I’ve come to the end of this journey, this journey that started as a private place to vomit my pain.

I’m not the same person that I was then and I am content with that.

The posts about art, acting, film, and such will be moved over to the new blog, while the other posts about myself, my family, and my struggles will be converted into an on-line graphic book – imagine an on-line coffee table book.

Thank you to all readers and commenters, to all supporters, both silent and gentle, over the years.

I don’t know what comes next on my next journey but in the spirit of the 2010 World Cup, ke nako.

Stay posted as I put together the new blog and the book.

Hamba gahle, cool runnings

Midiane L’Etranger.

For anyone who knows me and has been following this blog, this is a major milestone. Up there with first kiss and getting married.

I have been wanting, for the last couple of months, to write a disclaimer post about my parents; I hope I haven’t already… I don’t think so.

I am not bitter anymore about my past. I am not angry at them at them doing what they did.  I am not feeling that my life is over and I’m just watching the additional time pass me by as I sit on the bench, watching someone else play my game. I’m playing my own game, calling the shots.

Out of pure emotional and mental conditioning, I start thinking angry thoughts about them, but then I remind myself that it’s over and that enough is enough. I’m doing what I want. In the spirit of the below TED talk, I’ve taken myself from where I was to where I wanted to be:

The reality is that my parents are just set in their ways. They’re not the idyllic Gothic monsters that a lot of my posts have made them out to be. They just are completely convinced that the way they do things is the only and most correct way to do things. They don’t feel the need to modify their behaviour or words. They don’t want to change. They’re just one type of Egyptian parents and they’re happy to stay the way they are.

They really don’t think that it’s necessary to engage with someone like me in a way that may work better for me. What they see as effort to do so is enough.

Lest anyone think that I’m shooting bullets through a soft duck-feather pillow, I’m not. I’m just telling like it is.

My fantasies about them speaking my love language, or understanding me more, or making the effort in a more Western style to connect with me, will not come true. I am very Western in that regard and they will remain Eastern. They feel that their way with me is sufficient. My wanting or asking for me is not correct and not necessary; it’s actually a burden on them.

I’ve adjusted my expectations about them and I have taken myself out of the ravine about my parents.

Kefaya ba’a - that’s Egyptian for “it’s enough”.

The really difficult issue now is that my life feels ‘empty’ without this.

For someone who wants to write as a living in the future, I haven’t been writing at all recently. Apart from the usual drama in life, I have been asking myself why I haven’t been writing. I got close to answer when a close friend, a … special one, asked me the same question recently. It took me a couple of days to formulate something and then I wrote the following. [Some parts have been rewritten to protect privacy of people mentioned.]

I don’t write based on inspiration. That’s not my main driver.

The main reason why I used to blog a lot more frequently is that I felt that I had no way to verbalize or say what I really wanted to feel. Most of my posts were about my parents, my depression, and my constant darkness. I had no life when I started this blog, and me writing in it perpetuated the vicious cycle I was in. I never had the courage to say what I felt. So, I wrote instead of saying. And I never had the courage to go out and do what I really wanted to do. So, instead of actually doing it or trying, I wrote about it instead.

Since the accident, a lot has changed on that front. I’ve had so many personal changes and so many arguments with my parents that forced me out of my mental and emotional coccoon. I’ve said almost 90% of everything I’ve ever wanted to say to them now. So… my main driver for blogging has really diminished.

The second reason is that somewhere after I recovered from the abcess operation last October, I just wanted to live. I was tired about sittting in my room, doing nothing, moping, hating my parents, being bitter and resentful, so I decided to live. Not just live in terms of doing projects and activities. But living.. enjoying life. Eating, listening to music, art, all that stuff.

Those are the reasons. Yes, some posts were based on an internal decision or external event, but those posts were more like stylized announcements. I was announcing my involvement with Carter’s and my decision about Egypt.

You can say that the third reason is yes, I haven’t had time. I was involved in a long-distance relationship until recently and working on it was a full-time endeavour, alongside the other stuff happening. It became clear that the relationship has been more important to me than writing. This is my future, I always said to myself. And I was barely keeping other stuff going, not to forget my dayjob.

If the 3 reasons are the branches, the root is that I haven’t had the urge to seriously write in the past 6 months. Other than the small updates about acting, art, or exercise, I haven’t had a gnawing urge. I don’t live in my head as much as I used to; I think writing was an expression of that. I thought back to high school times and why I started writing. It was my only outletback then. I wrote poems to talk about my feelings for girls and the depression I felt. I wrote and excelled in English and philosophy because I was bullied and unpopular, always the retard in the corner. Writing gave me power and status. Life for me is not like that any more. I’ve grown both in self-confidence and in self-worth. I think so long as my writing is tied to living in my head, my vicious mental cycles of failure, and emotional jail, it will never flourish in times when I’m not like that. Even recently, with all the depression, angst, anger, and helplessness I’ve felt, I haven’t felt the need to express myself or pour myself out in writing. I reach out to my friends. I go out for coffee and smoke. I drive and listen to music. I discover new things. I have new ways for dealing with my feelings. I howl and sing.

My writing now is coming out in more free and new ways that are not tied to my well or mal-being. I’m writing more blog posts and screenplays. I do miss writing essays. I miss writing for Efmevi. But my desire to write for the latter two has been very mild lately.

So, me not writing as much on my blog  means that I’m changing. These posts on Enme don’t define me; they just tell a story of who I was.

I’m right now trying to write a new story.

…. looking at this again, I realize that I’ve really understood myself with this predicament. Writing is not as immediate and as cathartic, as needed and as healing, anymore. When I do write, I enjoy it and I immerse myself in it. But it’s not the first canvas that I turn to when I want to express myself. In some ways, I don’t want to let go and say to myself that I have changed, that I will explore my thoughts and feelings through other feelings. It feels like contemplating divorce from a wife you love very much, but you just can’t understand why you’re so distant from her.

I don’t want to stop writing, eventhough technically I have. Maybe… I don’t know what to write about anymore.

More on this in the next post.

I’ve been cast as Cable – a principal role! -, the American soldier whom falls in love with a native. Oorah!

Life is great.

I’ looking to not seem inadequate in that moment. On my Todd, as I am, quiet or pensive or withdrawn, I feel exposed, naked, vulnerable, open to ridicule. opne to misunderstanding, which often means hurt. Opening, even if not requested, i an invitation to see me a I am with myself. If I’m misunderstood, it’s rejection of the invitation.

A large part of my appeal with people is that I’m witty, funny, and humorous. It’s the way I am. Recently, I’ve been getting myself to really think about comedy, in that I think about jokes and sometimes plan them ahead of time. Some of it is done consciously and others aren’t, although I can figure out how and why I get to a certain joke or line. It’s fun, it’s intellectually stimulating, and I get validated by it. I can get tired of it, but the fact that people continue to latch onto it encourages me to keep at it. [Not in original notes - addendum - I get tired of it often because I feel that it obscures other parts of me.]

Perhaps it’s a form of economy of experiences: use any opportunity, even if personally difficult or offensive, into comedy, into value. Make something out what is bad. Hit back with your wit and intelligence. You don’t have weapons, remember? You’re not a douchebag, you’re not a rude or cutting person. You can’t or inept at defending yourself.

Right?

You feel guilty about fighting back to defend yourself. You don’t have the right to; you’re not good enough. You’re not cool or acceptable.

No. Not anymore.

The moment is to be lived and to fight back. Comedy and intellectual capital produced is no longer the goal, the second best. The real moment or the real purpose is to take care of yourself, to be true to what you’re feeling and thinking. To think, to react, and to live. And to feel no shame with any of it.

You’re strong, you’re free, you’re entitled to be you in every way.

And I showed up on my first day with my notebook and pencil, and started taking notes, enjoying the fact that I’m a ’student’ again.

I got up to do the repetition, the bedrock of the Sanford Mesiner acting method. And as I did it and got feedback from the instructor Lauren, I improved.

Third or fourth class in, I went to a dark place during a repetition. Lauren had been speaking to us about truly being the moment, not thinking, reacting, listening, and staying in the moment. With my partner JT, he made an observation about my weight, then how I looked. And I erupted in a hot, bilious anger. And I went to that dark place from high school, a place of humiliation and constant adequacy. Lauren gasped when I erupted. And I stepped back, covered my mouth, and turned around to have a moment to compose myself again.

Like when I swim, when I act, I’m home. As much as that moment was dark and suffocating, it was home – to be in the moment so open to how I really feel.

With subsequent classes, I’ve been improving and I’ve been getting good feedback from Lauren. I’ve been getting more and more into it. I spend time before every class to prepare, going through notes from the previous class, and doing any exercise that Lauren would have asked us to complete.

My main building area is the same one from high school and even, my own life. The Joker complex. Lauren picked up on it very early on. I know I need to work on it. I had felt and resolved before that it’s simply the way I am and I won’t be able to change it. However, class prep has helped me a lot in digging deep (as my friend Didi says) and understanding why I still hold on it to that complex. At the last class, I avoided the impulse to joke … and found how my repetition improved markedly.

Will share my prep notes from class as I go along, especially those pertaining to the subject of the Joker complex – always cracking a joke or being funny.

But everytime I’ve sat down in front of Wordpress, I just can’t get them out. And it’s getting to me now because the action item lies uncompleted in my agenda day after day.

My life is different. Since I wrote this post, it’s been a slow, slow process. Literally, day to day. I’ve gone back to more than just basics; I’ve pushed myself to read, pray, and think as if I’ve never known everything. That has often been hard as my bookshelves are crammed with theological and liturgical books, and my laptops bear witness of all the ‘advanced’ stuff that I’ve done.

But I looked at myself with honest eyes.. and I felt that I was incredibly far from what a Christian should be. I looked at my heart and mind, felt the pulse of my emotions and thoughts, and knew that I am way, way far off.

The main area of course is my parents. Anyone whom would read this blog is really obliged to think my parents are monsters. They’re not, as much as I have suffered at their hands and words. But they’re not. They’re just parents: ageing people whom have struggled with me as I with them. I’m very aware of what I’ve written and how I’ve written. None was fabricated nor exaggerated for dramatic effect or to entice more readers. It’s all real and true.

So, I prayed and I prayed hard. And day in day out, I struggled. A Sunday liturgy came and it was about love: Christian love, the love of God, the God is love story. And now more than ever, the words ripped at me. And in my own readings of Scripture, it became more apparent that I had to love them. And it’s still a struggle, an everyday struggle, some days taking me to tears because it’s so difficult.

I’ll be writing a page about my parents as a disclaimer for this blog, so that readers read the posts within the correct context.

Over the past couple of days, things have improved slightly with my parents. I’ve been praying for a new heart, a new mind, new eyes, and a restored set of emotions.

I’m hungry for Scripture because I feel that I know so little. I’m working towards two sessions a day; one is simply not enough.

More about this as I go along…

I set up a invitation-only album on Picasa, where I invited my pro and semi-pro photographer friends to critique my work. I did get feedback and comments, but not as often and detailed as I wanted. People are busy. A few mentioned that it would be better to have it on Facebook. So, I did and used the configurable privacy settings on the album. Now even less comments. Oh well…

I’ve clocked up so far about 10 rolls of film, using what I learned at the Intermediate Course taken last year at the National College of Photography and what I’ve been picking up through advice and reading.

My biggest building area is grip; I have a bad shake. I’ve been working on it though. I’m getting there. Secondly, it’s composition.

I was going through film like socks; the people at the lab were duly falling in love with me. I’d say that I’ve gone through the initial high and taken enough photographs to know what I like and don’t like.

I enjoy photographing people, especially candids. I like capturing a simple moment. I also am getting into taking portraits. This recent trip in Egypt provided loads of opportunities for that as I was always around family and friends. More experimental/conceptual shots interest me as well. Finally, I really like doing closeups. I don’t have a macro lens to do them properly, but I make do with what I have.

The next step now is to deepen the skills and work more on the craft, both technical and artistic/creative. I’m going to re-study the course notes from last year and then work slowly through a photography textbook that I found in my father’s stask of books in Egypt. Great book – will get you guys the name.

I want to get into photography as a potential job. I’ve been encouraged from pro photog friends that I can make it. So, I’ll be watermarking my best photographs and uploading them to a subsite on Midiane.com. The subsite will effectively be my portfolio and sport some code to keep the photos away from Google.

Will write more as I progress in this area…

Update: some beautiful paintings… will add links/images of them hereon for all artists I post in this category