1- Â Â A paradoxical existence - the origins - the Alien - the struggle
I grew up in a country where “Paradox” defines us, on all levels!
We have 18 Religious communities.
You can swim in the sea and just 30km away go skiing.
…Have a beach party where women are in a bikini, and just across the street, a woman in a burka praying.
…You can move from a very luxurious street in Beyrouth to a very popular, in just one 1 min by car.
…One side of a building could be destroyed since the civil war, and the other side is renovated to be high-end apartments and luxury shops.
A schizophrenic, a bipolar country with so many paradoxical facets, that its chaos was imprinted on us and became ours, incarnated deep inside. It made our fathers leave so we can eat and study, survive and not live. Hence, living became an uncomprehensive/alienated concept that we seek by also leaving the country ourselves!
We become aliens, wandering Lebanon and foreign countries… I have become one!
Well, I was one – this alien- since I started having consciousness of this life, since my childhood. But the fact of admitting it took me 30 years of my life. Seeking fulfillment, seeking happiness, seeking “the belonging” we all need and want from this life.
At a certain point in my life, when I was 28 years of age, I said to a friend fulfillment and home (the belonging) are not related to a place, a physical one. Â It is a feeling that you hold inside of you, that each holds inside and needs to be triggered, stimulated, thus projected onto the space around us. That is home!
It does not matter where you are, you create your own.
Having said that, at that moment and period of my life, I thought I could create a home out of Byblos, Beyrouth my lovely capital, Lebanon.
Unfortunately, my country betrayed me, betrayed every single Lebanese living in Lebanon or abroad. That is just the biggest disloyalty ever!
I will always have Lebanon in my heart! Just my heart!
Our country is like our family, we cannot choose it, we can never give up on it or deny its existence. However choosing to leave it and go to a new country is like marriage, you choose your partner, and you stick to it for better or for worst!
I have found mine…