Ava

597km/weekend


Hitting the roads for a nice trip up north in Ava most certainly helped to satisfy the need to wander. And wander I did. The car has always been the ultimate symbol of freedom, at least for me. The car's status as a symbol of freedom does not stem solely from its ability to spirit one away. It is also very much about be able to choose, for being on the road means having to make choices; turn or go straight, stop or keep going. And in choosing we are free as much as we are (always) free to choose. We are always defined by the choices we make; and not choosing, is also a choice. 

Alone

can be loneliness. 


"That was one of the things again: you saved time. You walked quicker, you got home and drank a beer quicker, you ate your supper quicker. And then the sex you had with yourself, that was quicker too. You gained all this extra time, Geoff thought - extra time in which to be lonely. Stop that, he said to himself. You aren't allowed to be a sad person; you're only allowed to be sad."
~Trespass, Julian Barnes

Conversation

I've always been a sucker for conversations


"You mean you're not in love unless you're in pain?"
"Of course I don't mean that. I just mean that, well, its like jealousy. Love can't exist without the possibility of jealousy. If you're lucky, you may never feel it, but if the possibility, the capacity to feel it, isn't there, you aren't in love. And it's the same with pain." 

Tomorrow

To be understood, as to understand.


Shiraz bound, tracing the spine of the Zagros mountain range. That was a long bus ride but ended with such wonderful memories and new friendships. Life really is about the connections you make. Its been so long since I last took a long bus ride into the unknown. I am prone to bouts of occasional longing; a composite feeling of restlessness with a liberal dose of that need to wander. Perhaps this is in keeping with the associated feeling of not quite belonging. And the fact that the views through my windows are now far too static.

Sky

Simply, breathtaking


Things used to be very simple. And maybe they still are. Just that we like to complicate matters. A few days in the countryside seemed to reinforce this belief. I always find it easier to think whilst away from everything else, no mobile phones, no blackberry, no connection. Just open space, blue skies and rolling clouds to allow one to reconnect with oneself. I often wonder if complication is a function of growing up? The more we think or try to apply our minds the more complex things become. Our words are no longer simple, laden with layers of complex tones and nuances. And this perpetuates as we apparently gain more wisdom with age. Maybe it is not that complicated. Maybe it really is because we start to use our heads more than our hearts, when they should at the very least be used in tandem. 


"Great simplicity is only won by an intense moment or by years of intelligent effort or by both. It requires one of the most arduous conquests of the human spirit: the triumph of feeling and thought over the natural sin of language." 
~T S Eliot 

Success

Live well, laugh often, love much


Memory is a funny thing, in the sense that a seemingly irrelevant or unrelated trigger can spark off a chain of recollection. But what is even more peculiar about memory is the conclusion that this chain of recollection leaves you with; an imprint of the past to face the future. When I walked into the restaurant to meet the godson for brunch yesterday, I could hear him shouting and waving to me, "Papapaaa Papaapaaa!" which is his equivalent of Godpa, as I have since learned that the guttural "g" is difficult to articulate (for now). This sight (and sound to be specific) reminded me of a pharse "Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much" that I saw in a Sydney cafe a couple of weeks back. As there was WiFi available in that cafe, I Googled the phrase and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it is a line from a poem entitled "Success".  The poem is written very much in the same vein as Rudyard Kipling's "If" being prescriptive and setting out, commandment style, the author's definition of Success.  This started me thinking about the meaning of Success. But being on holiday (and due to the arrival of the food which was awesome), such thinking didn't last very long and was shelved until Arbite's second anniversary celebrations last night. Sitting here now, after having led you through a whole irrelevant chunk of words, I have come to the conclusion that I now have a better understanding of Success. And in a way, Arbite's 2nd anniversary celebration was a little celebration of this new perspective. I have in the past two years, through Arbite, Etienne and a myriad of experiences learned a tremendous amount about how Success should be defined. I have learned that Success is not about how high up the corporate ladder I climb nor is it about what I do for a living or what I have. It is instead, very much about who I am to the people around me and to those that mean the world to me; Do I feel like I have made them Lived Well, Laughed Often and Loved Much? It is not about the titles that I add to my name or memberships in professional bodies. It is about earning the title of good husband,  good father and being an active member of the most unprofessional body, the family unit. It is about trying to make a difference in this world that we live in, even if that difference is only on a personal level.  It has taken me two long years to reach an understanding or to get this glimpse of what Success truly means. Now, I have the rest of my life to achieve it.  


    

Artefact

Memento Mori
 

"Its that Proustian idea of the power of objects to evoke a memory," he says. "Like when you find an old cinema ticket in a coat pocket. In a flash you remember the film, who you went with, what kind of a day it was."

Sun

Sydney harbor bridge, morning. 

Our cities have become so bright that we can no longer see the stars at night; an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment. When it comes to the material, our knowledge and technical accomplishments are unsurpassed. But beyond this, we can no longer identify right and wrong, light and dark, the question of good and its absence. 

Stars

And the lights like stars

If the stars were mine
I'd give them all to you
I'd pluck them down right from the sky
And leave it only blue

Riddled

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Riddled with bullet holes and artillery craters, the remains of the former Holiday Inn Beirut stands as a reminder of the devastation of war. War destroys in an instance, that which we have painstakingly built up over years; Buildings, infrastructure, society. War also claims lives. Not just that of those who have died in conflicts but also that of those who have survived. Life is never quite the same after. This year's Pulitzer prize for Feature Photography tells the story of Scott Ostrom, an Iraqi war veteran who suffers from PTSD and how he struggles with daily life. Finding peace to his personal war seems to be his goal, long after his fight in Iraq has drawn to a close. A fitting winner.

Freedom

From the rooftops.

This photo was taken in the Christian quarter of Damascus, near Bab Touma. I can still remember the sound of the streets as I walked down the winding alleys. In fact I can still very vividly remember the sights and sounds and even the smells of the places I visited across Syria. I remember the nights spent dining on the rooftop at Naranj, my favourite middle eastern restaurant. I think that is what travel does to you, it deposits a piece of every land that you visit deep within your soul. But the Syria of my memory is not the Syria that we know today, torn by fighting and broken ceasefires. It pains me to see a place I once knew torn up by artillery shells and stained with blood. Every single human being deserves to have a life free from oppression, freedom. I pray that freedom, the lasting kind, will one day flourish in Syria. And hopefully soon.

Taxonomy

Hidden but still felt.

Today, the Church commemorates the Day of the Unborn Child and urges its members to be the voice of the unborn child, who does not have a voice. I dare say that the sanctity of life is universal but it is the definition of "life" that remains controversial. Does a human life begin in the womb or only after a certain period in the womb or only upon leaving the womb? I take the stand that life begins in the womb upon fertilization and that a life is a life; there are no sub-categories of life form within the human species. Any draftsman worth his salt will know that the crafting of definitions must be done with care as there will be ripple effects in the use of such poorly defined terms. To define life as requiring certain cognitive functions or certain physiological functions, in essence functions that a fetus lacks, has repercussions beyond the womb. Lest we forget that the Jewish Holocaust arose out of the definition of a people being physiologically and mentally "lacking", "inferior" or "inadequate".

Pigasus

Write or Wrong, Why do we try?

"If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that make a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story."
~John Steinbeck

Pot

A pot poured out
Fulfills its spout
~Samuel Menashe

A simple poem, that fulfills itself. I like how perfectly the verb "fulfills" fulfills the promise of a generous thought. A promise, a mission, an obligation, a nature. These are the things that it is possible and desirable to fulfill. fulfills the promise of a generous thought, a promise a mission, an obligation, a nature. And so a pot fulfills its spout, but what do we fulfill? This question becomes more pertinent after a long week at work.

Descendants

Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.

This photo was snapped in Bosra, Syria where I was being spied on by a curious bunch of kids who were hiding behind a wall. I must have been a peculiar sight, wandering around in an un-touristy area with a big camera. I remember seeing them duck for cover as I raised my camera to shoot them, with cheeky grins on their faces. It was part game, part shyness and only after one or two approached me did the rest pour out from behind the wall, running and laughing. As I watched the news this evening, I couldn't help but think that a perverse version of this scene is happening now in some Syrian cities, where kids are hiding behind walls because strange men are shooting at them, just that this time with bullets. The death toll rises in Syria and more women and children are being slaughtered. In war, it is always the children that suffer; always the innocent. And as talks go on now at the UN on how to deal with this crisis the bloodshed continues. If only the problem could be talked away.