power to fly! The next thing I know, my father and I are standing in front of an elevator, a clean, hotel-like one. He takes out $10,000 of his pocket, all of what he has left, he split it into halves. He hands one half to me: you're going to need this, he says. We go in to opposite directions.

I am flying all around the complex, although I feel something is holding me down. We are being followed. The Big Boss's lads are after us. We had agreed to meet outside. We should be able to escape out of the back door of an old mansion: a large wooden cottage that is strangely built into one of the complex's upper levels. It is a long way to go. After many twists and hides, I reach the upper level. It is a classy, shiny place that you would not hope to find an old wooden cottage behind any of its doors. A group of Asian men are meeting with some local officials, and there's only one possibility, I think, of what they might be doing: conspiring. I manage to reach the front door of the mansion, where I see the boys pulling one poor old man, apparently trying to escape, out of it. He is handcuffed. They close the entrance. It is the end, I think. But then I somehow remember that the old mansion has a back door, although it is a long way to reach it. I had hoped to hide behind the stairwell, but I find it guarded, my heart sinks as I think for a second that they saw me...

I don't remember how, but somehow I end up inside the mansion, hurrying towards the back exit, and the lads are after me. I reach a glassy room, with small, dirty glass windows that are locked by iron bars. One guy is immediately behind me. I find a tool to cut the bars, but it is dull; and I fear it is going to take a long time and they'll get me. But time I have not, I make two crossed-cuts in one of the smaller glass windows and I break it open with my bare fist. I escape out of the small window while the guy is just about to cut across my waist with a huge iron pliers trying to stop me. I notice how beautiful the place outside the complex is: a large extended green pasture with a river coming across. I fly over the place, filled with great joy, heading towards an unknown destination. I finally feel relieved, and ... I wake up.

At the time, I had no clue on what this confused dream meant. I believe most of our dreams come from a deep, suppressed desire in our subconscious. Only few of them, if any, might be meant to happen in the future, but there's no way to prove or disprove that except in retrospect.

But for some reason, I have a very strong feeling that I will, one day, somehow, break out of that filthy complex and go see the world

Here we go again

When I started writing this blog, I had no idea on what it's going to be. It was mainly a description of exciting events and thrilling thoughts I was encountering in England. In retrospect, it seems to me as a description of a rather sweet kind of cultural shock. While this pleasant shock made me start blogging, it was the appalling reverse cultural shock I had after coming back to Syria that made me quite Blogmania altogether. Now, I am "back", and experiencing a "double" cultural difference: the helluva difference between Syria and the USA (of course), and the one based on the stupid assumption that I would find America to be "almost" like England. So here we go again.

When I say cultural shock people might think I'm talking about stuff like driver's seat being on the right, the electricity being 110 volts instead of 220, having to squat down to use the toilet, or the dime being actually smaller in size than the five cents coin. But that sort of stuff doesn't really matter and would only cause a problem to an obsessive-compulsive. Surprisingly, what I'm talking about are stuff like People smiling back at you, cars stopping for you to cross, how everything here will start almost on time instead of being always half an hour late, streets having names and directions for Heaven's sake, and the fact that everything here seems to strangely work out instead to screwing up due to some mighty destiny. These kind of stuff make the concept of cultural shock seem absurd, but the difference still exist anyway. However, I can assure you that, under right weather conditions, it wouldn't take any sane person more than two hours to get used to the place. Cultural shock my ass.

And here I am, back and kicking! But would I need to describe my mood during the last non-blogging months for you? Well, you can continue reading if interested, or you can quit and wait for Lessons from London, my series on cultural shock that is still worth writing even though I have left England more than a year ago.

Depression is not the right word for it. I would say 'disgust', but I really think language is limited to come up with a descriptive word that combines the positive (yes, there is!) and negative aspects of living in a messed-up place like Damascus. Anyway, I can say that those who haven't been there would have no idea on what I'm talking about, while those who live there would know what I'm talking about anyway and need no description.
I would only say that I am easily affected by surrounding environment, and I can go all the way up or down simply for being with a genius or with an asshole. I don't blame anybody other than myself for that, and I can say that this last year has told me more about myself that the past 6 years together.

The most valuable gift anyone can give you is a reflective mirror to see your true face. To believe what you're seeing (the warts and all, to quote Cromwell) requires a huge amount of bravery. For that, I feel extremely happy I had the chance to know who really I am, to know my limitations, to expose my weakness, and to denude my vulnerability. Living in two extremely different environments would only enrich that experience.
I can't claim that I have finished with myself, but I daresay I know what I already have and what I still have to acquire. For all of that, I can now start to trust myself and learn to feel the confidence. After spending all that time preparing for just a single USMLE exam, I can trust my knowledge and say "I don't know" with a full mouth without embarrassment or shame. I can walk around in my white coat with the confidence of a learner instead of the arrogance of an ignorant. Most importantly, I can feel content, which is the key of true happiness.

So now, after being in 4 different countries in just four days, I am finally settled. And finally I can tell my dear fellow bloggers: here we go again.

Flashbacks from England; Ascribo's Dissociation

It was a narrow path that runs between the Pitts River Museum and New Marston Neighborhood of Oxford, England. I can still see the blue sign indicating that this is a cyclist/foot path. I observe people smiling back at me as they stroll along the leafy trail. Horses in farms on the right, the gleams of sunset colouring the horizon with golden red, a boy with a fishing rod on the left. Soft breeze is blowing; water-flow under the small bridge is making a soft, pleasant bubbling sound, and creating, with occasional songs of birds, a romantic scene.

Not after a long time, I find myself sitting in a train, staring at a panoramic view of Oxford, and thinking about my past two months, and my next station. Against me a young boy is playing cards with his father, his Mom is reading The Times.

Shortly, the scene changes. I'm staying in a Victorian guesthouse, then I'm standing confused (again!) in a large supermarket. Rain washes it away, to find myself sitting in a garden by the lake. Then the lake becomes a ship canal, and I'm standing at the top of a high tower. It's just like a mixed-up filmstrip...

Finally I’m sitting in a waiting hall at an Airport terminal. A Virgin Atlantic Jumbo is preparing to take off, and I’m solving Sudoku in today's copy of The Independent. After a while, as I'm taking a final glance at the beautiful green piece of land that surrounds Manchester Airport, I think I should have stayed more in this pleasant land. Eventually I fall asleep.

Next morning, I wake up on a different combination of sounds that comprises the most irritating melody I've heard in my life. If a picture equals a hundred words, then a video is worth a thousand pictures. You'd better take a look at what I saw from my room's window:

What a cruel, abrupt transition! In less than 24 hours my deadly calm room that looks upon Lyme valley turns into what you've just watched. From now on, this would be the morning annoying alarm. No more green horizons. I think of that Airlines agent asking: "Are you sure you want to fly on Thursday?” Then I dismiss all those memories to where they belong: the PAST, in an attempt to get back to the awful reality.

But now, after I somehow got over the so-called: reverse cultural shock, I'm starting to have flashbacks of those memories. I never expected that I'll see it all again so vividly, and to the smallest detail. But here it is, I start to feel my personality dissociating.

Finally Ascribo tells me he wants to get back to England. He insists he never wanted to leave it in the first place. Now he wants to stay in that "PAST", writing about what he's seen and learnt. I have no choice, for now, he is the one who thinks and dictates; I only write what he says.
We'll call it: "Lessons from London". I think it's interesting that although he's spent just few days there, but he got most of what he's learnt in England from that old city, the heart of civilized world, More or Less.

The Trains Story

I had this conversation with an Oxford student:

- How are you going there?
- By train
- I see. By the way, Do you use trains that much in Syira?
- No. We usually go by bus. It's faster.
- Bus is faster than train. Why?
- Well, we have some very old trains.
- Why is that?
- Well. Before the Word War I, Ottomans were building a railway network. Sultan Abdul Hamid II, with the help of Germans, created a unique, narrow-gauge, railway network. One reason behind that was to prevent the allies from bringing their trains and using the existing network. That was supposed to make it difficult for the allies to take over the region if they won the war, and so they did.
- Do you still have that network?
- It's still there. With date of start as old as 1900, it's a kind of a railway museum. However, we are "trying" to build a standard railway network, because nobody makes the narrow-gauge trains anymore, even Germans don't.
- Why Don't you make your own trains?!
- We...it's....I....I don't know

That was a hell of a straightforward question that kept me awake all night trying to figure out: Why on earth don't we make our own trains?

I was reciting that conversation again and again in my head:

- Why don't you have fast trains?
- Well, Because the Ottomans....

Wait a minute. Who? and When? Why we keep blaming our own problems on Ottomans, who left us before our grandparents were even born? And World War I !! As if it took place last year. Imagine going to fictitious Germany and asking someone: Why your country is destroyed? --> Well, because the allies bombed it during World War II.
What a goddamn answer would that be?

And we have a nice list of things to blame:
because the Ottomans..Because the French..Because the Occupation..Because the war...Because the imperialism..because of Israel...Because the goverment..because the Hell......We can always find somebody or something to blame our own mistakes on. We blame it on the weather if we're left only with it, and we haven't got any English weather, you know! But still, we can say: Because of the heat, or the wind, or the change anyway!

Have you ever heard in our part of the world somebody saying: We or I? Have you ever said: "It's my own fault"?

So, let's try to find a descent answer to that question: "Why don't you make your own trains?"
- "well, because we're a little bit lazy and stupid. that's all"... Or "Because we had two failure generations, and the third looks even worse"...Or "Because we are the best people on earth in finding execuses"...Or "Because we never admit our problems, so we'll never be able to work out solutions". Can You think of better replies?!

Why don't we Build our own trains?!

I'm still waiting for a descent answer!