Sunday, January 18, 2015

Victorious

My princess of light.

You are the angel that fights off my demons. You are my breath of fresh air.

You are the ground upon which I stand,
the fairest lady in all the lands.

Lend me your heart to fix my own,
your gentle soul is my utopian home.
Unlock the door to all my anger and fears,
let out all that I have suppressed for years.
End this desperate search for the most meaningful existence,
help me finally feel something different.

Tread carefully, for this world is vicious,
within it lurks that which is malicious.
But there is also compassion, goodness and love,
and always remember that someone is watching from above.

Listen to me carefully, my incredible ray of light,
in this life you will always have to fight
with people, ideas, moments and fears,
and you will learn much throughout the years.
And during the rough times, I promise you this:
as long as I live I will always be there to kiss
your tears away, and tell you that it's okay.
I will be your rock, I will be your wall.
I will be the one to catch you when you fall.

I pray that you win, I pray that you are victorious.
You will become the champion, you will be glorious.
You will be an animal, unleashed into the wild,
free of all inhibitions, my sweet little child.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

An overwhelming presence

He sits in the back seat, staring out of the window. His mind is blank, and his eyes do not register anything. He hears nothing, only the deafening sound of silence. All he can do is feel. And he is engulfed with a familiar, uncomfortable feeling. An overwhelming presence.

He looks at her, sitting next to him. She too is staring out of the window, consumed by her own thoughts. A serene aura encapsulates her, and he instantly feels at ease. He feels like he's finally home.

She turns and looks at him. At his soul. He feels exposed and vulnerable, which is always how he felt around her. After all these years, it seems that things haven't changed. He looks back at her. An overwhelming presence.

When just moments ago he could only feel, he now felt nothing. He was only able to see. A spectator in his own world. He is mesmerized by the moment, only he doesn't know it yet.

She reaches out to him, resting her hand softly on top of his. And suddenly, the world pauses. To him, this moment is the epitome of perfection. He finally is able to feel again. But this time it's different. This time it feels right. It feels undeniable. And it feels eternal.

The entire world collapses in on itself. Reality settles in, along with an overbearing feeling of emptiness. He lies in bed, desperate to drift back to the moment, but it is long gone. Just like her. And as always, his memories of her came rushing back, abusing and torturing his broken heart.

An overwhelming presence.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

King of Nothing

I woke up today to a world unknown, the empty bed trapping me within its linen walls; feeling comfortable, yet not. And then I remember: the constant heavy burden. My mind, my eyelids, all so heavy.

It's like this everyday now. Feeling tortured when there's no real torture. Or is there? I can't think, my mind is still trapped in its own perfect little world. But it'll join me soon.

The water brings about a refreshing feeling that seems to fill me with life. Even the harsh cloth feels good on my skin, because it feels so real. But it is all temporary. As I open my eyes, my mind finally reconnects with reality. Everything is clear now. I see my image in the mirror, staring back at me, as if it was getting ready to laugh sarcastically.

I breath out heavily, as if I were trying to exhume some... thing. I don't know what it is, but it's there. And it feels heavy. My mind, my eyelids, all so heavy.

The house is alive now. But it seems like such an insignificant and irrelevant type of life. None of it really matters in the end. I'd take sanity, well-being and good health over all of it any day of the week.

I stumble back into the room. It smells like nothing, it feels like nothing. The resting place for the King of Nothing. Or is it "King of his own world"? Or maybe the two are one and the same?

The phone rings. As usual, I know who it is and what they have to say. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe I know too many things. Anticipation can be the mother of all evils. It's neat when things happen just as you expect them to. But there's a thin line between anticipation and boredom. Some spontaneity for the King?

There's a knock on the door. Again. I didn't hear the first one, but I just know it happened. I'm so sure of it that it almost feels as if I heard it. I'm told to hurry up. Seems like it's all I do these days. Hurry. My anger level rises. I don't know why, but I'm just so bloody angry at that point. Maybe it's because I know. I hate being told something I already know.

I reach for my third bottle of water. Water is my morning medicine. I collect all the stupid, irrelevant things that I'll be "needing" for the day and head upstairs. Everything is irrelevant. Except the mask. The mask is essential.

The stench of yesterday's smoke and stale food fills the air. Nauseating, but familiar. And real. As usual I'm the last to leave, but I don't care that people are waiting. They couldn't care less about the important things in my life, so why care about theirs? I close my eyes the entire time. I need as much rest as I can afford these days. We arrive, and I'm instantly wishing for it to be over. As I recap what needs to be done, I can't help but think that I just can't be bothered.

Somehow, time flies by. I walk around on auto-pilot with my mask. Everything is fine and dandy for the King. All smiles, all good. All masked, covering up some sort of deep, dark secret. Covering up some truth that I have been unable to find for years.

And then suddenly, the excitement kicks in. I realise that I'm going home. Euphoria. My mask fades and I find serenity. Peace from all chaos. Suddenly all is right with the world. My senses come alive, and I can feel everything around me. I step outside on the balcony. Cold winds immediately engulf my body, and I welcome them with open arms. I'm not on auto-pilot. The King's ship captains itself now.

But then reality seeps in. It is time, and my anger swells up again. I need more time, much more time. I head downstairs to my room. I close the door, and I feel as if I'm in a coffin. As I lay in bed, euphoria turns into dysphoria. My mind, my eyelids, all so heavy.

And then that uncomfortable mountain settles on my chest. Its a mountain that symbolizes everything, yet it contains nothing, and I am its King. The mighty, lonely King of Nothing. I look at the broken empire that has become my life, and I try and think back to when it all went sideways. A dramatic turn of events indeed...

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

HDH

As I was doing a bit of spring cleaning (more like Ramadan cleaning) last week, I came across something that I wrote a while back, and I thought I had lost the paper it was written on. I guess it sort of (very briefly) covers the phases you go through in a relationship from the very beginning up until the point where you are HDH'ed: heartbroken, devasted and helpless.

I don't usually share things like this, but knowing me I'll probably lose the paper again. So... for the sake of saving it somewhere, here goes:


Guide me with your smile
As I fall victim to your grace
Stop, give me a while
To comprehend the beauty of your face

Bury my heart into yours
I want a reason to breath
Explore my deepest cores
And erode all my sorrows and fears

I stand before you
A broken image of my past
Help me, I implore you
Help me find out who I am at last

Draw my curtains and reveal the truth
Smile at me with your deadly eyes
Explain to me why I'm so in love with you
And reveal what I fail to realise

Tell me how I've fallen so deep
Tell me how you got the best of me
Tell me why I keep losing sleep
Tell me how to cure this love entropy

Was I nothing but a story?
Was I little more than a fond memory?
Am I the only one feeling all this loss?
Was I nothing more than a bridge you crossed?

Monday, June 13, 2011

Incosiderate People and Other Random Things That Piss Me Off





(Warning: This post contains language which I personally don't consider offensive at all, and which I consider is completely justified given the fact that I get really angry thinking about these things. So kindly refrain from using responses such as "yi shu vulgaaaaire!")

There are three things that I can't tolerate in life: traffic jams, stupid people, and inconsiderate people. My ultimate nightmare would probably involve me stuck in a traffic jam behind some douchebag who says shit like "I think the internet is broken" with his car in between two lanes.

But let's leave traffic jams and stupidity for another post. I want to focus on inconsiderate people and other random things that piss me off. So in no particular order, here goes.

1. I hate people who put their seats back on a flight without bothering to look if anyone is behind them and if that person minds. You KNOW there are other people with you on the flight. You saw them when you stood in line at the ticket counter. And at passport control. And while waiting at the gate. And while you're on the bus / walking down the tunnel of doom going to the airplane. And while you're forcing your oversized hand luggage into the above compartment, as you violently shove other people's shit out of the way, stuffing them at awkward angles to make space for your fucking things. And how someone after all of that can still put their seat all the way back like there is nothing behind them is just beyond me. And then, when you tell them to push their seat forward because you're uncomfortable with their head rest almost in your mouth, they give you this look of discontent! Like you annoyed them! Well why don't you fucking fly first class then you asshole?

2. I hate people who double park their cars for elongated periods of time. Anyone who's been to Abu Dhabi knows how the city has a huge issue with parking spots, or lack thereof. The area I'm in is a dense residential / commercial area. Meaning you have parking issues whether it's day or night. And there were so many times I'd be leaving to go to work in the morning, and have to end up taking a cab because some asshole double parked in front of my car, obviously leaving no number to contact. The first time it happened I maintained my cool, and took a cab. The second time it happened I got annoyed, and took a cab. The third time it happened I got really fucking angry, and took a cab. The fourth time onwards, I started keying the car. And when I say keying, I mean I would literally carve the word "asshole" in big letters on the back of the his/her car. This way: 1) he/she won't notice it till later, and won't be able to get back at me (even though I drive a rental and don't really give a shit), 2) he/she would drive around the crowded streets of Abu Dhabi, and everyone behind him/her would know exactly what he/she is: a fucking asshole.

3. I hate people who take up two (and sometimes three) parking spots. As I noted earlier, parking in certain areas in Abu Dhabi is a complete nightmare, yet some douchebag decides that he/she has the luxury of taking up as many parking spots as their car can physically occupy. Why the fuck would you do that? If you think about it, that act of complete stupidity is an indication of a couple of facts: 1) you park like an asshole, and therefore you and the idiot who passed you in driving school should be burned alive, 2) no matter how much of a "hurry" you are in, it literally would take you 10 seconds to fix your shit parking job, and the fact that you think that your 10 seconds are more precious than the additional 15-30 minutes I have to spend driving around in circles looking for a parking spot makes me want to slap your mother for not having an abortion.

4. I hate people who drive slow on the fast lane. It's called a "slow lane" because it's meant for trucks, vans, and slow drivers. In this case slow can be an indication of the speed of your car, or the speed of your mental processing ability. And what I find so bizarre is that if you hit the person with your high beam once or honk once, many of them completely ignore you, usually because they're doing something much more important like thinking about what song to hear next or what to have for lunch. And after you do that and they don't move, naturally you get frustrated and strike them with several high beams followed by a long press of the horn which, if held for long enough, will actually start to sound like "move out of the way you fucking turd". And the most bizarre thing of all is that they actually get mad at YOU! "How dare you call me a fucking turd with your horn!" And they always look at you in the rearview mirror and give you the all-too-famous "what" sign with their hand.


I think from now on my response to that hand gesture would be the use of an even more famous hand gesture.


5. Sometimes when you are standing in line at the airport, and you are in a wonderful airport like that in Jeddah which is crowded 24/7, you have the luxury of standing in a long line to get to the ticket counter. And 9 out of 10 times, I have been especially blessed with an even more awesome luxury: an idiot behind me. Every time the line moves, said idiot would move forward and hit my heel with his luggage cart. 7 times out of those 9 times, the asshole doesn't bother apologizing. Because apparently it's your fault for stopping abruptly. And I learned that no amount of turning-the-head-back-and-throwing-a-displeased-look moves you do would get them to stop. The solution is to turn around, with your full body. Yes, trust me, your whole body. This is very important because it indicates that you are an aggresive person with a short temper. You give them a window of opportunity to apologize, standard practice calls for a maximum of 5 seconds, depending on the intensity of the bump to your heel (the stronger it is, the less seconds you give). You then make sure you get their attention because they usually look down or off somewhere in the distance pretending that they're looking for their cousin or twin sister or whatever, and you do that with a firm and confident "Hey." And when you get their attention, you need to give them a death stare. One that says "I'm not crazy enough to hurt you badly right this second, but I do have the ability to rip your spine out of your mouth". Don't hesitate to practice this in front of a mirror a few times. For reference, it looks a little bit like this:


They'll probably think that you're a mean asshole, and will probably make tons of assumptions about you. That's all fine though. Because don't forget, you now have the perceived ability to rip their spine out of their mouth. And that is some seriously cool shit.

6. I hate parents that make their kids wear squeaky shoes in public. I mean seriously, they are only cute up to the point when the kid actually learns how to walk, then it just becomes fucking annoying. Kids by nature have two obsessions: 1) exploring places they've never been to before, and 2) running away from you, both of which involve an excessive amount of running. Why would you go and do something so stupid like make them wear squeaky shoes out in public? If you think it's so adorable then do it in your own shitty house where only you would suffer. Does the entire world have to know that you have a kid that loves to run around and not listen to you? Or is it simply that you have absolutely no confidence in your ability to keep an eye on your kids as they run around wreaking havoc, and you resort to making them wear the human equivalent of a cow bell so you can track them down? How FBI of you! Absolutely brilliant! FYI: if you lack the ability to keep an eye on your children, then don't have any fucking children. And don't join the FBI either, their use of squeaky shoe technology as a tracking mechanism was discontinued sometime in the 1980's.


7. I fucking hate elevators. I mean the concept itself is brilliant, I can imagine some guy in the 1800's was coming back home, drunk out of his mind, he gets home, remembers that he has to climb the stairs, and goes like "fuck... I wish I can press a button and be home..." I guess to be more specific, I hate elevator users. Here's a little story to explain why: One day, I get to the elevators at our office and there was a guy standing there, and the down button was pressed. Mind you, this was the ground floor, and the floors beneath are storage areas. So I press the up button. So he looks at me and flashes this "you're a fucking moron" smile, and he says: "excuse me but are you heading up or down?" and I go like: "up". And he says: "so why did you press up?" so then I looked at HIM with a "you're a fucking moron" smile and said: "why what was I supposed to press?" and he goes like "well, you want the elevator to come down to you, so you press down to bring it down." I was at a loss for words. I don't know what made me more angry, the fact that he was so wrong, or the fact that he was trying to put me down with an incorrect fact. And I didn't even know where to begin to try and explain to him the error of his douchy ways. Usually I refrain from being rude, but I was in no mood to be fucked with that day, and I really didn't appreciate the guy's shitty approach, but I kept my cool anyway. So the elevator arrived, we stepped in, the doors closed, I pressed the 9th floor, he pressed the 14th floor. It was just me and him, and instead of punching him in the balls, I instead told him: "you're wrong. You always press the direction you're going to." And he was like "man, trust me, I know what I'm talking about. It's ok, it's a common mistake that many people make". Now I was absolutely furious. I was so close to telling him how he too was a common mistake that his mother made, but I controlled the urge, and all of a sudden, a familiar bowl movement gave me a much better idea. I waited till we were passing the 8th floor, and as unbelievable as this may sound, I silent-farted, got to the 9th floor, told the guy "research it. You're wrong", and stepped out. This may have been harsh given the heavy meal I had the night before. But in retrospect, I hope the fucker choked all the way to his floor and died an ugly, horrible death.
And I only got this idea because I can't count the number of times I stepped into someone's fart cloud on an elevator. And the problem with it is that it doesn't even end there, because eventually you have to step out of the elevator. And if you're as unlucky as I am in those situations, an entire horde of people are waiting for the elevator on the same floor you're getting off on (no pun intended). So I have every right to pay someone the same respect, and what better person than an asshole who doesn't understand basic elevator mechanics?
There are other problems I have with elevators. There are times when I feel elevators are evil metallic masterminds whose sole purpose of existence is to fuck with you. For instance, you'd be running to catch an open elevator. It can close at any time and save you the hassle of running for no reason. But no, it prefers to wait for you, seemingly innocent and harmless, and as you are about to enter the doors close on you, leaving you feeling violated and totally raped.
And when you are in dire need of a bathroom, the elevator will stop on every floor possible to ensure that you don't make it through the ordeal without sustaining permanent damage to your bladder.
And I hate how some people mis-press. Like when someone presses 5, and then presses 8. They aren't even next to each other on the fucking keypad! Thank goodness new elevators are now equipped with anti-retard systems that allow you to cancel a floor selection.

8. I hate asshole road-crossers. By that I mean people that cross roads while applying minimal intelligence and/or consideration for cars on the road. There are three kinds of asshole road-crossers (or ARC's). The first kind of ARC's are the kind that see you speeding down the road, and you see them in the distance and you start to use telepathy to try and tell them not to fucking move. Then they decide that it's a perfectly good idea to step off the sidewalk anyway and start crossing the street, forcing you to slam the breaks physically and slam their mother verbally. And then there's that moment where you make eye contact, and you would expect that they would make some sort of apologetic gesture. But instead, they look at you and give you the "what?" hand gesture (see above illustration). Fucking assholes...
The second kind of ARC's are similar to the first, the only difference being that you don't actually see them in the distance because they jump out from behind a parked car / van. Assholes like that live in their own personal bubble, in some sort of magical world where there are unicorns and where you are free to cross any road without checking for any cars. Selfish bastards like that deserve to be raped. By a unicorn. I'll leave the rest to your imagination.
The third and final kind of ARC's are the ones that REALLY piss me off. Sometimes I'd be driving, and I'd see someone trying to cross a road but can't because too many cars are whizzing by. Where appropriate, and if possible, sometimes I do the courteous thing and slow down to allow them safe passage, usually with a hand motion telling them that's its ok to proceed because I won't run them over (today). 9 out of 10 times, not only do they completely ignore my courteous gesture and provide me with no sort of "thank you", but they cross the road at an unbelievably slow pace. I could have been an asshole and whizzed by just like everyone else. I could have been an even bigger asshole and slowed down, have you cross the road, and then run your ass over, instantly turning you into roadkill. In retrospect, I think I should have been the "even bigger asshole" and made your mother cry over your inconsiderate, mashed up corpse.

Seeing as how I'm absolutely furious at the moment, I think I'll lay this post to rest. A Part 2 may come about one day.

Cheers.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Change

As I quickly (and reluctantly) approach the age of 30, I can't help but realize the significant changes that my life has gone through in the past 3-4 years. I always knew that things change over time, especially the way you define the world around you. But I think the rate at which change has come is ridiculously and alarmingly fast.

I doubt my parents experienced these changes as fast as I did. After all, my generation is the first to really be susceptible to globalized influence, as life-altering inventions like satellite television and the internet started to emerge. The amount of information that I am currently bombarded with on a daily basis is probably 100 times the amount of information that my father was faced with when he was my age. And it doesn't take a genius to figure out the positive correlation between quantity of information and speed of personal evolution.

I picked the word "evolution" because I feel that what I am going through is something that is much bigger than simple change. It is an absolute breakdown of everything that I thought I had figured out, and then having it completely redefined in much more realistic terms. As you age, you definitely become less of a dreamer and more of a realist. Well, that's the way it's going for me at least. But every now and then, I like to reflect on my life as a whole to see how my life (and everything around it) has progressed as I have aged.

When you were a teenager your friends were more or less the same through all of high school, with a few upgrades and downgrades here and there. You did not necessarily experience that many adventures beyond those that took place at school, at your house, or at your friends' houses. But it doesn't matter, for these were your BFF's, your friends for life. In your senior year, you suddenly realize that graduation looms, and you are running out of time. You spend more time with friends. You have fun more. You laugh more. You take more pictures. You rack up more and more memories. Then graduation day comes, and you are overwhelmed with sorrow. You listen to the valedictorian speech. Or maybe you're the one that gives it. You play a song you wrote for your friends, or you listen to one that your friend wrote. Your friends vote you as the guy with the biggest heart. Or the girl with the prettiest smile. Or the guy most likely to become a professional athlete, musician, pilot, doctor, or inmate. The ceremony ends; you throw your cap in the air. And then you frantically look for it because you want to keep it as a memory. You walk around school with your friends one last time with your year book in hand, writing one last note to each other, something from the heart. You find yourself even going up to the people that you weren't that close to and giving them a hug and saying goodbye, because you realise that for some reason you will miss them too. You visit the computer room where you and you friends used to sneak in during lunch break and play games. You visit the music room where you kissed the first guy you liked. You visit the gym where you and the rest of the varsity basketball team practiced and hosted games, winning some and losing others. You and your friends organize one last get-together at a friend's house. It ends with pictures, tears, gifts, shared memories, and promises to always keep in touch. You look into your boyfriend's eyes and fight back the tears because you know that this is where you go your separate ways. You hug your best friend and you are both in tears. She cries because she'll miss you, and you cry because you're in love with her and never told her.

When I got to university, I started meeting more people, and as the years progressed, I grew more attached to my new-found buddies. It makes sense, after all, university years are the adventure years, and these were the people that have lived through the wild and crazy times with me. But with every plus comes that impending minus. You eventually lose touch with most of your high school friends, and the ones you do keep in touch with from time to time, things are not necessarily the same. It's because time and experience has taught both you and your friends new things about friendships, to the point that very little brings you together with that person save for the good memories, which eventually lose their "oomph" as they are replaced with fresh ones.

But university isn't just about friends. It's also about relationships. I think back to when i was 20 years old. I was a sophomore, dating a girl I was crazy about. I was a hopeless romantic. I remember how nervous I was when I asked her out. I remember how happy I was when she said yes, and I remember our first kiss. I remember the flowers I surprised her with the next day. I was hooked on love. I was a dreamer. But again, things always change, and 3 years later I told her that I was done, and we went through a quick yet violent break-up. I will never forget the first thought I had after I left her house that day: "It's amazing how 3 years worth of a relationship ended in 15 intense minutes". But that is the essence of change. It simply happens, and you have little to no control over it. In three years I went from being madly in love with this girl to not being able to stand the sight of her or hear her voice. And again, fast forward almost 5 years, we still haven't seen or spoken to one another. But after all this time, after I have changed yet again, the thought of running into her one day doesn't piss me off anymore.

So you graduate from university. You are filled with sadness as you take one last walk around campus, reliving the memories as if they just happened yesterday. You start thinking about the relationships you had, both the ones that fell apart and the ones that left you with warm memories. A part of you feels like you want to make it up for the people you've hurt, and you may even be willing to forgive those that have hurt you; all for the sake of making your memory of university absolutely perfect. You're anxious to start your new life, but you're reluctant to let go of the past. Eventually, you say your last goodbyes, draw the curtain, and close the chapter on that part of your life.

Now, all of a sudden you feel that you have entered a new area. You are now more or less responsible for everything in your life. Your parents will help every now and then, but for the most part, you are independent (of course, this applies to most but not all people). All of a sudden, you feel that you are grown up. Job, responsibility, bills, etc. Some people cope better than others, but regardless, this is a phase of immense personal growth. At this point, some people try to match this newfound maturity with some sort of stable relationship, something with a potential future. Others, who are absolutely delighted with the steady source of income that they have never experienced before, choose an alternate path of flings, lifestyle, and fun. But the concept is one and the same: change. Of course, me being me, I alternated wildly between both paths, visiting both extremes, and tried to find the midpoint that suits me best. And I'm glad with my approach, because it allowed me to learn and experience way more than the average guy.

But this isn't just about relationships. It's about your life in general. The people you meet in social gatherings are not simply potential friends, they are also potential business partners, clients, etc. You take an interest in people's jobs, partially out of curiosity, but also out of wanting to know if this person can be useful in achieving your goals and ambitions. Life now isn't just about making friends and having a good time. The number one objective in most people's mind at that point is growth, be it personal, career, etc. And there's an unsaid understanding that literally all of this growth comes through the people you see on a daily basis. As a child, your growth depended on your family mainly, and your friends second. As a university student, your growth depended on friends mainly, family second, and other miscellaneous characters third (professors, counselers, landlords, bank employees, etc). But as an adult, there are no firsts, seconds and thirds. It is almost impossible to categorize and assign weights to the amount of growth you receive from the different groups of people in your life, because they vary too much, they change too much, and because quite frankly, many of us don't even have the time to go through that exercise.

3-4 years into your first job, the way you define many things changes again. Your opinions on work, relationships, friends, family, love, peace, war, and almost every other topic tend to be very different from what they were in the past. Now you start having more of those conversations where you say: "I don't even know what I saw in her" or "I have no idea why that seemed like a good idea at the time". And again, this is all part of life. You live, you learn. The experiences we face today as 25-30 year olds are much more in number and way more complex than it was for our parents, although most parents will probably never admit that. At this point in your life, many friendships are more clearly defined. Those who you thought were close friends turn out to be aquaintances. Those who you thought you could trust screwed you over. Those who you thought were assholes were actually misjudged. And in terms of relationships, many people at that point are engaged or married, while many others are still trying to figure out what they want out of a relationship. At 25-30, things are still changing, and things are still more or less up in the air.

I was once told by my parents' friend (whom I consider a wise person) that the period of fast change in one's life is between 18 and 25. According to him, that is when you really define yourself. But as I crossed his 25-year old threshold, I realised that this "period of fast change" didn't slow down at all. It sped up. And apparently that is the case with many people in my situation. And all this leads me to one of two conclusions:
1. The period of fast change has moved up and occupies a different / wider range; or
2. The period of fast change is no longer a range, it occupies your entire life.
My gut feeling tells me that its the latter.

No one can really tell. I don't know how things will be when I'm 30-40 years old, 40-50 years old, when you have one kid, then two, etc. But there is one thing that I am certain of: I think the absolute irony of life is that while it is all a living and learning experience, I think at the end of the day, when you are about to leave this world at the age of 70+, the reality is that you know very little, and you've figured out almost nothing.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Kids

I remember the days when I liked slides and parks. Then I started liking swimming (after overcoming my fear of swimming with no orange thingies). Tom and jerry kicked ass. Pink Panther was the shit. Captain Majed was mesmerizing. Grendizer rocked. And it was all about Mousercising too. Scrabble was awesome. Bingo was awesome. Monopoly was awesome-er. Cluedo was the awesomest of all. All that was followed with Ninja Turtles action figures, GI JOE action figures, Action Man action figures (one of mine had hella-cool war paint lines that appeared under the sun). The Atari was sublime. My Sega Megadrive II was the coolest thing on the planet. Computer games were awesome. Sports in school were awesome. I loved my BMX bike with the backward-pedal brakes that made for some sick-ass skid marks in the garden. The same garden that had my basketball rim, table tennis table, and dart board that looked like swiss cheese when I was through with it. And oh my god let's not even get into the opening of Fun Time Pizza. And the best part of it all was sharing all the above with family and friends.


Ah yes, the sweet old memories of being young and having fun.

What the fuck happened though? It's like the entire concept of being a child morphed into this twisted, unedited scene that you would see if Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Wes Craven, Quentin Tarantino, and Stephen King joined forces to make a movie worthy of being awarded the "fuck-me-I-can't-watch-this-shit" award. I shudder at the mere thought of such a movie. It probably looks a little bit like this:



As old as this may make me sound, I'm talking about "kids these days". What the hell happened? Why are kids these days so, for lack of a better word, fucked up? How do they know so much about things that they shouldn't know about till they hit puberty? I have 3 examples to mention here:

Example 1
A friend of mine was telling me a story of how one day, while visiting Jeddah, she was sitting next to the pool in her compound, tanning and doing her thing, and she was joined by her 11 year old neighbour who looks up to her alot. And so a conversation ensued where the little girl was explaining how she and her bff are no longer bff's. And when my friend asked her why, the response was: "Because she called my other bff a lesbian".


Why does an 11 year old know what a lesbian is? As supportive as I am of girl-on-girl action, I didn't know what it was till I was like 15!

Not this kind of girl-on-girl action though.... This I don't support at all.

Example 2
Another friend of mine was telling me a story of how she was at a friend's place, and she was talking to her friend's brother or something like that who is maybe 12-13 years old, and she asked him how school was, and he said that he doesn't like the school, and when my friend asked him why, the response was: "Because all of them drink and smoke and stuff."


First of all, hats off to his parents / teachers / older siblings that did their job in making him understand that these things are wrong for his age (but I will later be touching on the fact that sometimes, good parenting isn't enough). However, the fact that this even happens is quite fucked up. Now I don't want to sound like a hypocrite, I have to admit that I had my first cigarette when I was 13, and my first drink when I was 15-16. But I was so bloody scared everytime I did it and hid it from everyone because I at least knew what I was doing was wrong at my age, and I just wanted to satisfy a curiosity. That's normal. But what is NOT normal is when it is blatant and a even a habit at that age!

It just makes me wonder, how much of a good idea is it to bring a child into this world? I love kids, and I definitely want to have some. But when I think of the challenges that I'm going to have to face as a parent, challenges that my parents certainly didn't have to face, I have to admit it freaks me out on a level compared to the thought of Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump bumping uglies and having offspring. And I can't imagine why anyone would even want to picture that. But unfortunately, someone did:


Example 3
Around a year ago, I was in Beirut for vacation. It was just me and my younger sister at home. I was sitting watching TV in the living room, and I heard the doorbell. My sister opened the door, and I could hear that it was a friend of hers.

Friend: "Is anyone else home?"
Sister: "No just me and my brother."
Friend: (with enthusiasm) "Really? Your older brother is here?"
Here, I started to feel weird.
Sister: "Yeah he is"
Friend: "Can I meet him?"
I felt even weirder. So a girl walks in, looking like she just came out of Skybar. She was dressed in a black top that showed off a good amount of skin, skin tight jeans, black boots, and full make-up. Had I seen this girl in a club I would have tapped that, because the way she looked I would have assumed she's at least 21/22, but I knew she wasn't since she was my sister's friend. So she comes up to me, and she extends her hand the same way the Queen of England does (her palm facing downwards), and she says in the most seductive voice she could pull off: "Hi, Rasha." I gave her a quick hand shake along with a very cautiously spoken "Hi, Raif". Because on that day I didn't really feel like going to jail for being a pedophile.

Rasha: "It's nice to meet you."
Me: (cautiously) "You too."
Rasha: "So umm, how old are you?"
In my head: "Old enough to be your father you freak!"
Me: (cautiously) "25." (at the time)
Rasha: "Mmmhmm... Well, it's nice to meet you."
And she began to turn around and walk away, but as she did, she gave me a look that's too difficult to describe. But it looked exactly (and I really do mean EXACTLY) like this:


And by the way. I later asked my sister how old slutty Rasha was. She's 16. And that's simply not cool. I'd love it if she gave me a call in 4-5 years though. I'd love it even more if the girl in the picture gave me a call in 4-5 minutes.

So what can we blame this deteriorating sense of innocence on? The internet explosion and the growing ease of accessing mind-corrupting filth that shouldn't be accessed at a young age? Parents becoming more open minded towards how they should raise their kids and what they should and shouldn't be allowed to do? I'm all for partying and doing crazy stuff and going to extremes and messing around and all that, but there's an appropriate age for everything.

Let's side-track a bit. I recently saw a movie called Orphan (2009). This movie is fucked up in every sense of the world. I'm not much of a horror / thriller movie-goer. But this movie was deeply twisted, and I just couldn't stop watching till it was done. It talks about a family that adopts a child called Esther (played by Isabelle Fuhrman who was 12 at the time). For those that have seen it, they know exactly what I'm talking about when I say deeply twisted. (WARNING! The next paragraph ruins the movie, but you should consider reading it anyway).

In the movie, Esther appears to be a 9 year old child, but in fact she's a psychotic 33 year old and just looks that young because of some sort of growth deficiency. Here are a few of the twisted things she does: kills people in front of her step-sister "Max" (played by Aryana Engineer who was 8 at the time, and is by far one of the most adorable kids I have ever seen), threatens to cut her step-brother's dick off, breaks her own arm and makes it look like her step-mother did it, tries to burn her step-brother while he's in his tree-house, kills a woman working in an orphanage, tries to shoot her step-sister and step-mother, tries to stab and drown her step-mother. At one point in the movie, she tries to seduce her step-father. And by seduce, I mean she waits till he's drunk on wine, puts on black dress, a fuckload of makeup, sits next to him, and starts kissing his neck. And when he doesn't respond positively, she ends up stabbing him to death. Now I don't know what's more disturbing. The fact that the parents of a 12 year girl old allowed her to play this role? Or is it the fact that the parents of an 8 year old girl allowed her to co-star in this movie and witness enough horrendous shit to scar her for life? I swear to god, when I watched little Aryana reacting to the things that she saw her step-sister do, it was like watching real emotional trauma in the making. She looked deeply disturbed. And I don't blame her. At 26, even I was deeply disturbed, enough for me to repeatedly say to myself throughout the movie:


And that, dear friends, is a fucking understatement.

However, let's ignore the horror for a while. The concept of the movie itself, as twisted as it may seem, represents the reality that somewhere in the world, there ARE some kids out there that are psychotic killers at heart. And I am a firm believer that every concept portrayed in a film (apart from sci-fi) is a representation of something real and very much possible.

Now picture your child in the same school as Esther................ Yup.

So how do we protect our to-be borns? You don't need research to realize that kids today are subject to the influence of so much more than just you and your wife/husband. If anything, I feel that in this day and age, the influence that kids have on each other has just as much of an impact as their parents have on them, if not more. And if you happen to enroll your kid in a school with Esther-like psychos, that makes for a severe FML situation. Let me pose a few questions to bring this little baby home:

What do you do if you found out your 10 year old kid was offered a cigarette by their friend, and smoked it? And liked it?
What do you do if they were offered a drink, and drank it? And liked it?
What do you do if they were offered any one of a million different drugs, and snorted/smoked/injected them? And liked them?
What do you do if your 15 year old son got a girl pregnant?
What do you do if your 15 year old daughter was impregnated by some overly hormonal fuck in school?
What do you do if you found out your 12 year old daughter was making out with another girl behind the bleachers? And liked it?

These aren't rhetorical questions, I'm seriously looking for answers here. Because I will bet money on the fact that you can be the best parent in the world, and your child might still do all of the above and then some. And that may have nothing to do with you, although you WILL spend the rest of your life blaming yourself and thinking that you have failed as a parent. But in reality, because of the way the world has become, some kids are beyond parental or even professional help.

And to think that people question me and look at me funny when I say that I believe in hitting your kids when needed. Now don't be all like: "that's child abuse!!!!!" Fuck off. Child abuse would be if I put my son in a corner and Mike Tyson his ass to the ER.


I'm talking about a much less severe form of beating. The one that hurts much more emotionally than it does physically. And sometimes, you don't even need to hit, a little scare can do the job. When I was a kid, I remember my dad removing his belt and doing a scary snapping sound with it because I intentionally didn't do my homework. It sounded like an alligator snapping it's teeth at me. It was enough to scare my puberty away. But it worked. He didn't even have to hit me, he just had to convince me that he would.

I know for a fact that I'm going to be a good father. And I also know that there is no way I'd marry a woman that won't make for a great mother. But like I said before, even that, in certain circumstances, may not be enough. I'm praying that my kids never reach that extreme level of insanity. But if they do and all other methods fail, I guess that maybe, for their own sake, we need to dust off those boxing shoes, tighten up those shorts and gloves, and go a few rounds to beat some sense into them. Because the thought of my son / daughter turning out to be a 15 year old sex-crazed and immoral alcoholic druggy regardless of what my wife and I do is the most severe FML situation of them all.