Friday, December 16, 2016

Trying to get my mind around the world. My books...

I am an avid reader. I surely spend four to five hours every day just reading information. Books, facebook, twitter, news, Quran quotes... trying to educate myself about what is going on.
Social networks enable us to stay in rapid , immediate communication with people and regions all around the world. Twitter is a way to follow announcements minutes after events as they happen and develop. Facebook enables us to discuss the same events and share them with a controllable group of people.
But while this is taking a huge chunk out of my time, just keeping up with what's left of the Arab spring, at the same time I am trying to get my mind around islam. I am trying to find out what Islam actually is, what it is meant to be, behind what people claim it is.
I am also trying to rapidly catch up on an education I never got , learning the history of the Middle East, their relations, their traditions , and I have an overwhelming amount of books accumulated on these subjects and I wish every day had 36 hours and a house elf and others to do my jobs so I could just immerse myself and catch up... Life in fast forward in the mind while the body gathers sludge from just sitting and supporting the head at work and the eyes reading, reading... trying to understand .And then the hours given to praying, asking God to keep the world from falling apart ...

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Lucky .... :'( absolutely lucky ...

In 2010 I undertook the most impressive , delightful, memorable journey, one that changed my life forever. I went to Syria and visited Damascus ( very different now) , Homs ( gone now), Hama ( partly destroyed) , Palmyra (almost completely destroyed and the people have left) , Saraqib ( destroyed) and Aleppo old city ( destroyed and dying) .
Left to wonder whether I am cursed to have this follow on my footsteps or blessed to have seen it all half a year before the revolution.
In 2011 I went back but was unable to move around safely and just visited Maloula from Damascus one day, and I don't know what has become of it now.