09.29.08
The Awakening
I did my best, and walked the extra mile… but it seems to me that sometimes, some things are just not meant to be… Anyways, I just remembered this beautiful piece and I thought of sharing it over here… it so much reflects the way I feel now…
Anyways,
Rou…
A time comes in your life when you finally get it. When in the midst of all your fears and insanity you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere, the voice inside your head cries out – ENOUGH!
Enough fighting and crying, or struggling to hold on. And, like a child quieting down after a blind tantrum, your sobs begin to subside, you shudder once or twice, you blink back your tears and through a mantle of wet lashes, you begin to look at the world through new eyes.
This is your awakening…
You realize that it’s time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change, or for happiness, safety and security to come galloping over the next horizon. You come to terms with the fact that he is not Prince Charming and you are not Cinderella and that in the real world, there aren’t always fairy tale endings and that any guarantee of “happily ever after” must begin with you, and in the process, a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.
You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate, or approve of who or what you are… and that’s OK.
And you learn the importance of loving and championing yourself, and in the process, a sense of new found confidence is born of self-approval.
You stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to you (or didn’t do for you) and you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected. You learn that people don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say and that not everyone will always be there for you and that it’s not always about you. So, you learn to stand on your own and to take care of yourself, and in the process, a sense of safety & security is born of self-reliance.
You stop judging and pointing fingers and you begin to accept people as they are and to overlook their shortcomings and human frailties, and in the process, a sense of peace and contentment is born of forgiveness.
You learn to open up to new worlds and different points of view. You begin reassessing and redefining who you are and what you really stand for.
You learn that principles such as honesty and integrity are not the outdated ideals of a bygone era, but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which you must build a life.
You learn to look at relationships as they really are and not as you would have them be. You stop trying to control people, situations and outcomes.
You learn that just as people grow and change, so it is with love; and you learn that you don’t have the right to demand love on your terms, just to make you happy.
You learn that alone does not mean lonely. You look in the mirror and come to terms with the fact that you will never be a size 5 or a perfect 10 and you stop trying to compete with the image inside your head and agonizing over how you “stack up.”
You come to the realization that you deserve to be treated with love, kindness, sensitivity and respect and you won’t settle for less. And in the process, you internalize the meaning of self-respect.
You learn that anything worth achieving is worth working for and that wishing for something to happen is different from working towards making it happen.
More importantly, you learn that in order to achieve success you need direction, discipline, and perseverance. You also learn that no one can do it all alone and that it’s OK to risk asking for help.
You learn that life isn’t always fair, you don’t always get what you think you deserve and that sometimes bad things happen to unsuspecting, good people. On these occasions, you learn not to personalize things.
You learn that God isn’t punishing you or failing to answer your prayers; it’s just life happening.
You learn that negative feelings such as anger, envy, and resentment must be understood and redirected or they will suffocate the life out of you and poison the universe that surrounds you.
You learn to admit when you are wrong and to build bridges instead of walls.
You learn to be thankful and to take comfort in many of the simple things we take for granted – things that millions of people upon the earth can only dream about: a full refrigerator, clean running water, a soft warm bed, or a long hot shower.
Slowly, you begin to take responsibility for yourself, by yourself, and you make yourself a promise to never betray yourself and to never ever settle for less than your heart’s desire.
Finally, with courage in your heart and with God by your side you take a stand, you take a deep breath and you begin to design the life you want to live as best as you can.
~ Anonymous
09.23.08
“إِنَّمَا أَشْكُو بَثِّي وَحُزْنِي إِلَى اللّهِ”
“يا ربِّ: إنَّ لكلِّ جُرْحٍ ساحلاً… وأنا جراحاتي بغير سواحِلِ…
كلُّ المنافي لا تُبدِّدُ وحشَتي… ما دامَ منفايَ الكبيرُ… بداخلي…”
– نزار قباني
قد حدث ما كنت أخشاه بل و أتجنب حدوثه على مدى الشهرين الماضيين…
حدث اللقاء… و تكاد تدمرني الآن عواقبه…
لكم من المؤلم أن تجلس في مكان واحد مع شخص كان يوماً كل الحياة… لا يفصل بينكما إلا إنشات قليلة و تلال من الخلافات و الإختلافات…
لم أتخيل أبداً مدى صعوبة العبث بالجرح الذي إكتوى… أو الذي كنت قد ظننته أغلق في صمت… إلا حين رأيته حقاً…
دائماً ما كنت أتخيل أنني أقوى من أن أشعر بمثل هذا الضعف و الإحتياج لأي شخص… أياَ كان…
ذلك كان شيئاً – ظننته فيما مضى – يحدث للآخرين فقط…
نعم لازلت أحبه… والأكثر إيلاماً أنني أعرف عن يقين أنه لايزال يحبني هو الآخر…
و لكن لماذا صعب علينا الحفاظ على هذه العلاقة…؟ هل حقاً تتكسر المشاعر على صخور الواقع بعد فترة…؟ ولكننا لازلنا نحتفظ بمشاعرنا… لقد كنت أكاد أسمع دقات قلبه حين إلتقت أعيننا لأول مرة منذ الفراق… وصليت لكي لا يشعر بارتعاشة يدي بين كفيه وقت السلام…
لماذا يا ربي يعجز بعض الناس عن الصمود أمام الإختلافات و يؤثرون أخذ الطريق الأسهل… و الإنسحاب…؟ لماذا أريد أنا أن أواصل المسيرة حتى لو أوصلتني لحائط سد، بل و قد أحاول إزاحته… بينما يغير هو من إتجاهاته بسهولة حين يبصر ظلاماً على أول الطريق… لماذا تصعب على الناس فكرة “walking the extra mile“ بينما أجدها أنا الطريق الأمثل للوصول لبر الأمان…
لا أجد حلاً و لا دواءً لما أشعر به… و لا أملك إلا أن أتوجه بشكواي إلى الله وأدعوه أن يهون الأمر علي… عسى أن يأتي يوم أنظر فيه إلى ما مضى من جراح بابتسامة من عبر مرحلة الخطر بسلام…
حقاً لا أعرف…
رحاب رجائي
في 23 سبتمبر 2008
09.20.08
Cracking Vs. Hacking
A few days ago my facebook account posted a spam message on all my friends’ walls…
Yesterday I failed to login to my account…
In short, I was hacked*…
I was very angry (and still) from the fact of losing my stuff over there, I mean it’s like spending time in building up something, then an unknown comes and takes it all from you… However, I am not angry from losing my stuff as much as I am angry from the idea of being stolen… I mean, this is a stealing process after all… for whoever did that, has taken something that is not his…
Anyway, I tried many things, all failed to let me re-access my account, so I finally sent a report to facebook with the situation… I took that step just for the sake of being positive towards what happened to me… However, I don’t think that they will get me anything back… and to tell you the truth… I am kinda taking this as a sign… See, I have been thinking of closing my facebook account for some time now, so may be this will simply make me do it at last (even though I have no idea how to close it since I don’t even have access to it!)…
Anyways, the reason I am writing this post today actually is that while I was surfing the internet in my desperate searches for a way out last night, I came across some interesting facts that even though I am with a solid educational IT background, I never knew about…
How did “hacking” start…?
To cut a long story short, the hacking community developed at MIT and some other universities in the 1960s and 1970s. However, hacking of that time had nothing to do with today’s definition of hacking… But it rather included a wide range of activities, from writing software, to practical jokes, to exploring the roofs and tunnels of the MIT campus. In 1969, the most famous hack of all times was created when two employees at Bell Labs’ think tank came up with an open set of rules to run machines on the computer frontier, a new standard operating system which they called later UNIX. (Now, does this ring a bell?)
How come then that we often think of a hacker as a security breaker…? How did this confusion develop…?
Well, they say it all started around the year 1980, when the news media took notice of hackers, they engrossed one narrow aspect of real hacking: the security breaking which some hackers occasionally did. They ignored all the rest of hacking, and took the term to mean “breaking security”, no more and no less. The media have since spread that definition, disregarding any other attempts to correct them. As a result, most people have a mistaken idea of what hackers actually do.
I won’t make it long with the complete history of hacking… you can google it yourself if you’re interested… The thing is bass that after I came cross these info, I kinda realized that one should actually distinguish between security breaking and hacking. See, the term “cracking” is what the security breaking issue is all about, and people who do it are “crackers”; some of them may also be hackers, just as some of them may be chess players or golfers… But, most of them are not…
It’s rather hard to write a simple definition of something as varied as “hacking”, but may be hacking would simply means exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness. Thus, any activity that displays playful cleverness has a sort of a “hack value”, which is quite different from the unethical cracking…
I remember years ago, I came across a book entitled “Ethical Hacking”… Something that was very provoking to me back then, as those were two words, from my own point of view, that can never be accompanied to each other… because hacking can never be ethical!
Well, may be it’s time to search for that book and read it…
Anyways…
Rou…
(* I guess the correct term that describes what happened with me is “I was cracked!”)
Note:
Ah, whoever has me added on his friends list on facebook.. don’t forget to remove me, for it’s not me any more!
09.19.08
As Cheesy as Always!
As repetitive as this might sound, I will keep saying it over and over again… I really really do hate this enormous number of TV series that invades Ramadan’s days…
I’m not only getting offended by their number, I’m also much offended with the fact that on a daily basis everybody around (colleagues, friends, family…) seems to be talking about scenes from the previous day’s episode… Although I haven’t seen any of them (I am not a TV fan, specially in Ramadan), but it’s really provoking to me to see people talking about what happened with Khaled Saleh, the “University student”, in his love story, or what was the “37 years old” Yousra wearing…
I was talking with a good friend of mine yesterday about how much this is not only abusing the spirit of Ramadan, but even more that such unrealistic characters under-estimate the audiences’ minds… He laughingly said that it’s very true, and then moved into an interesting point about some of those actors who had – supposedly – reached their “expiry dates”, nevertheless are still taking roles that does not suit their age or their looks or whatsoever… The question was “Why does this case happen with TV and not with Cinema movies…?”… The thing is that television, in contrast to cinema, doesn’t give a valid indicator on people’s opinions in a particular work, thus giving TV series’ producers a fake visionary on how much a specific actor/actress or a specific TV series is successful… and it ends up that we are stuck with the same actors playing the same idealistic roles for years and years…
And speaking of impractical roles… why is it always an ideal woman role who seeks justice and truth, and teach ethics to everybody around her, that Yousra, or Samira Ahmed, or whosever, always seem to play…
Why does it always has to be that cheesy and that naive…
I mean, for God’s sake, are we really facing that lack of creative ideas…?
Anyways!
Enjoy the weekend! (Afar from TV if possibleJ)
Rou…
09.18.08
No purpose or place…
“God damn it…
An entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars…
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes…
Working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need…
We’re the middle children of history, man…
No purpose or place…
We have no Great War… No Great Depression…
Our Great War’s a spiritual war… Our Great Depression is our lives…
We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars…
But we won’t…
And we’re slowly learning that fact…
And we’re very, very pissed off…”
– From Fight Club movie
09.16.08
Rumi’s Love…
“If the sky is not in love, then it will not be so clear…
If the sun is not in love, then it will not be giving any light…
If the river is not in love, then it will be in silence, it will not be moving…
If the mountains, the earth are not in love, then there will be nothing growing…”
– Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi
09.08.08
ما قدرت نسيت
أمر بالسيارة مسرعة من الشارع الضيق الموازي لشارع بيتي و أنا أتجنب النظر في أي إتجاه…
لا أريد أن أراه…
أنا لا أخشى المواجهة… ولكني أخشى توابع اللقاء…
أخشى ضعفي أمامه… أخاف أن يرى الدموع التي تقاتل حتى تنبثق من عيني عند رؤيته…
ها هي ذي سيارته… قابعة في نفس المكان منذ أمس الأول… لا أملك إلا أن ينقبض قلبي وأنا أتساءل إن كان بخير أم أن مكروهاً قد أصابه و منعه من مغادرة المنزل لليوم الثاني على التوالي…
أكره ضعفي… لماذا لازلت أقلق عليه وأتلمس معرفة أخباره… كيف لقلبي أن يظل يشعر به بهذه الطريقة…؟
لماذا لازلت لا أستطيع التغلب على إحساسي به و المضي قدماً في حياتي…؟
أحياناً أشعر أنني مريضة به… ولكنه مرض مزمن لا علاج له… يرحل لأيام، فقط ليعود بعدها لشهور…
تعبت… من نفسي… و من ضعفي أمامه… و من إحتياجي له…
أكمل مسيرتي و أنا ألاحق بنظري إنعكاس سيارته الذي يبتعد في مرآة سيارتي الخلفية و في ذهني يدوي صوت فيروز الحزين… “زعلي طول أنا وياك، وسنين بقيت، جرب فيهم أنا إنساك… ما قدرت نسيت………”
رحاب رجائي
في 8 سبتمبر 2008
09.03.08
…But some animals are more equal than others!
I know that I am a bit late in doing this, but I finally read George Orwell’s masterpiece “Animal Farm”… A simple flowing novel with great symbolic values that highlights the dark sides of human nature…
As most of you may already know, “Animal Farm” tells the tragic story of what happens when the oppressed farm animals’ rebel, drive out Mr. Jones, the farmer, and attempt to rule the farm themselves, on an equal basis, where each would work according to his capacity, respecting the needs of others. With the dream of Utopia in mind, the animals created their “Seven Commandments” which ensure equality and prosperity for all the animals. However, their adventure eventually failed, and “Animal Farm” ended up being a dictatorship of pigs, with the seven commandments reversed throughout the years until ultimately turned into one single commandment that said: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others!”
One of the most sarcastic parts from my point of view was having “Squealer”, that pig that could turn anything into its reverse, convincing the other animals that it was for their own sake that the pigs ate most of the apples and drank most of the milk, explaining that leadership was a “heavy responsibility”, and therefore the animals should be thankful to “Napoleon”; the leader pig!!!
Throughout the course of the novel, Orwell keeps you amazed on how the dark side of anyone can ruin lives of others, and as you reach its final page with the last sentence saying “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which…”, you can’t but wonder how power turned the pigs from simple “comrades” to coldblooded dictators who managed to walk on two legs, and carry whips… just like man do…
For me, “Animal Farm” says…
1- Power corrupts, and even more; absolute power corrupts absolutely
2- There’s no such place called “Utopia”
3- Propaganda, brainwashing, and thoughts control make people believe – practically – anything
Anyways, I will leave you with my favorite parts from the novel…
Rou…
“Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer – except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs. Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs…”
“As for the others, their life, so far as they knew, was as it had always been. They were generally hungry, they slept on straw, they drank from the pool, they labored in the fields; in winter they were troubled by the cold, and in summer by the flies. Sometimes the older ones among them racked their dim memories and tried to determine whether in the early days of the Rebellion things had been better or worse than now. They could not remember. There was nothing with which they could compare their present lives…”
