Notes to the seeker. Most of the time when we love, we aren't in love with the thing itself - or the person themselves - but with a story we spun around them. In other words, we fell in love with an egotistical reflection of ourselves.
It is important to let go of the story in order to truly see the thing itself, or the person themselves. You may resist this, but it is important to get disillusioned of the story. It is only then that we find out what - or who - we were in love with.
If it is ego, then you should let it go. But if it is indeed true love, then submit to it regardless the cost. If it beckons, follow it regardless the path. If it speaks, believe it regardless the hurt. For it is both your trial and your salvation.
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When members of colonized people thank their colonizers and try desperately to follow in their footsteps in the hope that doing so will make them civilized... this is yet another effect of colonialism. It does not prove the colonizers right, it just shows how ugly colonialism is.
A good body of work to read on this would be Alfred Memmi's writings. Memmi was born a Tunisian Jew under French colonialism, and describes how Tunisian Jews were treated as "more European" than the native Muslims, but never equal to the French; and he analyzes their response.
Two good books by Albert* Memmi: 1. The Colonizer and the Colonized (non-fiction) 2. The Pillar of Salt (novel)
"Nobody listened to us when we spoke
So we used the noise of gunpowder as our rhythm"
-- Algerian national anthem, lyrics written 1955
Colonizers ignore every call of justice, every call of liberty, every scream of pain... until the oppressed take up arms. Then, they call them terrorists and launch a devastating total war "against terrorism" and in defense of "civilization".
And then you have the "civilized world" stand on the side of the colonizers, decry "terrorism", and double down on all forms of support for that "war on terrorism", until the country - liberated or not - ends up a traumatized wasteland for generations.
A confession that I want to approach respectfully (but honestly). When I compare the radicalization story of my (20-year younger) former self to the radicalization stories of people who got sucked into white supremacism, one main difference really surprises me
What truly surprised me was that while my sense of grievance (as a Palestinian Arab Muslim kid growing up in the Middle East) was based upon real, hard stuff. Meanwhile theirs was based upon "feeling" persecuted. It just seems to me that what broke my psyche was far heavier stuff
Obviously this is a very personal observation and I could be very wrong. It could be that I'm not empathetic enough with their experiences; or these experiences could be distant. I only intimately know my own story. I'm just putting this out there to see how right or wrong I am
A big part of my daily reading/writing is about the future (as a strategist, this is what I do). Lately, this is leaving me with a deep feeling of sadness. The MENA lies at the intersection of every bad trend that defines humanity's future yet is not part of the conversation.
Climate change? Water stress? Ecology collapse? Desertification? Food security? Refugee & migrant movements? Economic inequality? Social inequality? Demographic transitions? Mental health? Intergenerational trauma? We're at the nexus of all of them
And yet we're locked out of the conversation because we are led by dictatorships gripped by strategic nihilism, dictators who no longer care about the future of the region, only about the future survival of their power and privilege. They're sending us to hell and we have no say
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I have to admit I am developing a preference for threads because they are compact. There's just *so* much information to consume daily that I no longer have the patience for long-form narrative/storytelling formats (except perhaps as a downtine activity)
For some reason, over the past few weeks I've been fascinated by Flat Earther videos (did quite a number on my Youtube homepage). I guess I should write a bit about what I saw but here's a few quick thoughts
1. It's a modern movement. They aren't holdovers from a previous historical or traditional movement. This tells you something - if this is a modern movement then the reasons it exists are also modern issues
2. They actually *do* seem to obsess over "evidence". Only, they twist it around in a clever way. "Evidence" for them is redefined to "whatever can change my mind" (and since nothing can, then problem solved)