Why I did a Cherry Ice Cream?

Today, I did a cherry ice cream to kill time, because the person in charge of my application for a work visa was absent,  because she saw pictures of her friends on Facebook enjoying their vacation and that made her ill, because she kept postponing her vacation for lack of ideas or desire, because fear taught her not to desire, because of negative consequences and social constructs, because when she was young she was bullied, because she was fat, because she binge ate cherry ice cream. 

Active Dreaming of Southeast Asia

It feels as if I just woke up from a dream in which the last empty page of my passport was filled with a Thai visa and the week that followed was filled with nothing less than ecstasy -- No language has yet the words to describe the feeling of night snorkeling with bioluminescent plankton under a starlit sky with an eclipsed moon only 7 degrees off the equator by the Ko-Poda Thai Island. The same can be said or unsaid about a spice garden near Kandy in Sri-Lanka where I was taught all about cooking, self-healing and alternative medicine. Needless to mention all the lovely people I met and connected with along the way, some even on esoteric levels, the incredible sunsets we witnessed pinching each other for reality checks, the temples we visited and meditated at with no notion of time or space. Some places were so sacred to me that I did not even dare photograph even before my camera broke. I made a vow to myself while I was hostage of such astounding beauty to travel more often and in more meaningful ways before I forget how to recognize faces, elephants and dragons in clouds rolling by in the sky and before the tan migrates from my skin to that of other wanderers without prior notice. I will be posting some stills at ALAgrApHY shall you wish to come along and travel with your friends.

I hope that this post inspires you to experience something even larger and then share it back and so on and so forth until we are all one in every sense of the word.

EDIT: On a similar note, I just realised that just before I left for that trip, I had a dream of bioluminiscent frogs and had no preconception of bioluminiscence in Thailand! Is that a coincidence?

Dedicated to the #girl that smiled to me but chose to remain anonymous while I was jumping to catch #bioluminescent #frogs to impress her in my subconsciousness from what I can recall from my fragmented #dream last #night . #uv lit #fluo #painting

A photo posted by ENTHEOGENIC VOLUPTUOUS POLYMAθ (@alagraphy) on Jan 15, 2015 at 12:53pm PST

À la Bi

When was the last time...

When was the last time you observed your surrounding all mesmerized,  when was the last time your heart skipped a beat for misplacing your wallet in your left pocket for a fraction of a second and you were aware of that moment? When was the last time you were told you cannot travel because your passport expires in 5 months at the gate though you always thought that they did not want you where  you lived?  How does it feel after planning for the trip for months and saving for it for years? How does it feel  when this person who was hindering your dream was turned down by her superior who has humane qualities left in her for compassion . I only wish ppl traveled more often. 

Then it might feel  urgent to append what follows.  A man in his mid 40s enters the plane confusing the gate number with the seat number just in front of me.  He only had his home printed ticket with no seat information.  However,  finally he is aware of the ticket given at check-in and guess where he is destined to sit for the next 10 hours? Yes,  next to me,  lucky me to share half a day with a half brained adult.  But before I finish my sentence he is already gone scouting for another seat.  What can I add after this ?

End of the U, S and A

Dear USA,

In the past two weeks I have traversed your land by bike, plane, car, bus, train and boat. I have traveled with family, friends, strangers and a tom tom navigator -- in fact, I am currently in one of your greyhound buses from Boston back to NY to conclude a US era of 7.5 years (on june 4). I have stayed at family, friends, strangers (couchsurfing), hostels, BB, inns, apartments, motels and hotels...

However, the restless nomad is tired and burdened by all his belongings in the absence of a fixed destination in your nation, the expiration of his visa and bureaucratic complications for getting alternative ones. The nomad is repulsed by all your thunderstorms simultaneously targeting beach and natural resorts. The nomad is homesick for a home yet to be found and eventually inhabited.

After tomorrow, I take a plane to Istanbul before hitting Beirut. I will be relaxing, planning, reading, writing and applying for visas in a much affordable environment. After all, your east coast is a beast in terms of cost. My stay here only aspires for a business plan that produces nothing more than $$ where life is reduced to a darwinian survival of the fittest and fellow humans are all regarded as cold-blooded competitors.

I hate farewells so I shall end this note with a thank you for all you taught me and made out of me...

Until our paths coincide again, take care of your children, many have become good friends.

Yours,
Alaa -- but you can call me Al

Trans-océanique

Crossing the ocean is suddenly not as fun as it used to be! Its mysterious nature and promise of the greener grass was what defined traveling. But alas, once the mysteries are unveiled and the neighboring grass has been harvested to a point of depletion, the best one can get from a transoceanic flight is some peace of mind for effective intro/retro/pro-spection and soul searching.

While Baudelaire and Pessoa struggle for the elsewhere, Berndard praises the intra-where:

Basically, like nine tenths of humanity, I always want to be somewhere else, in the place I have just fled from....he truth is that I am happy only when I am sitting in the car, between the place I have just left and the place I am driving to.  I am happy only when I am traveling; when I arrive, no matter where, I am suddenly the unhappiest person imaginable. 

Along these lines, one can argue that Schopenhauer and co. are in favor of the nowhere. This is how in our human nature we tend to relate to places, and what are friends and lovers but places we visit or inhabit... I believe that at some point in a man's life, his well-being becomes independent of his geographic location and vice versa. Nonetheless,  man shall never stop blaming it on his location, hoping that the elsewhere that he is ignorant of will unravel joy, perhaps eternally. That is the very bliss defining ignorance that we tend to loose as we grow older or abuse with alcohol and drugs. The modern man will eventually resort to these mind altering means and more severe and irreversible ones when he is finally convinced of "the unimportance of his location" which can translate to "the vanity of his existence" with a less materialistic tone. 

Bon Voyage!