Words

I've always wondered what my purpose in life was. I don't really know what makes me special, what people like about me, and why my existence is beneficial to other people. The thoughts that I'm inadequate, average, not special and at times a failure still haunt me and get the best of me at times. However and regardless of my person and my fallacies, I found my true gift that I can offer to humanity: my words.

My words may not be the flashiest or the most inspiring, they may not hold the deepest of meanings and the most divine of messages. After all, they're just words...
But my words come from a sincere place. They capture what I'm thinking and feeling and offer it on a silver plate to whomever is reading them. They're the essence of my being and the fruit of my experience, the only thing that I can't forge or fake; me.

I understand that by sharing my thoughts I'm making myself vulnerable and weak. But aren't we all just that? No matter how hard we try to conceal it and how special we seem, we're all that helpless little child that wants to feel safe and accepted, that seeks approval and love wherever they're found.

Words are a powerful tool and a sacred gift, but they're also all I have. So I'll keep on filling my soul till it pours out, and maybe the flood will quench some stranger's thirst.

An Open Letter to...

You're not perfect. You're not the person you want to be. Your way of stopping yourself from becoming what you were in the past is to remind yourself every single day you're a bad person, to guilt yourself into mazes of allegedly deserved worthlessness, to believe there's no other way to redeem yourself other than living in the shame and shadows of your past, and sometimes to think you're lost beyond relief; you lose hope.

I don't fully understand you. I constantly failed to help you as I simply couldn't, because I'm not perfect either. I'm still naive when it comes to people, I still have the savior complex and I actually believe I can change people and help the world to not suck so much. It's all so stupid and childish of me, but it's especially heartbreaking when I saw you were so lost and was unable to help you. Hearing you tell me you're depressed and not being able to tell you everything will be alright almost made me cry in public. All you asked of me is to not worry about you, but I just can't.

I can't save you, and I can't not care. So here I am stuck in the middle of these two facts, feeling so little and so helpless, missing you and praying both of us will be alright.

Forgive yourself, and forgive me.

On Misogyny and Objectification of Women (January 15th, 2014)

"Sexual objectification of women has become more than prevalent, whether women seek being the ideal "object" by dressing scantily and showing their bodies to get attention, or "preserving" their bodies against their wish, just because they've been told to view it as a commodity that goes bad by being looked at.

To the women/girls out there: Your body is your medium of going out there and being active in the world. Learning, working and making your surroundings better. It's not anyone's business what you choose to wear but your own. And as a woman, you should take pride in the image God has created you as. You're not made to please any other human being if it does not include your own pleasure.

To the men out there: False empowerment it is to feel you're superior to the other sex. God has created you as equals in everything; you complement each other. Leaning on the pillar that women are weaker than you, and therefore should submit to your image of them will eventually leave you hurt. Why, you ask? Because there are women out there who are much stronger and much more able than you would expect. Women who changed and continue to change the world they live in for the better. So, you can't always rely on being "stronger" as an excuse for their objectification. And I dare ask you to stop exploiting the lack of self-esteem that many women around you have, and start empowering them instead."

I wrote that part after watching a TEDx talk about objectification through "sexiness". Now, since that kind of objectification is quite abhorred where I live, the opposite kind is the first prize winner here: forceful chastising and condemning of any kind representation of female sexuality (except of course, in "art" where most objectification is Type 1).
The problem with women is that they spent so many years thinking their worth is tied to them being sexy things, whether made to gratify the lust of men by being perfectly ogle-able statuettes, or to curb it by dressing in a certain way that allows no temptation to befall the men. So we can say the idea stuck.

However, women were not created for men, women were created to be with men. That means a woman's role as a human being is to live, I dare say equal to and the same as the way a man does!
Girls, your role is to envision a life for yourself that's comprised of your own hopes and dreams, your own adventures and mishaps, your own mistakes and lessons learned, because frankly, the rules forcefully imposed on you for your "protection" have successfully failed to protect many other women who followed them word by word.

That means that "what she was wearing" does not justify her being raped.
It also means that although in Afghanistan the women are covered head to toe quite literally, they still suffer the world's highest sexual harassment rates, often justified by -wait for it- how a woman is walking!
It means that my beloved country back in the 60s and 70s was more accepting of a miniskirt than it is now of a girl walking without Hijab, and in many a case (one of which happened before my very eyes) women wearing Niqab are ogled and groped while walking down the street!
It means that every time you are blamed for something because you're a woman, you are blamed for NOTHING you have done. In fact, you're blamed for being the way you were born, which is the most absurd form of discrimination, and quite horrifically, the oldest..

Misogyny's worst proponents are the women who believe they deserve it. So, next time you see a woman working to support her family while her deadbeat husband dozes off at home still scared of divorce, next time you see a woman accepting to be belittled by a lower ranking male employee just because she's a woman, and next time you see a mother passing down demeaning ideas to her daughter on sexuality, patriarchy, body image or self-worth...do something.