My life chapters

Chapter 1 Childhood between home and alienation

Living inside my mind, was the main characteristic of my childhood. I had stories going on inside my head. I made up the drama missing in my life, the adventure and soon the romance, too. Sometimes, I made up stories to cover the drama happening in my young life. I dreamt and dreamt my days away. 

When I got introduced to books at around 11 or 12 years of age, I found my salvation, my solitude. My first real book was David Copperfield and I drowned in his sadness and pain to forget my disappointments.


Chapter 2  First love illusion leading to marriage
Love in eastern societies is a big issue, we think about all the time, talk about privately but never discuss publicly. When discussed publicly, it is always awkward. Searching for love is an etyernal journey in everyone's life. We all look for someone with whom we feel comfortable, we feel like ourselves.

Chapter 3  A revolution 

25 January 2011, the start of a revolution in my homeland. The start of a journey of exploration and enlightenment. No, I think that preparation for this journey started really earlier in 2010.

Chapter 4  Rebels go far
August 2013 marked the start of this chapter. It was the change that I most needed. The change that made me see things from a new perspective. I got the chance to look from outside, from far away. It was time to explore new grounds, to grow up by leaving home. I know I have left my parents home a long while ago but still I was living within my comfort zone. I was still living among my familiar environment. I had to start getting away, and being partially independent. This step would lead to a further movement and a more independent approach in the very near future. I could have never imagined, not in my wildest dreams that this decision will be the start of a whole new life.
  

Chapter 5 The new land

Welcome to the new land!!!

21 February 2016 , I set my feet on this new land and there I started a new chapter of life. I am hopeful because starting over and getting second chances is an opportunity not all people get. Here, I' m granted this chance to start over and be what I want to be. So I'm really grateful. 
It's a choice I made sometime ago. I choose aloneness. Aloness is getting sever with every step I take.

Farewells

I have said my farewell to the city of love. And at that instance I wrote the end of a chapter of my life, signalling the end of an era. Now, I m in transit waiting the start of what is to come.

The nice quiet city where I have discovered myself and a definition of love that suits me. I had the time and space there to contemplate and learn. In this city, there was no reason to rush and so much time to engage with yourself. I have loved the silence there. And I have rediscovered friendship and pure love. 

As I contemplate the last three years, it looks amazing and really fulfilling. I have gone through depths of life inside of me I never trodden into before. I feel amazed at the discoveries I made. 

The strength I discovered in me is amazing. I have learned to appreciate my aloneness. I m no more afraid of being on my own. Before, afraid of being alone was the main reason for my staying where I was. I made sacrifices that was unnecessary just because I was sure that I can't live and be on my own. I was attaching my existence and security to people, places and things. This is a big mistake which wasted 7 years of my life.

Now, I see life and myself so much better and I m ready to take things one more step further. I have hope and confidence. 

Life is full of surprises and experiences with good and bad included. And I have learnt not to regret. I have learnt to grow stronger from the bad and enjoy the good and in both keep smiling because everything will pass.

This is what jWoman had to say two weeks ago.

My Readings: The Conquest of Happiness By Bertrand Russell

A simple, easy to read book it was, with a profound journey through the depth of our life. The modern man faces a lot of disappointment and struggles with himself first then with the outside world which makes him continuously. This book helps you look around and spot what you were doing wrong everyday. It makes you re-evaluate your actions and see the true reasons why you do what you do.

To me this final section of the last chapter "The Happy Man" sums a lot up.

"All unhappiness depends upon some kind of disintegration or lack of integration; there is disintegration within the self through lack of co-ordination between the conscious and the unconscious mind; there is lack of integration between the self and society, where the two are not knit together by the force of objective interests and affections. The happy man is the man who does

not suffer from either of these failures of unity, whose personality is neither divided against itself nor pitted against the world. Such a man feels himself a citizen of the universe, enjoying freely the spectacle that it offers and the joys that it affords, untroubled by the thought of death because he feels himself not really separate from those who will come after him. It is in such profound instinctive union with the stream of life that the greatest joy is to be found."

There are so many parts I wanna share, I dunno where to start but something I liked so much and it reminded me of my blog on Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolf

"If you see a child drowning and save it as the result of a direct impulse to bring help, you will emerge none the worse morally. If, on the other hand, you say to yourself, "It is the part of virtue to succour the helpless, and I wish to be a virtuous man, therefore I must save this child", you will be an even worse man afterwards than you were before."

This paragraph reminds of what I hated most about Mrs. Dalloway as I called her the good atheist. Doing actions just to be called God, while deep inside I don't care whether the boy drowned or the whole of the humanity.

Russell discussed Selfishness too. 

"The traditional moralist, for example, will say that love should be unselfish. In a certain sense he is right, that is to say, it should not be selfish beyond a point, but it should undoubtedly be of such a nature that one's own happiness is bound up in its success. If a man were to invite a lady to marry him on the ground that he ardently desired her happiness and at the same time considered that she would afford him ideal opportunities of self-abnegation, I think it may be doubted whether she would be altogether pleased. Undoubtedly we should desire the happiness of those whom we love, but not as an alternative to our own. In fact the whole antithesis between self and the rest of the world, which is implied in the doctrine of self-denial, disappears as soon as we have any genuine interest in persons or things outside ourselves. "

He discussed too the virtue of boredom and the importance to let children have time and space doing nothing to cultivate skills and talents and interest in the world around them. He doesn't recommend filling up all the time of a child with activities or devices as we do nowadays. It's good for everyone to deal with something of a boredom in life. To have the time to look around and have interest in various subjects is an advice he gives to get away from self-centric problems and be happy.

"We are less bored than our ancestors were, but we are more afraid of boredom"

"A child develops best when, like a young plant, he is left undisturbed in the same soil. Too much travel, too much variety of impressions, are not good for the young, and cause them as they grow up to become incapable of enduring fruitful monotony."

"For all these reasons a generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced from the slow processes of nature, of men in whom every vital impulse slowly withers, as though they were cut flowers in a vase."

One of the parts that really intrigued me , as I always had questions related to it, is the parent-child relationship and where do sacrifice fit in such a relation.

His argument agreed with my instincts that giving birth to a child does not put on him a burden to satisfy you or make you happy. Any sacrifice you make for him/her is your choice and no burden on him. He discussed how this can be a source of happiness to both and where balance is needed.

There is much more to the book. I hope everyone reads it.

This is what jWoman has to say for today. 

The dark space

I know I am growing old. And for sometime now, I have been aware that I am coming to the age, where it is normal to lose those people that you once thought will be there forever. As I grow old, they grow older and I have to be prepared.

Can anyone be prepared to lose a parent, an aunt or an uncle or a close older relative who have always been there in your life?

Whatever are the distances, they are there. You had it as a fact of life, that you have them. Days and month and maybe years pass without saying a word but you know they are there. And suddenly, the dark space inside becomes bigger as it engulfs another one of the family. And you are waiting for, who is next.

One day, you will wait no more, because you will be next.

Today I lost one. I lost my uncle Benjamin. And it scares me again. He is not there anymore. I am becoming more alone in this world. Even if, I didn't see him everyday, I knew he was there.

Can I prepare myself for such loss? No, I can't. Isolating myself from family, won't make it more bearable. Memories of them are engraved in my brain and can't be erased. It won't make the pain any less.

What scares me more is thinking that I am waiting for the next.
I wish I have shown him more love and care. I wish I said, I love you, uncle or I miss you.

No more memories to create with you, just memories to remember and a dark space inside of me.

Pray for us, my dear uncle.

That's what jWoman has to say today.

Autism

Autism is a phenomenon that has always fascinated me. I researched it a lot especially after watching Carly flietcherman video by chance. Then there was the movie "Temple Grandin" and watching videos on YouTube About Temple and her lectures and talks.

Only 15% of them has jobs, business are missing what autistic people can bring into their businesses.

People with autism tend to have a detail focus, that is they see and observe many details in our world, which many neurotypicals tend to miss. They have an eye for detail.

We, neurotypicals tend to see what we they expect to see, what they know from context or experience. But people with autism see things as they are. They have an original perspective not stained by context.

Temple Grandin, "If it had been left to neurotypicals, we would all be sitting down in caves gossiping round the camp-fire. We would have never gone and invented the wheel."

SAP has that by 2020, 1% of their working force will be in the autistic spectrum.

Watch this inteseting talk about people with autism at work.

Go and find more about autism and its wide spectrum.

This is what jWoman has to say for today.

Untitled blog

I am a christian and I am an Egyptian, I was born an orthodox christian egyptian female. These are the tags attached to me since birth. That was just the start.

I grew up in an eastern society, I never took that into consideration. I was a naive introvert. But after thirty years my mum confessed that she lived her life scared to death, that I d fall in love with one of my Muslim friends. And whenever she saw one getting too close, she would panic. I never saw that. I don't know why I never fell for one of them, but that was what happened. In fact, the only truth is I never thought about it.

Lost your track, made a bad choice, grew up out of your current relationship status, or any other reason why you can't go on in your marriage is entirely a personal matter, in my opinion. In our society and in our world it is not. It is a matter that concerns the state, the law, the church, the family and everyone around and at the very end of the list comes you.

Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a saying. Some sympathises but see you to blame since you went into it in the first place. Why did you ever marry such a guy? And I don't have to answer. I don't have to give reasons why I did that, or even why I can't go on?

Everyone is curious to know the juicy details. Did he cheat on you? Did you catch him in bed with another woman? Is he a sexual pervert? What happened, just tell us. You have to give us details, reasons.

Write all the details down, maybe we will think you are worth a divorce, maybe not.

What is religious about that? Is it religious to take out your marital secrets just to get a divorce and you might need to add some spices or even make up stories just to convince the holy jury.

My life suddenly is exposed and under the mercy of other human beings.

Why can't I live like a civilized human being, why not? Is it because I did the mistake of getting married in an orthodox church??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They ban any civilian marriage between two Christians and the church treat them as outcasts and more!

So what's the solution, how can we spare ourselves, stay civilized and keep our sanity in this society where no one respects the other's rights or privacy.

I can't be part of that, I won't do that.

AND I don't need a man to look good

jwoman has nothing more to say
:(

My Readings: Mrs Dalloway

Mrs Dalloway and the good atheist.

“Oddly enough, she was one of the most thoroughgoing sceptics he had ever met, and possibly (this was a theory he used to make up to account for her, so transparent in some ways, so inscrutable in others), possibly she said to herself, As we are a doomed race, chained to a sinking ship (her favourite reading as a girl was Huxley and Tyndall, and they were fond of these nautical metaphors), as the whole thing is a bad joke, let us, at any rate, do “our part; mitigate the sufferings of our fellow-prisoners (Huxley again); decorate the dungeon with flowers and air-cushions; be as decent as we possibly can. Those ruffians, the Gods, shan't have it all their own way,—her notion being that the Gods, who never lost a chance of hurting, thwarting and spoiling human lives were seriously put out if, all the same, you behaved like a lady. That phase came directly after Sylvia's death—that horrible affair. To see your own sister killed by a falling tree (all Justin Parry's fault—all his carelessness) before your very eyes, a girl too on the verge of life, the most gifted of them, Clarissa always said, was enough to turn one bitter. Later she wasn't so positive perhaps; she thought there were no Gods; no one was to blame; and so she evolved this atheist's religion of doing good for the sake of goodness.”

I didn't like Clarissa at all, she represented all that I detested. (I remember this sentence from The Great Gatsby.)  She is a pretentious old woman. She has been pretending all her life. All her choices were made according to the image she wanted to project, not what she really wanted. Something not real and not genuine were my only feelings towards her. 

The quote I pasted above touched me so much. She lost faith in God, but she kept her virtue, he good making. She made up her own atheist's religion. Part of this, I think, is to fulfill the image she wants to reflect. She wants to do what is righteous and good, so that she is known as the good Lady Clarissa. Does she really believe this is good or does it only for the illusion of good. I think, she is all into the illusion, and deep in her restless soul she believes not.