Friday, April 21, 2006
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
This is the end
Last full day in Egypt and going fast. Don't have much time. If anyone is buying Oilers playoff tix, can you please buy me one - I'm going to be flying when the go on sale, I think.
See you soon.
See you soon.
Friday, April 14, 2006
Home stretch
Barring any unforseen complications, I will be returning to Edmonton in less than one week. Is anyone besides me excited about this fact?
Thursday, April 06, 2006
BTW
By the way, Morocco is super nice. I'm really having a good time. It has really beautiful countryside, and lots of places to see. If you're reading this, you should come here some time. I'd recommend it.
"Don't hate the player, hate the game"
Yo. What's up from Fes?
This now famous quote (one that incidentally I don't like all that much in some of it's applications), would have to be my theme quote for my couple hours in the medina (refers to old city) here in Fes. This thought made (hopefully) a lasting impression on me. If not, at least I'll have this blog entry to look at.
And by extension, it is easy to see the application of this quote to much of my time in the Middle East and Morocco. So what do I mean by this? Now it seems so obvious that I'm almost ashamed to discuss it; only 30 min ago it felt brilliant and freeing. The point is this:
You spend half your time focused on what you want to be doing while in the medina, and the other half dealing with people hassling you to take you somewhere, to show you something, to have you eat at their restaurant. After a while (not very long), you become frustrated with the people, hating them, their greed, their persitance, their laziness, their lack of sentsitivity to your needs, until you can't take it anymore! And then, your remember, "don't hate the player, hate the game." And you realize that on the whole, people are playing a game they don't want to play. In general, I didn't like this idea because of how closely the player and the game were in my mind. But here, people don't have a choice of games.
So what then is my job? And how can I live this quote properly such that I acomplishe the simultaneous goals of (a) having a righteous passion against an evil that destroys freedom and beauty, for the purpose of maintaining motivation to conquer this evil while (b) still maintaining compassion and love for those who are forced to play by it's constrictive rules?
Sounds grand doesn't it? Unfortunately honestly leads me to admit that indeed I feel so far from this ideal that I am likely more of a problem than a solution, and further that I have no idea how to move in this direction. Most hindering is a forgetfullness that removes the problem from my mind when it's not in front of me and an absence of burning heart to spur change. So what now? I don't know.
But I don't want to forget.
I keep forgetting but I don' t want to forget.
As CS Wiersmq put it one time, how can we be changed so we don't have to hear the story again?
I don't know. And I'm not impressive. I'm really bad at this; I'm just the only one saying it.
This now famous quote (one that incidentally I don't like all that much in some of it's applications), would have to be my theme quote for my couple hours in the medina (refers to old city) here in Fes. This thought made (hopefully) a lasting impression on me. If not, at least I'll have this blog entry to look at.
And by extension, it is easy to see the application of this quote to much of my time in the Middle East and Morocco. So what do I mean by this? Now it seems so obvious that I'm almost ashamed to discuss it; only 30 min ago it felt brilliant and freeing. The point is this:
You spend half your time focused on what you want to be doing while in the medina, and the other half dealing with people hassling you to take you somewhere, to show you something, to have you eat at their restaurant. After a while (not very long), you become frustrated with the people, hating them, their greed, their persitance, their laziness, their lack of sentsitivity to your needs, until you can't take it anymore! And then, your remember, "don't hate the player, hate the game." And you realize that on the whole, people are playing a game they don't want to play. In general, I didn't like this idea because of how closely the player and the game were in my mind. But here, people don't have a choice of games.
So what then is my job? And how can I live this quote properly such that I acomplishe the simultaneous goals of (a) having a righteous passion against an evil that destroys freedom and beauty, for the purpose of maintaining motivation to conquer this evil while (b) still maintaining compassion and love for those who are forced to play by it's constrictive rules?
Sounds grand doesn't it? Unfortunately honestly leads me to admit that indeed I feel so far from this ideal that I am likely more of a problem than a solution, and further that I have no idea how to move in this direction. Most hindering is a forgetfullness that removes the problem from my mind when it's not in front of me and an absence of burning heart to spur change. So what now? I don't know.
But I don't want to forget.
I keep forgetting but I don' t want to forget.
As CS Wiersmq put it one time, how can we be changed so we don't have to hear the story again?
I don't know. And I'm not impressive. I'm really bad at this; I'm just the only one saying it.
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