Food for thought: What is right? What is wrong?

What is right? What is wrong? Who decides what's right and what's wrong? Society? Religion? Individuals? Can things be right and wrong? Or even somewhere in between? Can the right turn into wrong and the wrong turn into right?



I don't have any of these answers and I don't think I ever will.

Where are you from?

      'Where are you from?' When someone asks you this question, what do they want to know? Your race? Your origin? Where do you feel at home? Really, where is one from? Where am I from?

       Both of my parents are Lebanese, my passport is Lebanese so you'd think I'm Lebanese. Yes, legally I am Lebanese. But where am I really from? Deeply where do I mostly feel at home is not in Lebanon, it is in UAE, the place where I was born and raised, the place where I have lived my entire life. But does that mean that I feel Emirati?

       Of course the heat of the UAE, its sky crappers and gigantic shopping malls will always be part of me no matter where I end up living later on in life. It is the place where I met some of the greatest people, it is where I have memories, it is the home of yummy dates and Chai Karak, I'm never letting go of this part of myself. But of course, this doesn't mean that Lebanon isn't part of me, the Cedar trees, the fresh air, the long walks on the beach, the tea and gossip with the ladies of the village, the flirtatious guys on motorcycles, the fireworks when there's a football match, the smell of Turkish coffee in the morning, the old men playing backgammon on the sides of the street, the women in shadore walking with women in miniskirts, the 'Allahu Akbar' and the ringing of the church bell are all part of me. So I'm Lebanese?

       No I am not Lebanese or Emirati, I am both and a little Indian and Pakistani and Palestenian ... I have grown in a multicultural environment. I am a blend of many cultures but mostly I am Lebanese and Emirati. At first, the fact that I did not have a clear identity used to make me feel as though I had no belonging, but now I feel previliged to be part of so many cultures. I look at myself and I see a bond that unites many nationalities in one person.  So no I do not have  an answer that the person asking  'Where are you from?'  would understand because that person assumes that I have only one single identity, that only my ethnic origin is what matters.

So this was my journey in finding my belonging, how was yours?

       

Sequences: a beautiful mystery

When I see a sequence, I don't see a set of numbers, I see a challenge, a mystery to unravel. Whether its to find the next number or the nth term or the nature of the numbers that can be in the sequence, I always get lost in the beauty of it all. Its like there's something magical about a group of numbers that are related in the most unexpected ways. 

Then there's the time spent trying to make sense of the numbers scattered across the page. During that time everything else seizes to matter, its as though my whole life depends on figuring out this sequence. I fail one, two, three, four,.... times until that moment, that golden moment when I figure it all out. Its pure ecstasy, sometimes even an adrenalin rush. In fact I often feel unstoppable for a few seconds! Yes, that's what cracking a sequence does to me. It gives me a high and I even wonder why would anyone do drugs when they can try to figure out sequences. 

So this is my hobby or passion or  love or whatever you want to call it, its what makes me happy and more often than not I end up getting too engrossed in maths that I get disconnected from the world around me but I still do it anyway. No one makes me happy like numbers do. Nothing in the world appeals to me like a sequence. Point of this story is not to tell you to turn your back to the world and go do some maths but its to urge you to find that thing that gives you euphoria and do it regardless of how it makes those around you feel. BE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN HAPPINESS!