Beirut boy and the New York subway

Over 2 years ago, I started writing here occasionally about random thoughts going through my mind. I was mostly fueled by fear of terrorism dawning on Beirut and inspired by being in my first ever psychiatry rotation. Today I am fueled by heartbreak, homesickness and generalized cynicism. It's bitter sweet how life can take you around in circles through all the possible emotional states and leave you too drained to write. I am not going to focus here on my heartache or list "prêt à porter" life wisdom set for Facebook like the rest of this blog ended up becoming.

Today, I want to just reflect on the New York subway.

I remember the first time I ever rode a subway train was in Paris. I was overwhelmed and panicking about being mugged the whole time let alone being stressed out by constant bickering about finding the right destination with my sister who ironically ended up becoming a resident of the city of lights. I dealt with multiple subway systems from then and till the first time I visited NYC 2 years ago. I remember being amazed by the totally different experience when riding on the subway that literally included faces from every spot on the globe. However I did and still do think it is one of the most inefficient systems I have seen.

I moved to Brooklyn in June and have been a daily subway user since. First thing I noticed change in my Lebanese paranoid self is the decrease in hypervigilance as I became less and less careful and aware of where my wallet was or how many of the Train strangers are trying to snatch it. Gradually my pretentious Beirut shoes gave way to Brooklyn flip-flops that slammed the train's floor. As Autumn took hold, I realized there is something about walking down the chilly streets of Brooklyn and grabbing that coffee in formal wear on my way to the hospital that just makes you feel grand. You feel like you are swallowed by the machine, as if the big city turned you into another pawn in its massive urban plan: you dress like them, rush like them and drink Starbucks just like they do. Well I also occasionally grab a coffee from the French truck with a Barista originating from Marseille; more of that cross cultural aspect I guess. The morning routine continues as I rush down the stairs till I have to make the first decision of the day: Stand or Sit? What are you in the mood for today? The overstressed mothers, the religiously dressed folks, the random dancers, the hospital staff you kind of know because you see their faces everyday on the train. You can try to observe the world or simply go through the motions. You can sit and read through your book silently (preferably some French existentialism), however most days, I tend to pace around despite my short commute, just to make sure I'm really here and not in my Beirut bed dreaming. Your sad thoughts travel with you all over the metro stops. They fill the empty seats and free handles. The melancholy tracks the trails and comes back to hide in the equally depressed features of strangers. Yet the empty seats only weep or laugh depending on how you feel inside. In the instances I was genuinely fully happy on a gloomy morning, the whole tube seemed to echo my euphoria. This keeps me going since I realize that once the urban beast is tamed, pleasant rides await. One of those instances translated in being free out here, the population changes so often that you could be dancing ridiculously and feeling no shame. Yet, that never stopped me before. I always danced around on the streets of my Beirut even if I knew everyone there. And just like that, Brooklyn underground tunnels now hear the soaring throats of Latifa, Fairuz and Marcel Khalife. I take my mood, state of mind and translate them into soundtracks for my trip. A stranger smiles at me, I smile back. Couples fill the train and the single people sit around wondering whether to make a move or stick to their books. You see it would make a great story to say that you met on a train, but how often does that happen? How often did people meet in a service cab back in Beirut? Probably more often.

The trip is grand but it is in no way near as intimate as the service I used to take from Salim Sleim down to Hamra every morning, but then again this is New York. It is never as intimate, never as one on one. It will always be the huge city trying to devour you with its massive loneliness, endless options and forever changing façades. It is never you, the cab driver and one more rider talking about the randomness of the world or him sharing his random theories on the use of apple fruit in treating cancer. There is no cigarette smoking, no suffocating traffic jams, no Fairuz mornings, no bargaining over where he will drop you off, no Sabah murals on the Hamra walls. Yet there is no need to despair, there are millions of faces, robots, walking to work yes, yet every now and then I get a moment of lucidity and oil up my cyborg mind, remember that I may not have the comforting Beirut accessories, yet I have something much more precious: I have the whole world at my fingertips. And so I keep riding till I find my ultimate destination, and if I don’t, I just ride the train uptown. 

It isn't just a matter of Garbage...

I have been in Geneva for little over a month now and I have tried to grasp as much out of this ridiculously expensive city as possible yet I cannot shake this weird sensation of happiness that has been haunting my thoughts here. You see I have learned a long time ago that the best gift traveling offers you often comes free in the form of new ideas. This may not be apparent at first but this is ultimately a post on Lebanon so stick along. As an allegory of the last idea which crossed my mind this morning, let me start with this example from medical school: Children diagnosed with vision disturbances often describe not suspecting their vision of the world was blurry before they put on glasses. They simply thought this is what the world looked like. We are driven by mostly empirical reasoning after all and much of our perception of the world is built through complex brain circuits which collect data from what our senses see, smell or hear and match it to our previous interactions with the world. Since I am an existentialist seeking happiness somewhere on this planet this got me thinking, could it be that we cannot know happiness before we have experienced it? Is this why some couples get divorced after 30 years of marriage? Is it that they never knew what real love is until they met that new stranger which ultimately liberated their own understanding of what love is or "should be".

I am quite a conversation enthusiast and perhaps like me you tend to discuss many aspects of your life with some of your more talkative or receptive friends. Possibly you also dissect your intentions and driving forces behind your actions every now and then. I have amassed quite the large number of friends as my life progressed and they come in a wide spectrum of personalities. Yet the voices that resonate the most in my mind and amplify my insecurities are the ones who often tell me what I am doing wrong or what I should be doing to be happy. Jean Paul Sartre argued that “Hell is other people” which could loosely be understood in a “pop culture psychiatry” definition whichever way we want. Along those same prêt-à-porter self-empowerment lines, let me give my own interpretation here. Our need for acceptance and fear of judgment by others often place restriction on our behaviors, our choices and can in many cases deprive us of being happy naturally out of fear of rejection or lack of conformity. However that is universal to Lebanon and the western world and no Jean-Paul, this time unhappiness is rooted somewhere else.   

I am not arguing for much here, my conclusion is fairly simple: You do make your own happiness however not all of us have the luxury of trying that. Moreover, life has taught me in the few years I have been acquainted with her that the simplest answer is often the right one. You see in medicine we have a principle whereby you do your best to find one cause for all the manifestations in the body because it is simply far more likely for one disease to express itself in different organs than for one person to have two diseases simultaneously. I think I would be arguing that the gateway to happiness is prematurely locked in Beirut and I only realized that after comparing it to the European alternative.

Happiness is playing Sabah songs in your earphones and letting her put a tune to the grey streets of Geneva before the sunrise. Happiness is the routine of going to work with predictable timetables, o flooded streets, having daily lunches at a fixed time, and of course no occasional bombs. Ergo happiness is the safety needed for mundane activities which we lack in Beirut. Happiness is getting carried away drinking wine till you miss the last bus all the while laughing your drunkenness away because there are no services/cheap taxis in town, leisure is simply not as accessible, A drunk fool freezes in the cold in Geneva. Happiness is speaking your mind fully because no, not everyone hangs around the same streets their whole life and you do not have to see those who get offended by your blunt honesty. Happiness is working because you want to work regardless of the credit simply because everything else is taken care of around you as long as you perform your side of the deal and do your damn job.

Yes, the Lebanese community is incredibly intrusive but the major obstacle to happiness is simply state infrastructure.

Get out of your mind

     It's all in your mind. The good and the bad. Anxiety and serenity. Serendipity and absolute coincidence. Love and loneliness. I can spend hours writing posts about my city, my world, my views of everyday life but there will be a time where I will have to face the facts, I have no clue what’s just a fragment of my imagination and what is not.

Nothing’s as elusive as a breath of fresh hope and nothing brings to the surface the troubles of your inner soul more than a challenge to your reality. You can drink all of Hamra’s pubs worth of liquor and drink its coffee none will numb you enough nor make you vigil enough for what’s coming. That is the future. It seems that the major transition in my 20s is simple: realizing that new starts are no longer as appealing as they used to be, that the mind can no longer build an illusion on top of the other, there comes a time where reality strikes and where you realize it is time your dreams matched the earthy ground you are building them on.

Growing up with a religious existentialist as a best friend (though he did not express his views with that label at the time), we often argued about the existence of omens and signs where god expresses himself. I honestly still think that any outside fact can be twisted and turned in a million way to fit into a narrative where a higher power is communicating with us. And thus not getting your dream job becomes a sign that it was not right for you. There isn’t enough space here nor do I claim to have enough philosophical background knowledge to attempt to refute a whole belief system. I’m just arguing that most of the time, the mind plays tricks and shifts our whole vision of reality to fit a theory. The optimists see the world behind pink binoculars while the pessimists can only see how the whole world lacks harmony and bathes in dysfunction. Most of us fall somewhere in between with varying fixations depending on the matter at hand.

For someone who wants to spend the next few years studying the human mind, I find this topic simply fascinating yet I can’t help but wonder how writing my thoughts down is simply postponing the issue at hand and that is dealing with my mind’s penetrating thoughts by writing down loops of reasonable empty text. I do think we can access the origin of any disturbing thought or feeling and in a moment of clarity determine what needs to be done. This whole post in fact stemmed from an instance where I felt my brain lost control over its vision of reality and just for a moment, I was able to look objectively at the naked reality as it is as a voice said: “Wipe that sad face, and no do not replace it with a strategically placed smile. You have acted long enough, let’s have a heart to heart. What’s on your mind child? What’s keeping you from sleeping? Do you have any spiritual ties? None. Are you in love? Never have been. Are you trying to fall in love? No not really. Are you successful? Haven’t been in a while. Do you strive to be successful? Maybe. Great then we are on to something, now get out of your mind and start working on that in the real world” 

13 Lessons medical school taught me

This blog came as an attempt to revive my teenage dream of one day becoming a journalist or a novelist. That dream died somewhere along the road to adulthood. Probably around my senior year in biology when I discovered my command of English, French and classical Arabic will never be good enough to be published. The dream died thereafter to be replaced by a career in medicine. Well that career is finally about to start. I recently graduated medical school and have been taking a few graduate courses since. However, next week I will be officially unleashed into the working world and no longer be a student. That part of my life has ended for now. Unless I decide to finally pursue that French literature degree I always dreamed of pursuing.

Anyway, away from Voltaire, Camus and Rousseau, this post will ultimately be another list, I’ve found comfort in making lists on this blog. This is a list I have wanted to post ever since I graduated from medical school in May but only managed to finish it now.  

Here are 13 lessons medical school has taught me:

1-You will never find Nemo

Some fish are just not meant to be caught, especially the ones that are an allegory of the meaning of life when you're still 25. 

2-Know when to take a break from work and drop everything else

I learned this the hard way when I attempted to imitate the more avid hard workers in class and isolated myself from the world to study for American board exam. The seemingly unmeasurable depression and breakdown were easily cleansed by a drink and a night out with some friends. 

3-After the white coat

The white coat effect fades away the second you take it off and walk on the street. That’s true unless you've turned into a ruthless narcissist like some of the attending physicians you had always dreaded. 

4- All things that end will trigger nostalgia
That by itself doesn't make them irreplaceable. Yes I am nostalgic to medical school ending but I also currently still regret going through with it and could think of many other things to do.  

5-Always check your sources

Evidence based medicine can be extrapolated to everyday life especially since Lebanese society has a tendency to inflate facts, and personalize versions of the truth. Therefore, a background check on the person giving you the news is always valid let alone required.  

6-The devil is in the detail

Yes he is but the greater picture often leads to sloppy outcomes. Attention to detail is a necessity for most doctors. To me survival was the main propellant in the first 2 years and thus many details were skipped in the process. They came back to bite me till I perfected them thereafter 

7-Growing up is an option

Not everyone gets over their high school insecurities. In fact some stay there for a lifetime despite of the added title of MD.

8-Ambition? 
Superlatives are a defense mechanism of those who need to showcase their success. I lost my drive for academic competitiveness early on and replaced it by total nonchalance. However, I never really knew how much that was a character changer till I saw the ruthlessness of the competitive character I used to have reflected in those who kept it till the end. 

9- Becoming

If you haven't learned to lead your own path rather than follow footsteps in the sand by now then you probably never will. 

10- Humans come in different species
The sooner you know yours, the happier you would be. It is human nature to aggregate in societies and more so to have smaller groups within these societies. And those pretending to be anthropologists (such as yours truly) will pretend to understand how these work. 

11- Chill
The world is not out to get you. As a baseline paranoid person with narcissistic tendencies I had to remind myself very often that it is not personal. When living with the same group of people for 7 years it becomes a challenge to keep believing it is not about you nor targeted at you. 

12- Turning tables

Don’t make enemies and try as much as possible not to gossip you never know how the tables might turn. 7 years are a long time to maintain friends or enemies. The tables will turn so often that you won’t be able to keep track.   

13-Is that really me in that photo?

Pictures from random events will make you question your decisions 4 years later. I now wonder about existence of past friendships that seemed to blossom in pics but more importantly I wonder why I have only faint recollection of these happy moments.

This last thought brings me back to an old French essay I had read back in High school: “Discours sur le Bonheur” by Madame du Chatelet. In a nutshell, we remember hardships more often than happy occasions because happy people are satisfied and do not feel obliged to share joy whereas unhappy people tend to share their misfortune in search of solace. Yes, these were a tough couple of years and medical students around you will always nag about how hard it is but the most important thing was that I always knew medical school will end one day. The career that comes after it might be packed with obstacles and this is going to sound cliché but I really have never experienced anything more gratifying than having helped a patient get through illness and hardship.

Mustard and Hedonism in Los Angeles

This post tells the story of a sweet hedonistic pot of chocolate where I stood out as being the sour mustard.

Before I start, let's get a little context: I have been in Los Angeles for 10 days now on a medical elective and the whole travel experience has been far from perfect. Now this has little to do with the city itself and much more to do with personal obstacles that happened upon landing here or that I had carried with me right before coming from Lebanon. With that in mind, let's get started. 

In the past year I can honestly say I have lost a great deal of my self confidence and assertive behavior . Numerous times this year, I ended up merely a ghost who echoes what others around him do. I gave up principles, tried new things in the name of adventure and the need to cross items off the list before I turn 25. I drifted apart from good people, gained some unnecessary enemies, but more importantly, I lost a sense of identity that I always took pride in. Imagine my apprehension to find all of that confusion culminating on an uneventful California night. In the midst of yet another attempt to fit in an environment that is mot mine, I found myself packing my belongings in a gloomy coffee shop, walking back to my apartment here in Los Angeles with one thought racing through my mind: being in Rome still does not make you a Roman. Even if I am in the most laid back city on earth, that does not mean I am no longer the same pretentious existential young man I always prided myself of being. 

  

The human race is a lonely fragile one. We want acceptance, we search for it wherever we go. We copy others, we convince some to copy us, we travel in herds like sheep and get chased by other packs of wolves on that jounrney. I can't speak for everyone out there but I know I have had major trouble embracing loneliness. I have traveled quite a bit in my life but I always looked for familiarities in foreign lands. Rarely have I actually embraced the foreign settings for what they are. instead, I turned them around to fit my reality. It is in this spirit that strolling down the champs elysee brings back Sabah's "allo beirut" playing in my ears, walking to the hospital in California brings marcel khalife's Rita and Croatia's Split is carved as the spitting image of Sour in my mind. Identity is a tricky entity. For someone who aspires to one day map the human brain, I am surely fixated on certain areas of my identity that seem to recur since early adulthood/ late adolescence. 

It seems that a recurrent theme on this blog has been adulthood: what is it? Have I reached it yet? Is this confusion part of it? 

At this moment, I do not have a concrete answer but I have a feeling that my character has deeply changed in the past 6 months. In fact, the copycat roller-coaster I was on has gotten me thinking that -for those of us unfortunate enough to have a flexible view of life- to find yourself, you have to look around for a while first. Yet the past few weeks have made quite a difference in that vision. 

To make this unclear ramble more lucid: if you go to LA and still want the same things you wanted when growing up in Beirut, if the city's pleasure principle does not alter your pre-set personal ideals, chances are you have already found yourself a long time ago. 

This post was supposed to include much more useless life theories and nicely sublimed personal conclusions from the last 2 months, yet instead it's ending with a different message If you are still reading. 

  

This blog was never an attempt to gather readership or a shot at journalism. It was always intended to be a venue to vent my thoughts into a somewhat recycled lebanon friendly presentation. Lately I have been flirting with the notion of halting my medical training and pursuing a journalism degree, now I may be getting ahead of myself but I want to use this venue for practice purposes in the upcoming few months. So yes, another conclusion to come off from being placed in unfamiliar settings was defining what you want in life. To roughly paraphrase a young stranger I met in a New York pastry shop who holds a journalism degree and has now quit it all to start drawing for a comic magazine: "I've always known what I wanted, I just wasn't sure I was good enough." 

On a closing note, "Too much candy gonna rot your soul...". 

Some shortcomings of Lebanese society.

It seems to me that in the last few posts I have become a rather literary version of a ditsy teenager "à la mean girls" complaining about life and how "so so stupid everyone is." 

If you havent thought so yet, you will after this post!

A good friend of mine once told me the whole blogging business is useless because bloggers never provide solutions, they just raise complaints. I agreed on the second part but I do not believe that it is a single person's job to create the answer, it is rather his job to launch the question and stir up the conversation. Today I will be mixing in my pot many reasons why the Lebanese society simply doesn't work. Keep in mind I love my country regardless of its wrongdoings and hope one day we can make a change.  

 1- Lebanon where women wear black for a traditionally set number of months after loosing a family member all while moving on with their lives regularly. Moving on is entirely normal and there shouldn't be a set deadline for when it is ok to listen to a song after someone has died. Grieving is personal and no one should interfere with it.

2-Lebanon where any group can burn tires and close international highways whenever they feel like it. 

 

3- Lebanon where Halloween is a big deal but independence day isn't. 

 

4- Lebanon where presidential elections depend on international consensus 

 

5- Lebanon where it is ok for men to sleep around with other women when in a relationship because you want to preserve your girlfriend for marriage. 

6- Lebanon where you can get a hymenoplasty as readily as you can order a burger  

7- Lebanon where George Clooney marrying a native gets unlimited coverage whereas the biggest Islamic mosque being closed gets near to none. 

8- Lebanon where a parliament renewing its expired mandate twice passes silently but a religious figure getting criticized leads to mayhem. 

9- Lebanon where a 3 km trip takes you an hour by car at rush hour

10- Lebanon where your skin color determines if you can swim in a private pool

11- Lebanon where yearly the first mild rain showers drain the infrastructure and claim a few souls 

12- Lebanon where the rapist can be forgiven if he offers to marry his victim 

13- Lebanon where plastic surgery loans are offered

14- Lebanon where local homosexuals get rectal dilation tests by the police while visitors thrive in gay bars 

15- Lebanon where local art is almost dead 

16- Lebanon where school history books stop at 1970

17- Lebanon where one sect's hero is another's demon 

18- Lebanon where even ISIS can find supporters 

19- Lebanon where what type of car you own takes you a longer way in society than what type of mind you have 

20- Lebanon where connections are a requirement for job security not an addition 

21- Lebanon where phone calls get you out of traffic tickets and minor felonies 

22- Lebanon where less than 5% of the parliament are women 

23- Lebanon where sharing your opinion online can get you arrested

24- Lebanon where refugees get cut in the face and European tourists get the full hospitality package 

25- Lebanon where armed civilians establish check points and close roads for "security purposes" 

 

26- Lebanon where Hamra and Tripoli experience different meanings of the term "on fire" on the same night

10 thoughts to make you Disinhibited, Disillusioned and Disenchanted in your mid 20s

I haven't written on this blog for a long time. 3.5 months to be exact. Now that happened for a reason. It is not out of lack of Lebanese events to comment on but rather out of personal disenchantment. The summer of 2014 had been very heavily embedded with existential questions and self reflections, all of which could have been shared here but they won't. I did not stop writing but I just wrote on a piece of paper for future references if I ever decide to open this very emotionally charged chapter of my life. 


Now on to today's post, 10 concepts that have made me disinhibited, disillusioned and disenchanted in my mid twenties 

1-Sex drive 

There will come a time where you find yourself desiring the other woman or actively misleading someone into thinking you love them be it for sexual needs or out of solitude. Point is, disinhibited fantasies will sting your moral sense and stain what you thought was an impeccable conscience. And here is the worst disillusioning part: guilt fades away. 

2-The devil is your friend 

Growing up you idealized your parents. Then around teenage years you probably stuck to your flawless friends. All in all, you never really saw evil in someone close to you. One major milestone was recognizing that in reality, as cliche as this is coming off, no one has absolutely pure intentions. Learn to appreciate that your family and closest friends are not always right and that a complete stranger can still be the victim of the crime your beloved claims has been committed to him/her. 

3-Xenophobia 

In a community of smaller communities like Lebanon, expect this more often than you think. You may try to go over and above with your friendliness yet some parties will remain impenetrable. Sects aggregate, social classes aggregate, even same language speakers aggregate. There will always be those who see Beirut as a street of Paris, those who mistake it for Tehran and those who are trying to turn it into New York. What all of them share is the absolute insistence that they are right and the accompanying superiority complex. 

4-Dysfunction is your gift

We all release a scream of despair about wanting to leave this dysfunctional nation, to live abroad where the grass is greener where the law is respected and where humanity is dignified. Truth is, foreign countries are not waiting for you with open arms. Visas and working conditions are more selective than ever. Besides, you are at high risk of failing to live in a world that walks by the book. You have become acquainted to dysfunction and it is your daily bread. Embrace that gift. 

5-Insecurities are ubiquitous

Growing up I always looked up to some of the more confident elements around me. For someone who often willingly shares his insecurities even on social media, I used to think they were mine alone. Time and more importantly acute stress of early adulthood showed me how often everyone had bigger irrational fears than mine buried deep down. Fear of society's judgement, fear of failure, the strive for acceptance were all issues I had processed by the first few years of college and could not even think that others still carried with them well into their twenties 

6-Karma is a myth

What comes around doesn't always go back around. People who walk parallel to the rules without getting caught may or may not go farther than those who abide by them. It's a matter of chance. In the unlucky event of having a conscience, in a country that lacks order, you will follow stringent personal standards. There comes a time when you realize the majority of the nation believes that breaking the rules is a necessary prerequisite to success and they more often than not get away with it while you gradually climb up the ethical ladder at a frustrating pace. Although that is disenchanting, I personally do not see myself changing my standards. 

7-What do you want to be when you grow up? 

That question finally starts to be answered once you're out of college. Or does it? Yes you do choose your major early on, fresh out of high school. What the high school teachers who asked you this question failed to mention is that a major is not a career. A medical doctor can be a psychiatrist, a surgeon or a dermatologist. All of which are totally unrelated career paths. Much in the same manner, business administration is not a career, it's a gateway to becoming a merchant, an employee or even a college professor.  So yes, you have a major in your mid 20s but what you do not even begin to have is the illusion of a stable career . 

8-You can't save them all

You may have gotten used to being the problem solver. The one who always knows the answers. You may have never had a situation where the solution escaped you. However as we grew older the problems grew with us and became completely out of our control. It is highly likely that by the time you are in your mid twenties you would have lost a friend to addiction, another to political corruption or watched another fade into an abusive relationship etc... In the end there isn't much you can do, you have to learn that no matter how hard you try, bad decisions need to be made by someone. How else would novelists and script writers find their muse? 

9-Failure 

 There are too many cliches here today. Then again originality is overrated and often inapplicable to broad populations. We cant have that as we all love our generalizations. One more lesson to learn by the time you're 25 is how to embrace the topography of rock bottom and what troughs to avoid if you ever want to end up living up in the mountains of success. The old young belief that the road to success is a straight ladder is quite wrong, it is rather filled with valleys and hills that may never take you as high up as your thought you'd get.  

10-Hope Vs Realism 

I might be disinhibited, disillusioned and disenchanted but that only adds to my realism rather than cynicism. Being in touch with the shortcoming of reality helps you save up your energy for the latter stages of life. As important as hope is in maintaining a healthy sanity, excess of it is just as toxic as lack of it. My mid 20s conclusion is is not a call for cynicism but rather for self-consciousness and willingness to admit the shortcomings of yourself, your entourage and your belief systems when the overwhelming reality calls for it.