Help

I want to bury my face in your lap and cry for 30 minutes. Maybe more.

Filed under: Personal Experiences , Sadness

Awaiting

“Now let the day
Just slip away
So the dark night
May watch over you…
Nocturne

Though darkness lay,
It will give way
When the dark night
Delivers the day”

Nocturne, by Secret Garden.

Filed under: Music, Personal Experiences, Thoughts , Music, Thoughts

Local Minimum

I cannot sleep easily anymore.

Purpose… Purpose. What is mine? I have no idea. How am I supposed to proceed? In which direction? Does it really matter? Where is this all going? Should I let go? Is it simpler than I think? Why can’t I truly enjoy my friends’ company? Why can’t I… move on? What threatens me? What shakes me so easily? Why am I depressed? Too many loose ends perhaps. Too many dreamy plans. I think this is it. I often forget that I shouldn’t just change my goals and hope for better results; I should rather change myself, my way of thinking, and my techniques. I have come to the same crossroads again: to wither and dissolve, or to get up and work. It’s usually an easy choice for me, but not lately. Dissolving is tempting these days. Letting go and taking a shortcut. What the heck is the point? Why can’t Nietzsche’s words fuel me anymore? Would it take a good book to get over this? A good drink? Perhaps a near-death experience? A missile to shatter my room and dear possessions? A disease? The smile of a girl? Music? Something from inside of me? What, damn it? What?

I am so close. I can almost touch my goals. I just lost momentum.

Filed under: Thoughts , Life, Thoughts

Two Years and Eighty-two Days Later

He was driving after midnight on the cold streets of Amman, when Mood 92 FM played Seal’s Kiss from a Rose. The combination of the familiar calming tune, the quiet empty streets, the taste of hot chocolate in his mouth, the conversation he had just had, and the remnants of the visit to the cemetery the day before made him suddenly realize how much of his father was in him, the wake of whose life he seemed to be naturally following sometimes. That realization disturbed him, yet strangely and warmly cleared things up for him. For at least, and above all, he knew he didn’t want to follow through and eventually die disappointed with the people he cares for; he has to do something about it.

Filed under: Life, Personal Experiences, Thoughts , Death, Life, Thoughts

A Shooting Star

May all my senses melt and unite, and fill me with a heightened sense of music, and nothing but music.

Filed under: Thoughts , Music, Thoughts

Thought

The struggles, the joys, the people around me, every piece of brilliant literature there is, every piece of wonderful music written and played, every movie, every drink, every smile, every tear, every thought, every decision, every crush, every kiss, every touch, every breath, every fit of anger, every laugh, every hope, every disappointment, and every achievement… Everything will one day disappear and fade into nothingness. Like they never happened, our lives will one day vanish. As much as this frustrates me, it calms me too, and makes it easier.

Filed under: Personal Experiences, Philosophy, Thoughts , Life, Philosophy, Thoughts

Evanescence

He lay on his bed in the dark, face down, listening to music. He was tired and overwhelmed. He was happy for some reason, yet he felt the emptiness of something that used to hold a place inside of him and that no longer does. His mind troubled him with endless thoughts; memories mostly. It felt as if he was caught in an endless web of memories and loose ends. The more thought he gave an image, the less sense it made to him before slipping away and being replaced by another. The more he tried to contemplate an event he had ‘lived’, the more unreal it seemed. He was helpless, like someone who just woke up after a very long sleep and tried in vain to word the thousand clips of dreams he has just witnessed. All that’s left are bits and pieces, traces of feelings, and a strong, almost real, sense of being. It was one of those dreams that go on after you wake up; an extension of another existence, rudely infringing upon his consciousness and demanding a bigger role in his life. And all he could do was surrender to its will, and remember.

And he did.

He remembered worrying about schedules, technicalities, and money so much that he tried drinking himself to sleep. He remembered pondering commitments and deadlines and feeling sick for days. He remembered waiting for a flight in a large crowded hall with a coffee in his hand. And he remembered taking off and disappearing in the darkness of the night. He also remembered truly smiling for the first time in days as he saw the light break the blackness that extended outside his window. He had watched sunrises before, but not like this one. The horizon turned into a sublime spectrum of colors that extended as wide as he could see, and the thin rainbow slowly split the sky in half and lit the floor of clouds beneath him. The mercy of nature took over, and the heaviness that weighed him down for so long slowly diminished as the sky got brighter and brighter until there was nothing running through his head but the beautiful pink shapes before his eyes. From that moment on, everything was put on hold, and a new life began. He didn’t even have to close his eyes and dream.

He remembered touching down. He remembered a train ride and the beauty of the green fields under the grey sky. It was all so real. He dragged his bags in the rain on the streets of that city. Yes, he had been here before, and somehow he had forgotten how breathtaking the city was. The markets, the people, the scattered art here and there. He stifled his laugh and went on dragging his luggage wearing a stupid and sincere smile on his face. The raucous noise the wheels of his bags made occasionally attracted some questioning stares, which he answered with a proud look. He had earned this; he was finally there, and there’s nothing they could do about it. He met a Turk, a Greek, and a Syrian. He walked some more in the rain, took a bus ride, was given a small cold room, and had a cold meal from the only open shop he could find; so began his strange stay there, and he simply enjoyed how radically different  his day had been.

The daily walk and the daily bus ride were particularly pleasant experiences for him. The music from his music player just perfected the sceneries and the image of the people around him as he mingled with the elements of life of the city; he had received that music player as a birthday gift two years before in this same city, and he couldn’t help but smile at the irony of it all.

The dream was colorful and kind enough to include images of the crowded streets late at night… holding conversations with people from all over the world using what seemed at times like a universal language they could all understand… being helplessly lost in translation on so many other occasions… drinking with relish with the people he so quickly became used to… laughing his heart out for no particular reason with complete strangers… singing like no one is listening… sunsets and sunrises…  passion, excitement, fear, and anger… the sea… the mountains… and hundreds and hundreds of unbearably rushing thoughts.

I think he found some answers too. He ran his life in a way he always looked forward to. He had been waiting and working and imagining for so long that it took some time for him to realize he was finally there. Life made sense for the first time. He was thrown in the midst of completely new variables and surroundings, yet it was only there that he realized what he had in him the whole time. Now that the nuisances of his usual life, the people and things that have simply been there for too long, are suddenly gone, he had the sort of fresh perspective he forgot about. He had been looking out a dirty window for so long, before someone suddenly came and wiped it clean for a change, revealing both new and forgotten details. And as the clock ticked away towards the end of the dream, he could only savor each hour, steal all the living he found, and hold on to each discovery and result he learned. The hope was that, when he finally wakes up, things won’t be the same again. After all, this kind of confidence and newly-found perspective of things should probably last with him for quite some time – a lifetime even.

Eventually, like I said, he did wake up. Hung over. The rush and momentum he had picked up kept him going for some time. He managed all the things he was worried about a couple of months ago, and he was back exactly where he was. As the memories and resolutions he reached started to slowly vaporize with the steady passage of time, they were being replaced by that familiar and heavy sense of frustration and suffocating. People annoyed and hurt him again, his confidence shook at the slightest ordeal, and the window before his eyes was slowly getting clouded and smudged again. And it will remain that way until something wipes it clean.

But now he realizes that the hand that reaches outside and cleans off the dirt this time is going to have to be his own. If he could see clearly and be satisfied with himself somewhere, he should manage to do that everywhere. Change cannot be brought to him. It has to come from within, and stick with him. So now, when he works, he works for that. Everything else is evanescent. Everything else is dirt on the glass. Everything else is a bad dream.

Filed under: Personal Experiences, Philosophy, Thoughts , Life, Philosophy, Thoughts, Work

The Seventh

 Has it really been two years? I still don’t know what to say.

The seventh is back. Munich too. And I still don’t know what to say.

Time froze that day, when you broke your promise to me.

 

In memory of Victor Nichola Abdo

Nov. 25^th 1947 – Oct. 7^th 2006

May you rest in peace

Filed under: Life, Personal Experiences, Thoughts , Anniversary, Death, Time

Filed under: Miscellaneous, Personal Experiences, Thoughts

Time Off

Never have I found words this evasive and beyond my grasp as I do these days. I have been struggling lately to write down my thoughts, to communicate them, and to simply vent some of the pressure that I’ve been feeling, only to find myself vacuous when I intend to do so. I’ve been doing a lot of sitting, reading, observing, and contemplating. I didn’t feel like leaving my place much. I watched four or five new movies, and replayed a couple of old ones… I made several checklists each day. I’ve crossed out most of them – things that I could do from this chair right here… I’ve listened to music, and I’ve watched the sun set on the old houses on the hill across my house every day; sometimes, from where I sit, the view from my window seems more like an odd portrait I’ve seen in some book or some movie. It’s as if I had hung this big picture on my wall; a picture whose shades and colors change as the day progresses into night. It’s funny how the reflection of the sunlight off those houses affects my mood. But then again, perhaps it is my mood that affects the way I view the picture, much like Dorian’s inner soul manifests itself on his portrait… I tried to plan the exciting times I have ahead of me. I haphazardly jumped from one thought to the other, wondering and worrying about how each of them would affect me or fit into the large scheme of events that I deem ideal for me and my ‘future’. I scribbled away on my board. Occasionally, I would throw a ball against the wall in front of my desk, catch it, and throw it back over and over, until I am unaware that I am doing it… I’ve admitted things to myself and to others, and I’ve sent out some of the most foolish e-mails in the history of e-mailing… I dreamt, and I planned, and I felt like something is coming soon to change the way things are. It could be good, and it could be bad, but the status quo is soon to be disturbed, that’s for sure.

Thoughts. Endless thoughts. What are they now? Which ones troubled me? Which ones filled me with joy and enthusiasm? I can’t remember. It feels like I exerted more effort this week, at home, on this chair, than I have in the last two years at work. Time off? No such thing. I will always be consumed, it seems, by my thoughts and worries, by my joys and aspirations, by my plans and work, and by trying to figure out what the hell it is that I am supposed to be doing and why.

This takes me back, yet again and again, to the fact that life is the funniest and most mysterious thing of all. It has no meaning and no purpose. I was born, and I shall die, at some time in the future, whether I struggle or take it easy. My entire existence is a blink of an eye, a result of chance and the continuation of processes that have persisted for millions of years. Yet here I am, trying with all my might to change it; to create meaning. A few German language courses have led me to a month in Germany – a reason to be smiling for quite some time, some say. Maybe some chances there? Perhaps just a great vacation with some more learning? Two years in a tedious and ridiculous job have worn me down to the extent that I now want nothing but to be accepted at a top university to continue my ‘studies’ and catch up with my ‘Plan A’ of always excelling and being part of the elite; to contribute and produce and satisfy my intellectual needs. Is my despair here now reason enough to pursue that? Perhaps not. And the effort needed to get back on that track is certainly discouraging. But it seems like the only move I have at my disposal at the moment; to open new doors, and to carve new paths for the flow of ‘life’ to follow. Am I really changing my life? Will I ever be happy with any of those things? I don’t know. All I know is that it doesn’t really matter.

I don’t feel like writing anymore.

Filed under: Life, Miscellaneous, Personal Experiences, Philosophy, Thoughts , Life, Meaning, Philosophy, Thoughts, Work