++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Lately I’ve only been able to think when I’m writing. So even with silly things, some power seems to put down this massive brick over my brain stopping it from all activity. The ears would barely be processing any input as well. I have to pick up a pen and write. Then, and only then am I able to comprehend and then If wanted/needed analyze.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I wish I could analyze more thoughts.
I wish I can explain to you/in words about the different kinds of pain.
I wish I can show you how my fingers almost bleed as I go at my typewriter with all the strength I can pull together.
I wish I can.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I am making a list, of things to think/write about -since the 2 actions are to be connected from now on-. So maybe for future titles I can have: On craved attention. Or: On true excellence. On stringed conversations. On exhausted imaginations. On imperfect masks. On semi-controlled daydreams. On failed experiments.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I was thinking. All the big writers are old ones. No -present- thing or person is yet to touch their writings or come even close. I can imagine all old writers typing their literature straight onto a typewriter. And I can see them fussing over minor mistakes, ink and straight lines. At the other end of the spectrum lies the time the typewriter gives you to think as you type. You can think things through. It’s a slow -and may i add again, finger hurting- process. It also provides space for lost connections between thoughts which can be used effectively to enhance the readers’ imagination. So writers nowadays seem to not be writing at all. And maybe even way back then, maybe these great names weren’t writing either. Maybe it was just fingers, time and an old typewriter. Maybe that was just it.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 9,500 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

The first edition is out and you can download it by clicking on the image below.

Also check out these interesting posts on the work and the launch which was in Amman here and here. I personally can’t wait for more.

لاتبك ِ فأحزان الصغَر تمضي كالحلم مع الفجر

وقريبا ًتكبرُ ياولدي وتريدُ الدمع َفلا يجري

- – -

إنْ سهرتْ أمطارٌ معنا أو غطى البردُ شوارعنا

فالدفءُ يعمّرُ أضلعنا ولهيب الشمس بنا يسري

- – -

وإذا بحّـتْ لك َ أغنية ٌ أو أنـّتْ قدم حافية ٌ

فشموس رفاقك َ آتية ٌ وستشرقُ من غضب الفقر

- – -

قد أرمى خلف الجدران وتحنّ ُ لحبي وحناني

فانظرْ في قلبك َ ستراني لنْ يقوى القيد ُعلى الفكر

- – -

سأضمك َوالصدرُ جريحُ وسأعشقُ والقلبُ ذبيح

مهما عصفتْ بيّ الريحُ لن أحني َفي يوم ٍ ظهري

- – -

وإذا ما الدهرُبنا دار ومضيتُ إلى حيث أوارى

أكملْ من بعدي المشوارَ لاتــُخْـلفْ ميعاد الفجر ِ

- – -

ِلن يسقي َ دمعٌ أشجاركْ لن تبني َ بالآه ِ جدارك

ِفاصرخْ بالخوف إذا زارك ْ لاتخشى النارُ منَ الجمر

ياولدي

ياولدي

Educativity = Education + Creativity. I will write a more detailed post about my thoughts later but for now I want to bring attention to an interesting new concept that TEDxYouth@Amman is bringing to the table. Other than all the youth who will be sharing their thoughts on Educativity on stage, there’s this competition that revolves around hearing your thoughts on Educativity, what it means and how it can be applied.

Read about it and do participate if you have something to share about the subject and about education in Jordan and in the world as a whole.

Youth Award: What is EDUCATIVITY?

Do you have your personal definition of EDUCATIVITY? Do you have a vision for how “education” and “creativity” can be put together? And do you want to be an official speaker at TEDxYouth@Amman?

As you may aready know, “Educativity” is the theme we have chosen for the TEDxYouth@Amman event taking place this coming November 19th 2011 at the Cultural Palace – Hussein Sports City. We created a competition to get you engaged and to hear from you.

What you have to do is pretty simple:

1. Take a 3 minute video of yourself telling us your vision for Educativity. A video using your personal camera or even your webcam would be good.
2. Send us the video to dina@tedxyouthamman.com before November 15th.
3. Wait for us to review all sent videos and pick the winner.

Three easy steps, all you need is a good vision or an idea to share about Educativity and a video camera.

The Prize:

If you are the lucky winner, your prize will be a 3 minute talk on stage on the day of the event in front of 1500 Jordanian audience! Get your cameras rolling!

Original Post.

I had to try and come back for the sake of expression, for the sake of writing, for the sake of being me again, for the sake of memories, for the sake of being content, and for the sake of my beliefs and convictions. This space has presented me with many opportunities that I can’t just walk away this easily.

I received the reminder of this space last week, but I still didn’t get to blogging until I ‘read’ something else -how convenient!-, thanks to a post by Ruba.

After that I jumped from one thing to another. From this:” I have a strong sense of things going out of existence at every second, fading away at the very moment of their coming into bloom: in the midst of life we are in death.”

To this: I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.

To that: Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.

All these texts on why people write got to me, because I write for reasons they mentioned, I write of reasons I don’t even know yet. I really want a typewriter, an old black one, If I get one i’ll be sure to write more than ever, but I don’t want to keep giving empty excuses.

Anyway, what I got via Aramex (He knows I love getting things via Aramex) was this:

A hardcover book, with all my blog posts till the beginning of this year.
All edited to fit the page.
Each link url printed in color.
Each month starting with a Jibran quote.
An index at the end.
I-was-blown-away.
I was really blown away, I’ve always wanted to write a book and it somehow happened. If I were to come back here for a single reason, this would be it. Thank you M.

That was my very first interaction, and from then on it got easier, strange faces all over are to become faces I’m accustomed to and will later miss. An unveiled female Bahraini face will teach me that I know nothing about other Arab countries. A Moroccan face will make me laugh and love. A Tunisian face will make me miss the intimacy of an intelligent close girl friend. A Syrian one will be the first to make me cry. A familiar Palestinian face will remind me to go back to my basics, to strengthen whatever ideology I carry. Faces, faces everywhere, each with a story, a different background, a different dialect, a different everything, an incredible amount of data to process that you can only control through one on one conversations (they were my favorite).

* I found out later that they had met and gone out the day before. The very next day, while standing with that same group taking pictures, I realized how one day can make a difference in your wanting to take a picture with someone. The very next day, we were all bundled together smiling, this time they weren’t strangers. *

We talked culture, heritage, religion, politics, even a tiny bit of personal philosophy with some. We walked the streets of Jericho, Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron. We laughed, some fought, and most of us shed a tear or two.

My first trip to Palestine last year was different. It was a discovery and I was focused on the physicality of the place, on buildings, walls, streets. Even the limited interactions with Jews I would define them as physical things, as if their faces were part of the space now, not faces of human beings. This time it felt more like I was home, I don’t know any of the places that we went to other than those in Bethlehem and Hebron but I felt like I knew it all. It was all too new to the Tunisians, Moroccans, Algerians, Bahraini and the rest, so I somehow convinced myself that I knew it the most.

My attention shifted to the people this time, both from Palestine itself and from the rest of the Arab world. Even the Jordanians themselves seemed much more interesting under the Palestinian sun. I tried to shed away all my preconceived convictions of people, getting to know them in Palestine meant that there was some sort of aura around their faces, every topic was infused, washed, rinsed and rewashed with something Palestinian.

I was getting close to interesting personalities, each with different content to share and remodel, all with a more than wonderful homey background of Palestine. At times the background would fade and the faces would be more focused, maybe because of the amount of time spent in buses and hotel lobbies, maybe because Palestine is a humane cause to me, maybe because I am simply interested in my own idea of human interaction (which I was fully in control of because I knew no one).

Amna, Mirna, Ons, Mola, Abdelbarie, Younes, Abdel Majeed, Riyad, Yazan, Tareq, Hamza, Alaa, Shaden, Maram, Ahmed, Maryam, Ragheb, Fatiha, Rana, Raneen, Hamed and many many others. I know that if I don’t see you again, in a couple of years I will be left with a few framed memories and a few first names. So I write this to remember you, to trigger whatever is needed to keep as many images in my head as possible. To remember discussions, camps, 5 different bedrooms, endless walks, newspapers, old souks, breakfasts, lunches and dinners, plans, complaints, and crossing the country in a bus that carried our love around for a week.

May we meet again..

In my previous post I wrote about the Charter for Compassion, how it started and what it’s about. All things remain as ideas until we act upon them, and I think the Charter for Compassion is providing Jordanians the best way to do good this Ramadan.

The idea is very simple and I will take you through it backwards. At the end of the holy month of Ramadan 5 winners will get a prize each. The first: a one year scholarship to an outstanding student in need in the winner’s name. The second prize will be a one year health insurance for a family in need also in the winner’s name. The third is full payment of heating bill for a family in need during the coming winter. The forth prize will be 3 different skilled labor courses for people in need. The fifth and final one is entertainment and interactive nights for the elderly throughout a full year. All prizes will be given to individuals or families in the winners names’.

The Pay it Forward concept is one of the most amazing things out there. You do good and you are repaid by good being done to someone else and not to you directly. When the circle gets bigger and bigger I am sure that you will be repaid somehow, but this concept takes the definition of goodness into another new selfless dimension. Read more about the Pay it Forward Movement here.

Now if this Charter for Compassion competition does not apply as Paying it Forward then I don’t know what does! For you to be able to win one of these prizes and help put a smile on someone else’s face all you have to do is share your own daily act of compassion, a specific commitment you are making to live more compassionately, or a compassionate act you have witnessed, on the application here.

The competition defines acting compassionately as: treating others like you would like to be treated yourself. To relate to and try to alleviate the pain and suffering of other humans beings. To seek to bring joy, empathy and kindess through your actions towards others.

It can be something as small as helping your mother prepare Iftar to a big initiative you’re doing to encourage skilled labor. It can be your own act or one you witnessed others do. What’s interesting as well is how this might encourage people to actively do good in order to help someone they know who might need a scholarship or any of the prizes.

I personally hope that these acts do not become monopolized by Ramadan or any other religious event but remain a habit within us all.

Compassion: a small selfless act; unconditional kindness; a creator of happiness.

During a TED talk on February 28, 2008 Karen Armstrong made a wish: to help creating, launching and propagating a Charter for Compassion. on November 12, 2009 the Charter was unveiled to the world. The Golden Rule lies at the core of the charter which consists of a document that transcends religious, ideological, and national difference.

The Charter for Compassion is a document that was drafted by a multi-faith, multi-national council of thinkers and leaders. Here it is:

“The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others even our enemies is a denial of our common humanity.

We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.”

The Charter of Compassion is a cooperative effort to restore not only compassionate thinking but, more importantly, compassionate action to the center of religious, moral and political life.

The good news is that this charter is not just Karen Armstrong’s project anymore, it has been adopted by a great amount of people and volunteers who are taking this charter and applying it in different parts of the world. And you guessed it, Jordan is on the list.

You might be wondering how one can restore compassion in himself or in others or how the idea will be applied, my hint to you is: Thirty kind acts in thirty days. After all, it is Ramadan.

I will let you know more about this tomorrow once the campaign is officially launched. Till then you can check the website, the Facebook page, the twitter account, or ASK ME .

First a few images from Darat Al Funun

See the sign: Al Rai, Al Dustoor, Al Sha3b. I didn’t know that we had a newspaper called Al Sha3b. But it’s nice to see the 3 words together like that.

From the Jordan Youth Forum. this was part of a big mural with many drawings.

Mixed Martial Arts event at Le Royal, why do we like to watch humans fight? hmm

Al Balad Music Festival – Yacoub Abu Ghosh with his new album. It was truly magnificent.

Zaven Kouyoumdjian (of ‘seereh w infata7et’) at the Jordan Media Institute.

Souad Massi at Al Balad Music Festival truly entertaining the crowd.

Oh Seriously at the GEEKFEST.

A huge shadow during Al Morabba3 concert at AL Balad Music Festival.