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.

Lesson No.1: Inspired

Expressing one's self; Effect of environment

It has been a while. I don't even know how I'm supposed to feel. What's the purpose? I ask myself. Why I am blogging? I can easily find one thousand reasons for not doing so.

It’s astonishing future can be different from how we (like to) imagine it. In my England days, I had absolutely no difficulty in expressing my ideas, at least in writing. I only was too busy to write it all. Besides, I was living the experience, learning the lessons. I thought to myself: well, I’ll have all the time in the world to write about my lessons when I get back. Apparently, it didn’t work that way.

So what’s the problem? Does it really take more than a pen and a piece of paper in front of you to write what’s in your mind? I can’t really say how it is going that way…I can only see it and feel sorry for myself. Sorry for not being able to write when I want to, at the time I choose, about the topic I pick. Never before I have felt the effect of environment to be that big on me. I knew I was always inspired by it, but hated to discover I was almost possessed. I bitterly found out that I can’t be who I am. I felt like a mirror, just reflecting beams. My belief in human will was fearfully deteriorating. The place where we live, people around us, the “atmosphere” as a whole, all owns a big share of the decisions we make…if you believe we can say: decide. We are just too weak to change everything around us, especially if everything seems like it needs to be changed.

I thought to myself: Had it not been for my short stay “there”, would I ever think about blogging? I doubt it. After all, the act of expressing one's ideas and thoughts has been quite uncommon during all those years. It may even be considered a dodgy business. Your feeling should be kept to yourself. When you’re anxious and frustrated you don’t nag, you say nothing. You put up a false smile so that even your closest friends think you’re happy. No one should be able to read your mind, interpret your ideas, or know how you’re feeling. Sometimes you don’t know how you’re feeling yourself. That’s the way it is. Nobody says what’s in mind, and nobody can change that. A very unhealthy environment for writing. So much for a blog. How can I challenge all the habits, problems and mistakes I grew up with? Why I was never late “there” and I’m never on time “here”? At least I want to know: how much of myself do I own?

“I looked at the sky through the white light and the water mist, and my chest was so constricted from all these arguments that I was amazed how birds could keep themselves in the air. Then I realized, perhaps they have no little voices in their head, telling them they can’t do things. Imagine every time a bird wanted to fly, it stopped breathing long enough to think why it shouldn’t fly. You would have a lot lame-winged contorted creatures hopping around on the beach”

When I read that I suddenly looked out of the window. It looked quite the same. Gleams of light were penetrating the heavy clouds of a late winter day. Birds were flying like I haven’t seen before. For the very first time, I felt myself a part of all that. I had wings, and I wanted to fly, too.

Is there any way out? Well, hardly, but yes. I shall get back to my dashboard, no matter how many reasons I can find for not doing so. After all, there are more reasons for things not to happen, but life still happens here and elsewhere. Embryos grow up to be born, even if it seems impossible when we think about it. Seeds that are buried under soil find some way out. Sun shines among the clouds. Universe is full of many and different forms of life that finally make it, against all odds.

I’ve been tagged!

I have been tagged some time ago, by both Abufares and Karin. I have to admit that I have always found personal questions, and specially the “What is your opinion?” ones, very difficult. Maybe I wasn’t trained to answer them at School. I have always had something ready for the answer, which I didn’t have to formulate or even criticize. Or maybe I am better at writing the inflection of my own thoughts than forcing my mind to go in any specific direction. Anyway, I’ll try my best at this challenge!

1. Which is the single best post you’ve read on any blog? Please provide link.
Well, that’s easy. Since my introduction to blogsphere was through Abufares, I always liked his post: Born Behind a wall. I am not wrong if if say that I haven’t read any better post since.

2. Which is the best post you’ve written? Which is your worst? Please provide links.
To myself, the better post that I’ve written (well, I have quite few posts to choose from) was the one about writing.
When I want to write something, I think about it for a long time. Or maybe it’s the other way around: when I think of something for a long time, I go ahead and write it. I always thought about writing, then I decided to start my own blog. So it’s not a surprise that my best post will be the tought that made me go blogging in the first place.

Oh, the worst one? For the same reason, I think my worst posts are the ones I haven’t written. I hate the idea that some of my deepest thinking moments are gone and will never be back again. I should have written those down.

3. How about a place you’ve never been to but would very much like to see.
That’s easy too, because it includes the whole world!

4. If you were a member of the opposite sex, what would you have done differently?
This is a confusing question. I cannot really find a good answer. But as we say in Arabic: “everything is beautiful in its time!”. But surely, I wouldn’t have pumped iron for 2-3 years!

5. Do you remember a childhood recurrent dream or nightmare? Good or bad, tell us about it.
I always (even recently) had a dream, or I should say a nightmare, where I feel like I need to run very quickly but couldn’t manage it. I think that stands for all my unfulfilled desires

6. Make me laugh or make me cry, put your words to use.

That is the most difficult one. I haven’t been any good at making people laugh. But on the other hand, I am not boring! What can make you really crying is the real suffering of people, which is not very hard to find in this part of the world. I don’t have such a story yet, sorry!

7. Do you regret the unfulfilled dreams, the inaccessible roads, the uncharted lands?
Each experience in life can teach me something new and valuable. Had I not had the missed opportunities, I would never have been able to know the real value of anything. I don’t regret anything I had missed, but only the opportunities that I wasn’t able to learn anything from.

8. What is a friend to you? And what are you to a friend?
Friendship is one of the few things that gives meaning to life. A friend is someone who I can trust without hesitation. Someone who I can spend my time with and enjoy it, without me or him getting bored. Someone who can offer a shoulder to cry on in the hard times. And a little bit more…

9. T.S. Eliot measured his life with coffee spoons, how about you?
It’s quite difficult to measure life. Let me say I would consider the number of friends, real dependable friends, as a meaningful number in my life.

10. Write your own epitaph, or if that is too hard, how would you like your epitaph to read?
I can say no better than: “Remember man as you walk by, as you are now so once was I, as I am now, so you will be, so prepare for death and follow me.” In Arabic, I would write what AlMa’arri said:
خفف الوطأ فما أرى أديم الأرض إلا من هذه الأجساد

Are you happy/satisfied with your blog with it's content and look?
I’m not totally satisfied with the tepmplate options. I don’t care about the look, but about the accessibility. I want my blog to be as easy to read as possible. For content I have a list of thoughts to write, but no time!

Does your family know about your blog?
Not all of them. Only those who can spend some time reading my nonsense know about it.

Do you feel embarrassed to let your friends know about your blog or you just consider it as a private thing?
I can write my posts and keep them in my notebook! I’m writing for people to read, comment and share ideas. I only seem to care too much about my e-anonymity.

Did blogs cause positive changes in your thoughts?
Sure. Blogging has helped me to know that it could be difficult to let people understand how exactly you’re thinking. It’s a great source of learning how to present your ideas in an acceptable way.

Do you only open the blogs of those who comment on your blog or you love to go and discover more by yourself?
I love to discover new blogs and new people. I can easily find an interesting post, but finding an interesting blog is more difficult.

What does visitors counter mean to you? Do you care about putting it in your blog?
Number of visitors has a great meaning for me. But the more important is the feedback I receive. A single comment worth 100 visitors. You can never tell if all those visitors enjoyed what you’ve written or not. But when some one can bother to write two or three lines, that means a lot.

Did you try to imagine your fellow bloggers and give them real pictures?
This seems like judging people’s appearance by the way they write. Everybody tries that, but it can hardly be successful. I’ve had many e-mails friend who turned out to look in a different way than I have ever imagined.

Admit. Do you think there is a real benefit for blogging?
I think yes. Even if nobody is reading what you’re writing, you can read it yourself after 10 years or so, and sure you’ll enjoy it. If you didn’t, it is simply a way of getting things off your chest!

Do you think that bloggers society is isolated from real world or interacts with events?
Bloggers can get their ideas from nowhere but real world. Our lives affect what we think, what we say, and what we write. Even when we try to imagine something, our imagination is based on our reality to a great extent. However, I think bloggers doesn’t affect real world that much, they only interact with each others and those who actually read!

Does criticism annoying you or do you feel it's a normal thing?
I am happy to receive any critisim. I would like to know how people receive me or think about me. I only don’t like critisim in public.

Do you fear of some political blogs and avoid them?
I enjoy reading different blogs of different kinds. I like to know how different people think about different things. That includes politics and everything else.

Did you get shocked by the arrest of some bloggers?
I truly belive that everyone has the right to say or write what ever he/she wants. Arresting bloggers is something like depriving them from their rights, or like punishing someone because of what he/she has written. I really detest that.

Did you think about what will happen to your blog after you die?
When someone dies many things are no longer of any importance for him. I basically try to deliver my ideas to people and to have them written somewhere before it’s too late. When I die: No ideas, no blog.

What do you like to hear? What's the song you like to put its link in your blog?
What I like to hear depends on my mood. I like classical music, and I think the one I like to put in my blog is Fur Elise, for Beethoven.

Writing

Before going on with my blog, I would like to discuss what I think is the idea behind blogging: that is Writing.

As you may or may not know, History has started since our ancestor caveman decided to sculpt some symbols representing his daily life on the wall of some caves. You can say that all people and, probably, civilizations who lived before that are pre-history. We simply know nothing about them.

What started history was that basic, simple, ridiculous recording of whatever early human considered as important to him. Written language might have passed through many phases before the appearance of Alphabet. But still, some people can look at some cave walls and say: somebody lived here...

It might have taken a long time since people started writing books, philosophy and other sophisticated subjects appeared later...But in the beginning, there was the word.

As Abufares once said: "Words give us the unlimited freedom to soar with the eagles or to fuck with the chickens". Indeed, words have unlimited abilities...
Words are the way to share your experiences with people you have never met, probably many generations after yours. They are the means of spreading human knowledge and the reservoir of all intellectual products. They will enable you to draw a picture of all places you have visited and to trasnfer your feelings to your readers, to let them into your own world.

Still, in the 21st century, many people are living out of reach of history. It may be strange that in the midst of all this communication technology, people know less about each other. The need to express one's self is as urgent as it's always been.

Writing is a way of revealing ourselves to the outer world. It is almost the only way of a long-lasting expression. You may still stand up in a Speakers' Corner and shout as loud as your throat can allow; but as your voice fades away, nobody will be able to hear what you'd just said.

You don't need to be a philosopher or a creative thinker to come up with interesting pieces of writing. You can just, as the early caveman started History, start writing about your own daily life. We all have daily lives that deserve writing about, not least your life.

Everybody likes to see the reflection of his own life experiences written down somewhere. And interestingly, we enjoy reading about our own self, or what resemble it. But yet, if you have a very exotic way of living, be sure that everybody would like to know about it.

Don't wait so much. Go on and let everybody share your ideas and impressions with you. Let them cross the borders of your mortal body and last as long as there's somebody able to read. Start catching the flow of ideas that pass trough your head before they vanish. There maybe someone who'd like to share them with you, or at least the person you would be after ten years.

You have some choices here. You can get a pen and a piece of paper and write down whatever nonsense you're thinking of. You can go into a deep cave in a remote area and hide a treasure trove of knowledge there. And always, you can simply sign-up!

Keep up the good work!