My friend Fady challenged me to get back to writing. Here I am. I initially stopped because I was going through crazy times, but crazy seems to be normal and it won’t stop. I enjoy it a lot here. It is therapeutic and doesn’t have the twitter noise. Expect more of me.
Having lived through the Arab spring between 2011-2014, those were super intense years. I lived through the ups of hopes, the downs of failure, and the shocks of people dying because of injustice. In hindsight, this experience made me realize the world is much more fragile than we think. And it makes me think of current events that people are surprised with as normal.
The current pandemic as hurtful as it could get with thousands of people dying and the economy collapsing, I feel like I lived this before and the current episode is milder than what I saw in 2011. It makes me even wonder how it feels to someone who survived war. It doesn’t compare to me to Egypt 2011 even though that memory is 9 years behind.
Since I moved to Europe, and specifically Germany I am always surprised by how people are certain about the future. They send you a paper letter by post and ask you to respond within a number of days with zero regard to the possibility that it might get lost and never reach you. They plan social outings months in advance. They talk with absolute confidence about things happening on specific dates with low regard to uncertainty. It is a different worldview that I can’t operate in. Interestingly now I am seeing some of my friends converting to the uncertainty camp. I am having discussions on different scenarios that no one imagined before. It is becoming easier for them to see my worldview on uncertainty. And now I can teach them the concept of Inshallah which is deeply ingrained in the Egyptian culture regardless of how religious one is.
I will write something tomorrow. Inshallah.