The Potential Candidate

     This life is getting stranger and stranger. As you grow up in it, you start to learn more about yourself and much more about others. Yet growing up does not necessarily mean getting older, but getting to know how life works and seeing clearly what people want.

     God has given you a gift called kindness, but the more you deal with people, the more you realize that such gift does not actually belong to this awkward life, for the equation is turned upside down: before, in the good old days, Kindness=Goodness, while today, in the messy current days, Kindness=Weakness!

     Temptation rules! Self-interest prevails! And you are for others simply a mere potential candidate! So you run from people who want to get you used, but you fall in the hands of those who want to get you abused. There is no room for humanity or the slightest commonsense. Terms like respect, love, kindness, goodness, charity, trust, honesty, and others of the sort are becoming day by day obsolete. Words that are gradually losing their places at the dictionary to become a vague part of a vague history. Only the naive would believe in such platonic terms, as naive as you!

     What do others want from you? How do they see you? You see them as friends, while they see you as a service provider, and once the service is done, your presence is no longer required; you see her as a girl who deserves your trust, while she sees you as a potential suitor, and once she realizes otherwise and that you are dealing with her from the human level of respect, she turns to search for another potential black suit, for that seems to be her life objective and her built-in idea of a man; you see him as a real man, while he sees you as a body with no soul, and once the body is exposed and the eyes drown in the flesh, you turn into a disposable entity, a burden to get rid of.

     It is contagious! Today you are used, the next day you are the user. Today you control your self, the next day your self controls you. And it starts over and over again. Friends are mere objects at your service, girls are potential suitoresses, and men are a senseless cover for insecurities and desire. And kindness fades away, a normal result for recurrent states of frustration and depression. And life becomes full of frantic creatures tearing each other apart. And you stand all alone in the middle of the frenzied crowd, with all the tears of blood and the scratches and bruises, and then you realize what you are really made of. We are our own victims, and others are just a good excuse, suitable potential candidates!

Black and White

Imagine yourself living back at those days of the black and white ..... 

When the people had manners and respected each other, old or young ... When they had this peace of mind, when they honestly smiled (a rare occasion these current days!) ... When everything and everyone got taste: The taste of the fresh food that is not contaminated by some greed or indifference and dishonesty, the taste of the new clothes well woven and sincerely made, the taste of the long-living appliances and devices staying from generation to generation as hard as a rock (not as fragile as a china plate like nowadays'!), the taste of the refreshing clean air and the beautiful view of those distinguished buildings and neat streets and green everywhere, and most importantly the taste of the people, doing everything in their life with taste ... No wonder that the people at those days used to live longer and enjoy superior health and better living no matter how simple or even primitive it was (although they did not witness such advances in technology or medicine which are supposed to have been produced to ensure a safer and longer and more enjoyable life, ironically enough, or maybe sorrowfully enough!).
When the country was a real country, its people feeling the pride of being related to it and the enthusiasm to defend it against any harm and to make it a leading place .. When the corruption was there, but not that evident, not that dominant .. When religion was a true faithful message for the good of humanity, not a means for some personal interest or some cheap trade .. When a man was a real man and a woman was a real woman, every one has a particular role, accepting their differences and even encouraging each other to build a sound society, not exchanging roles and fighting and harassing each other .. When love was grace and not some kind of lust, when emotions were idealistic and  not materialistic .. When schools and universities were real minarets of science and education and illumination, real teachers and real students .. When everything was either black or white, unlike today's multicolor living, with the colors so multiple that we are losing perception!
As life goes on, it is supposed to get better (like the progress from black and white to technicolor). But it seems that, as life goes on, same as humans, the world suffers from aging, experiencing the common symptoms of senility: a tasteless, meaningless, disrupted, weak, and dying life!

If Only...

Sitting inside her balcony, with her short white red-dyed hair ... Ignoring all the noises of the street ..

The thunderous horns of the cars, the resonant shouts of the sellers, the monotonic humming of people talking, the loud cries of that newborn lying in his mother's lap, the goofy laughs of some young men, the common chaos of the modern hasty way of living ...

Detaching herself from everyone and everything that could blur the clarity of this memory's dreamy image ... Thinking back at the days of her youth, the days of her strength and beauty .. The moments of her glory, the middle pages of her story ... That look on her face, and those teary eyes ... Fairness was one day the source of her pride and pleasure, and now fairness still remains, yet with a very different meaning .. A very 'just' meaning .. The mirror was once her all-day resort, but now it is a forbidden place .. Life was never that ruthless ... Feeling totally deserted, totally forgotten, totally nonexistent!

Totally occupied with only one thought: "The world was mine someday. I had it all in the grips of my hands. But like the granules of soft sand, all sneaked down the palms of my hands and I ended up catching emptiness! If only I can live a little while back then ... If only I can have my shiny black hair and my soft light skin .. If only I can see those looks of admiration from all the beholders .. If only my eyes don't keep on failing me .. If only my bones aren't so fragile .. If only those wrinkles aren't that obvious ... If only aging and loneliness and regret are not eating me alive .. If only I made the right choices when I had the chance ... If only......"