We choose to use the language that we want people to understand

Book Review.

“Culture is interpretation. Facts are made, and the facts we interpret are made and remade. They cannot be collected as if they were rocks, picked up and put into cartons and shipped home to be analyzed in the laboratory.” Refelections on Fieldwork in Morocco by Paul Rabinow was my book choice for February.

It is a great book for people who wish to get a little deeper insight on anthropology and the work anthropologists can do. It is also insightful to how interpretations can take place between different cultures, how perspectives and situations matter, where our eyes are set to be seen from and how the person seen chooses to present his subjects. It is quiet mind moving, and gets us thinking about the way we view new cultures when we first get introduced to them, and since today we live in a cosmopolitan world through the internet if not through the cities we live in, the way we perceive new cultures lies on the hands of both the viewer and the viewed. And I personally think, it is becoming more important today, to open up the spaces between our understanding to the tool of communication.

Bourdieu in his afterword in Reflection on Fieldwork in Morocco said, “But, as is usual with these matters involving much more cognitive understanding, we must not believe too quickly in our own comprehension.’ And I believe this does not only go to Anthropologists per se, maybe Anthropologists should just be more aware of their comprehension since they tend to later communicate their comprehension of their study, but at least we need to highlight to ourselves and to others, that our comprehension is according to the situation we were in, and different comprehension is always possible.

Bourdieu also compares our communication relationship with what Jean Piaget once said, “it is not so much that children don’t know how to talk: they try out many languages until they find the one their parents can understand”, and this opens up a wide spectrum to our reflection on what we encounter, for truly, I for one, would communicate differently depending on the person who is of my opposite. How I predict their level of understanding of my world will affect my choice to how I wish to communicate it to them.

I forgot to title this

As if I have the space or time or air to think about enrolling into anything, yet every time I read, sense or think, I am seeking to enroll in something. I am not quiet sure what has happened to me after my MA year of submission. I feel like I have been slapped into a coma and I can not manage to find a way out of it. I keep saying I have a priority but yet so much of my time is going off from it, and yet at the very same time, I am in search of something, I am absolutely unfamiliar with. Deep down, there is a sound, that tells me it is coming after me, and I will one way or another, find the crossing road with it, but for now keep going, keep seeking. Seeking for what? I am so unfamiliar with it, that every time I see the word enroll, I feel like it might be it, honestly I am loosing it, I barely have the time to blog, and if you ask me what am I so busy with, I have a hard time putting my words together to give you an accurate answer.

Figuring out my shit. Which I have been trying to figure out for God knows how long, but today it is a different kind of figure out, and as much as I am obsessed to enrolling into something new, the same much I am terrified by the idea of having to yet accomplish one more thing. I no longer want to accomplish anything, I now want to sustain. I want to focus, I want to stablize; my senses, my ground, my movement, my hand, literally, I want stability. Maybe, I might be able to say, that this is the first time in my life, that I search for longterm stability. I want to be stable, to stand up tall, sharp, certain, I want to be forever smiling, to feel advanced, satisfied, in the sense of acceptance, I want to dig down and not up, I want to feel rooted, building layers of wonders within the same wonder. An approach to internal being, like the rhizomatic roots of the grandest tree, so huge in its shape, in its weight, but actually I don’t want to care how it looks over the ground, I want with what it looks under the ground, it is so rooted, inside, so deep, in different shapes, in multiple ways, it is all so connected to the soil, to many soil, it looks like a Godfather, it is protection, knowledge, it is security, it is warmth, approval, it is infinite presence. Yes, I want to work my way down, not up, and I do not mean by down, down under, but down, down genuine, down real, down worthy. I do not care who sees it or who understands it, what I care about is the core of it, the truth of it, the clarity of it, the base of it, the light on it, it is the root self, the true self, the one self, the only self. This is where I am today in my life, where are you?

Enroll budged me into this piece.

Tree, spiritual, strength, creative

Loneliness

Stumbled upon this on instagram @damascus_son and it happened to be stumbled upon at the perfect timing for me.

I liked it for one reason: that I related to both feelings at the very same alone time. And I know for a fact that it is us who decide. Of course circumstances do play a part in us deciding, but if we do feel lonely, then there is at least one thing that can be changed for us to feel freedom. Mostly, it is 1- our mind set, 2- a situation we are in that we don’t agree to and are procrastinating about dealing with, 3- or we have limited comfort zone. To feel lonely is also to lack self love, motivation, goals. When we are alone, the world is under our feet. We have the quality of time to think, to meditate, to read, to relax, to work on personal growth, to write. When am alone; I personally don’t know where to start from, I always have a list of things to do. And when we are alone, that is the perfect thing to do. Get that dreams list done.

My New Years Resolution

I always have a list of wants and wills for my new years resolution, but this new year I only want to be grateful, I want to listen to life, I want to accept what it brings, and when it brings what it brings I want to make sure I listen. Some things are sent our way, but are not ours, and we know it, but we don’t listen, while other things we pass by and we want, but are not good for us, but we don’t listen. 2017 taught me to let go, not by just going with any flow, nor by just being careless, but instead, to let go from wanting to over think, to let go from wanting to be in control, and to let go from questioning why, when, and how it happened. I let go by letting life take me where it wants to take me without having to understand. I choose, but I no longer swim against the tide, but with the tide. Today, my resolution for 2018 is to give back. It is to believe in the unseen or the un-comprehended, not only at times of difficulties, but at all times. We meet people, and we know from the very first moment where this new relationship will take us, we do not need to design it in our heads, as much as take the steps we feel is the right step to take and to believe in our souls that can hear. Whenever we are on a new path, we know where it will take us, but we are never certain, we don’t have to be certain, all we need to do is believe in our senses, and instead of clouding our own selves, to help open the doors by believing in our own readings. This new year of 2018, I want to strengthen my soul’s hearing, by accepting, by letting, by practicing, and above all by believing. This new year, I might be clueless to where I might be going, but I am thoughtful of my capabilities to know by feeling. And when felt, I will write it down, and I will remind myself that something good will happen.

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A long time ago… it has been

Again and again and again I have been away. Too busy with the self. Not sure where this will take me yet. But I have missed blogging. I missed sharing and telling and writing and listening to my blog. I want to say I am back, as I plan to be back, but I still need few steps but I will strut if I had to. I will try my very best. And here is my first piece after considering coming back:

There is hoping, there is living, there is giving and there is being. There are those who are here for nothing but serving. Those who enjoy watching other beings grow. Those who by giving know they are bringing what is more important to our tables. It is not about giving, it is about making what is true worthy of living. Awakening our capability not to just be our highest self, but be our highest serving of our selves that help others be more of them selves. More the selves that is in reality grounded to the plantation of this earth. To the genuine reformation of prioritizing, reformation of the understanding of importance. The last longing feeling of pleasant that is not necessarily felt but acted upon. It is pure gem. It is the only pure human instinct. It is content. Change making. True change making.

Thank you Dr Kit

Elif Shafak & the Women in Today’s Islamic World 

Encounters: While meeting and getting my book signed by Elif Shafak who is both inspiring and a change maker. She talked about how today is a day when women need one another the most. That one must not be selfish to only ask for their rights and when obtained to ignore the rights of everyone else and to accept them being taken away, that we should fight for our rights all together for our freedom of rights. She also talked about uncertainty, that when we are certain we think we know it all and know no other, and it is always the cause of trouble as we stop accepting the other; which could be different which could be better. She talked about being confused, is being humble is being modest, that when one is always open to new answers for old questions you are not necessarily opposing but just giving yourself the chance for gradual growth. Elif might be contradictory to many people today, she might be controversy, but in my opinion Elif is only in search for unity, for freedom of rights, for opportunity, for being less judgmental and more diverse. I am saying all this because i agree with her attitude towards life, for she is a Turkish woman, who is taking her opportunity as an internationally recognized author to speak and to represent not only herself, but everyone else. She speaks in the name of peace, for everyone and not only for what meets her right, and in today’s world i must say and agree, that people like her, are much needed. And we do not need to like her or like every single thing she has to say, or agree with them, and we do not necessarily have to accept her attitude to life or her beliefs, like we do not have to agree or like anyone else’s, but to live together in peace, we need to at least accept them as human beings and accept their rights to be the human they were born to be, as long as they don’t over cross or step over anyone else. It is my right to have rights but it is also your right to have yours. I truly wish and stand along with Elif for a world to better understand, that in order for me to be happy, your happiness is important too. I think it is about time to realize one’s unhappiness which might cause so much suffering, is causing as well so much violence for their rights to be heard.

Just being Anthropologically Tangled

I started loosing my mind, but it is that sense of loosing that you know and you have experienced before, it is that moment when your brains are vomiting out ideas like a volcano explosion, I am certainly uncertain about how good or bad that is to say… Ideas, can they ever be bad? Pressuring, time consumption, possibility, vulnerability behind intentions, have I really come up with this idea for the sake of the before and after ideas, or is it a really good idea. You leave it, sleeping in your notes on your phone, or you stick it on a post it in front of your every day wall, or you scratch it down in one of your note books, I tried several times to organize that habit of mine that includes notes scattered everywhere, I have even started this blog just because of that, I think I have it written somewhere in my introduction or past introduction identifying the reason behind starting a blog: “to have one place for all my stars in my sky”. Sky, but there is a sky everywhere, isn’t there. I mean you go to Africa and there you have a sky, the same sky that you see in South East Asia, and then you have stars, but they are not always the very same stars, and this is my life with my notes, only a little overwhelming when I come to think about adding one more. But I add it, just in case you never know, one day, some day I might need it or find it or get back on it, does this happen to you at all? And this again goes back to my reason behind choosing to get into Anthropology, I just want to study people, my ideas are around understanding people, understanding situations, knowing the “unclear” a better word chosen to “unknown”, I just want to study things that happen that we can not utter in words, and so there is a complication in verbalizing, and so I suddenly am attracted to them like gravity calling me to make meaning of things.

Just a note on this post: I have been readings and thinking non stop about anthropological approach to anthropological topics for the past 24 hours “Dissertation Topic Matters”, maybe it will make better sense to my explicit post.

Added to the daily prompt on: Vanish

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Maybe, or Maybe not

One of the few things I know about writing is this:

Spend it all, shoot it, play it, loose it, all, right away, every time. do not hold what seems to be good for later, place it in the book, or for another book, give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better pace later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for latter; something better.

These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly, becomes lost in you. You open your safe and find ashes.

Annie Dillard

Daily Prompt: Maybe

Maybe, red door, blue door, door, doors, architecture, montreal

Town Hall – Brussels

What about the magic town hall?

A place where your eyes wont get enough of; beautiful architecture, just stand in the centre, sit even or maybe, look up, look around, wonder, and get lost between the art that has been designed around you.

Click here for more. 

Daily Prompt: Luxury 

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Let us Admire

Dear Loved Ones,

This world is soon to be gone,

Let us admire what is left of it, what surrounds us, what comes to us, and even what leaves us, let us turn our heads around and tilt our backs to the front, let us sit upside down and do hand stands, let us see the world from the other side, let us change the blacks into the whites and the roses into vases, let us not waste one more day, let us not wait one more minute, let us cherish every moment we walk through and in to, from the very moment of now till the very moment of the next, let no one stop you, let no one pull you, let you be in the surface of your own earth, standing with both feet touching your grounds, don’t wait for no one to tell you what to do or where to go, but listen instead to the bottom of your heart, let the heart beats direct you, let them guide you, close your eyes and use every other existing sense in you to feel and admire every living thing around you. Admire yourself, your body, your movements, admire your taste, your vision, the sound, admire your breath, the feel of the air against your body, admire the kisses that rain upon you, the arms that go around you, admire the people who sit beside you, the people who call and message you, admire the sun when it shines, the clouds that shades you, admire the sky that is so high, and the grounds that carry you, admire the shadows of people living by you, admire the scent of your meals and the scent of your nourishment, admire your presence, your presents presence, your belongings, your capability, capacity, your possibilities and your whole self.

Daily Prompt: Admire. 

Flowers, Florals, Admire, Love