"Once Lost"

I recently went to a demonstration. I normally only go to photograph the events, but this was also a sort of tryout to see if I wanted to support this particular “brand” being protested. The “cause” being supported, or protested – whichever way you want to look at it; I am not here to argue semantics - is an issue I feel very strongly about. I, was and still, am not sure how I feel about the energy, atmosphere, and the message of this gathering. What I can say is, it had been a long time since I had felt this lonely in my life. Believe you me, speaking as an “outsider”, a foreigner, a refugee, a dissident, an expatriate, and an undesirable, there are plenty of other instances to which I could point, to compare and contrast this experience. I can honestly say, when it comes to loneliness and emotional bottoms, in certain circles, I might just be considered an expert.

I don’t really remember a time when I actually felt like I belonged; belonged to anything or anyone really. I have never felt like I belonged to a country, a people, group, team, and or, ethnicity. Please allow me to preface this by saying, my family has done nothing but love me, making sure I had a happy childhood. They have helped in every way they can, or could, allowing me to be successful in any endeavor. Even my own family, at times, have seemed like estranged relations I lost touch with ages ago. This has nothing to do with what they have or haven’t done, this is all on me, and usually this is me at my worst; or best, again, depending on how you want to look at it. I don’t know where this comes from, but what I do know is that it exists, and I cannot keep on going pretending I feel anything different. I have heard a handful of people talking about a loneliness only a few of us have felt, and, somehow, at the same time, able to speak on without a hint of dishonesty.

This loneliness, is something I cannot describe with words. It is an emotion that consumes you through and through, and, I am certainly not the first to bring this to the surface. I could be standing in a room full of friends and family, whom I know, without a single shadow of doubt, love me and would do anything for me, and yet, simultaneously, feel this loneliness in my bones; a loneliness so stark you watch reality slip away into the darkness, like a dying candle washed away by a breeze in the cavities of life dancing to the whispers of ghosts. A feeling I am unable to shake. It is a charge so vivid you are blinded by its enormity. It is as if I am standing on a forgotten rock in the middle of dark oceans waiting for a raft as I watch the waves of life pass me by with each gushing crosswind, and all I am really thinking about is whether to dive in, close my eyes and fall backwards, and let the effervescent moisture gobble me up and let me disappear into its depths for all eternity. It is a loneliness without regard. It is an emptiness without a bottom. It is that which we are without in an abundance of reality. It is the absence of light when all you want is to escape the darkness of the night. It is the specter presence shadowing your movements. It is the itchy phantom limb you want to scratch without abandon.

Some might chalk this up to my relationship with my biological father, the environment of Iran during the late 70’s and early 80’s, or the rage and anger issues I have dealt with my whole life. I don’t even know where all of this anger and rage comes from. One day I woke up and I was a different person. I don’t even really know when that was. The reality is, even if I could somehow figure out when this was, or when this all began, it’s not like I can go back and change anything. It’s not like I can turn time back around. Even if I did, or even if I could, would I recognize the now me, having not had the same past, nor the same linear experiences up until this very moment?

My brother once told me I changed overnight, became hard as a rock, inside and out, when we moved to the U.S. He was four at the time, and I sixteen, so I have no idea what he saw that made him feel this way, but something must have gotten through to him. I did go from being a pretty outgoing kid, extrovert-ish if you will, to never wanting to leave the house. Some even suggested I completely changed as person, again over night, going from a happy-go-lucky kid, to this former shell of myself, wanting to fight anyone willing, or even unwilling, in sight, during the time two of my best friends died in a freak train accident, June 11th 1999. It has been almost 24 years since that occurred and it still hurts just as much as it did when it happened. People always talk about how “time heals all wounds”; I think that’s complete horseshit. I believe you just learn to deal with the pain, and get better at it, making it seem like “time has healed your wounds”.

Some might argue it’s because of the concussions I have sustained and endured throughout the years. Some might argue that’s the reason I am so angry, or so lonely; some might even argue they go hand in hand. My rage and anger are the catalyst to the bridges burnt, and loneliness is the result. “You are angry, because you are so full of rage, and why you feel lonely”, which makes no sense, and all you want to say in response is “well, no shit!?!” But, it’s not that simple. Maybe this was all around the same time I woke up and smelled the roses, so to speak, and realized this world is not the beautiful planet full of honesty, loyalty, and integrity portrayed in fantasies romanticized to the fullest extent; stories only told by winners and heroes. Maybe my family should’ve kept me away from fairytales, movies, and books. Or maybe I am just full of shit.

I once heard a psychiatrist talking about people whom had to learn multiple languages at a young age, show similar traits to those with multiple personality disorder. Meaning, they are, in a sense, a different person within the parameters and confines of each language, country, dialect, the personalities, and or, qualities that area of the world comes with and has to offer. By that notion, I have lived the lives of four and a half different people; the one that speaks Farsi, the one that speaks Danish, the one that speaks English, the one that spoke some German at some point, and the one I actually am. I am, the accumulated personalities of, the one shining through ever so softly, from time to time, like a pair of eyes gazing slyly through the wizard’s curtains behind the backstage judging and pretending “it” does not belong nor care. By that notion, I do care, and I do belong somewhere, but where that might be is the question I have been asking myself my whole life without ever knowing I am doing so.

At times I do feel as if I have lived the lives of multiple people, on different lifelines, during different timelines. It’s like multiple different streams of watery consciousness all being fed from the same source only to run parallel to each other without knowing the existence of their counterparts. When I think back on parts of my life, it does not seem like this was a life I lived. I think back at some of the things I have done, some of the things I have said, situations I have been involved in, and some of them make me sick to my stomach, while at the same time, some of them surprise the lights out of me, again and again.

When I reflect back upon some of my memories, most of them do not seem like they are mine; most of them feel like I am standing above another person, a situation, and experiencing someone else’s life through my eyes. It is as if I am watching a boy grow up I barely recognize. Only that little boy is me, as I stand by and watch him make mistake after mistake, and there isn’t a single thing I can do to help. The reality is, I am also not paying any attention to everything, the boy, or, I, did do correctly; all the “things” I did right.

There are so many instances I could point to where I should have been dead, and I am not sure why I am not. I am still trying to figure out why some us live and why some of us die, and I don’t think that questions will ever be answered. I guess what I am trying to say is, I am, always, only paying attention to all the things that went wrong, or the wrongs I am constantly trying to right, and then turning right around doing it all over again. I am always watching myself make the same mistakes over and over and over again. There have been plenty of times where I have fully known I was going to regret a choice I was about to make, but once again sold myself the same exact lie I have been my whole life, that somehow this is the right choice and this time it is going to be different.

They say hindsight is 20/20, and Kierkegaard’s famous quote reads, “life is lived forwards, but only understood backwards”. There is a lot to be unpacked in between those lines. I think, we have to stop trying to move in the direction we think is best, and rather, “let the winds direct our sails”. I don’t actually think any of us have any control over anything; one might suggest this is all predestined. And why not? How many times in my life have I thought I had full control, only to find the total lack of at a later date? The grand illusion of control has plagued human kind since the dawn of upraised footsteps. These days I try to do my best letting things unfold, and still come up short on a daily basis. I am a control freak to the marrow of my bones, which has cost me nothing but disappointment and grief. In fact, many years ago, I decided never to make major plans of any sort for this exact reason. 

I was born, the 19th of august, 1978, and I spent the first ten years of my life in Tehran, Iran. A year before the Iranian revolution, which some might call the Islamic revolution, and my birthdate is the 25th anniversary of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh’s overthrow, during which Iran had been a democracy for a short three-year stint with the honorable doctor as the people’s elected prime minister. He was named Time Magazines Man of The Year in 1951.

I think back on that time and what that must have been like for the people of Iran. How progressive they must have felt, in a sea of radicalism, only to be overthrown, by the hands of themselves, with the help of the British and Americans. One might argue they twisted the hands of the Iranian people with the looming threat of the communist red coming to take away their faith. I can’t begin to imagine what my family went through during all of that. I cannot begin to fathom what my mother must have felt having a newborn son during the Persian, or Iranian, Revolution, during a war, and in a country, which just seemed to be going down the drain slushing around the edges of the sinkhole, diginin themselves deeper and deeper, realizing they reaped what they sowed.

Since then, I have lived on the outskirts of Copenhagen for six years, and spent the last, almost, thirty years here in Maryland. To me where I am from and home have two completely different meanings. When people ask me where I am from, usually, my first question is “do you mean where I was born, or where I live?” I don’t really feel a kinship to Iran as a country, but what I do feel extremely connected to is the history of Iran. The feeling I get when anyone mentions the Persian Empire. Stories about Cyrus The Great. When I hear Farsi spoken. The smell of rosewater, black tea, and saffron. The smell of kabob shops; meat and vegetables being grilled over open fire – insert your discriminatory joke at any time. When I hear the poetry of Khayyam or Hafez. Iranian music or food. Traditional Iranian dancing, outfits and all. Sign me up!

I have been without a flag my whole life, and, I’ve often said, if I believed in a government, or a country, I would’ve been the first person to sign up for the military, especially, the special forces. I used to be extremely athletic, agile, with an unbreakable mentality, and I had no problem hurting people. To top that off, I am fluent in Farsi, at one time fluent in Danish, spoke “kitchen” German, and could pretty much pass for any nationality. Needless to say, the special forces would have loved me! Also, there is just something very romantic and poetic about being that trained.

I almost joined the Marines twice. Once right after graduating high school, and once when I turned thirty. The latter was right after Obama was elected, but I’ll get back to him in a minute. I used to have this romantic, or poetic, dream about joining the Marines, then the Force Reconnaissance Marines, then making, and joining The Delta Force. The only reason I never did, was because of a comment a family member proposed, and the comment was simply, “what will you do, if, and, when, the U.S. goes to war with Iran?”

I have seen a lot of what this world has to offer, and I have watched this world change right before my eyes. I have gone from handwriting letters, to friends and family overseas, then taking the letter down to the post office, buying a stamp for the international fare, mailing it, waiting about a month for the reply, and doing the process over and over again, to now where you can, literally, pick up your handheld phone, dial a number and facetime someone on a different continent.

The time I am talking about, people didn’t, or couldn’t afford calling each other long-distance all the time. There used to be a price difference between national and international long-distance calls. Making an international call was a big deal back then, and talking to someone in a different time zone was something like magic. I am not saying I was around for the invention of the telephone, but what I am trying to say is, life was just so different, it’s almost impossible to explain to someone who is used to getting global replies instantaneously. There is just something to be said about the pace of the life we used to live, compared to now. I am just as guilty of it as the next man; I enjoy the glamour of today’s technologies as much as most, and I am not suggesting we go back to the stone ages, or slow anything down. All I am trying to say is I have lived, and still do, in the middle space between two different ages; that’s all!

I remember getting my own telephone line with an answering machine being a huge deal. Yes, I said it! Answering Machines! Answering machines were a device connected to your landline in your home, because no one had cellphones back then. Well besides, rock-stars, movie stars, drug dealers, business tycoons, stock brokers, rappers, and billionaire playboys. You would leave an outgoing message letting the caller know they had reached the correct person, and for them to leave “a message after the tone”. You would get home – mind you the first generations of answering machines were like tape-decks, which is also another thing I might have to explain – rewind the tape, if you had any messages recorded on your machine, listen to them, and return the phone calls you deemed necessary. People also had pagers, which was a device one could call, and people would leave their number for you to reach back via a public payphone. Basically, getting in touch with someone, required effort; it was much more difficult than it is today, but people didn’t care as much, or at least that’s the way it seemed. Someone returning, your call, text, message, email, instant message, facetime, reacting to your posts, videos, just wasn’t as big a deal as it is today, or maybe I didn’t care as much. Maybe I did, and just don’t recall giving a shit.

All of the changes I have seen in my lifetime, makes me believe I have more in common with my grandfather’s generation than the ones after me. It also makes me think about how many other people have said exactly what I am saying before me, with the invention of electricity, radio, the rotary telephone, the color television, and airplanes, et cetra, et cetra. You might even be able to take that back as far as the inventions of fire and the first wheel.

I have interacted with many different cultures, and been accepted by many of its subcultures. I grew up experiencing the childhood of hip hop and skateboarding, as I took my very first steps trotting into a world I had not yet loved nor hated. To put things into perspective, Tower Records, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, and Boarders, is where one would normally pick up music; yes, we used to have to go to a department store to pick up music, i.e. Records, Tapes, CDs, and VHS movies. Streaming was still about twenty, thirty, and even, for some of us, forty years away.

I look back at those times as something really special. This got to a point where hip hop had its own subgenre; underground hip hop, just like anything else, became a fad. You would hear frat-boys talking about listening to “underground hip hop”. I always thought of it as “if you picked it up at Best Buy, it isn’t underground!”, but this was also, always, met with the look of confusion.

There was nothing better than picking up a brand-new album, making it home, and listening to it from beginning to end. In a place like Tower Records, which used to be open, until midnight, every night of the week, every day of the year, you could go Monday night, wait until after midnight, and pick the album that was coming out on Tuesday. I don’t know if that’s still the same, but albums used to get released on Tuesdays, because of logistics and distribution delays, meaning it would physically take longer to get the music to certain places.

Music has helped me get through some of the toughest parts of my life. Music has also taught me a lot about life, cultures, unity, struggle, acceptance, and perseverance. It has shown me that I am not alone. It has proven to me the way in which I view the world is not synonymous to me. I am not the only one that has experienced racism and hate. I am not the only one that has been through feeling unaccepted. Hearing musicians putting together words to my emotions, emotions I was unaware of even, was an eye-opening experience.

When I was in my teens, hip hop and skateboarding was my world, and coincidentally those two things kind of went hand in hand. You were not looked at as a winner, back then, if you were a part of either world, and even more so, or less, if you were part of both. Those are probably the only two places where I ever felt I belonged, if that’s even true; that is at least the lie I love to tell myself. We were all just a group of misfits, doing something we loved, and could express it to one another. It was a world we understood and had a common share in; we had bought all the stock we could afford, and we were not selling. Trying to figure out how to do a new trick on a skateboard, or dissecting rap lyrics, taught me a lot about life.

Hip hop music was the voice of a generation now forgotten. It was the backdrop of the late 80’s, the entire decade of the 90’s, and the early 2000’s. In some ways it still kind is, but it’s so whitewashed it’s hard to decipher realness from marketing schemes. Sure, it existed back then, as well, but it was way more obvious. The music spoke of the conditions many lived in, in ghettos, the divide in education, the wealth gap, and more importantly, the unspoken truth about racism in everyday life.

By listening to what was going on in these neighborhoods, and what people had to deal with on a daily basis, being of the less fortunate backgrounds, I realized life was not fair, no matter how you looked at it. It made me appreciate my life. It also made me realize there was a whole world out there never spoken of, and this brand of music was shedding light on it; giving it a voice. More and more, I began to realize these were not just stories and fairytales musicians were concocting – let’s be honest, some were just making it up - but an everyday reality most of them had grown up in. They, at some point, found their own voice in a world full of unfairness, and decided to bring this to the forefront of the musical world, pushing back at a system whom was holding the tied noose around their necks. No one back then expected hip hop to last for as long as it has.

Some feel hip hop died years ago, and they might even be right, as I have watched the industry ruin a beautiful artform. I feel it’s the same as anything else, once it becomes commercialized, the soul with which it was created becomes jaded and almost nonexistent; the life has been sucked out of every molecule for the gain of the mighty dollar. Listening to someone explaining the pitfalls of the crack epidemic, minority communities had to deal with, with the rage and anger unexpressed anywhere else, is unmatched in any other genre of music. Coincidentally, rap music and television is also how I learned how to speak English. Maybe that’s why I come across so angry; it’s nice excuse anyway.

The first book I finished in English was Catcher in the Rye. At that point I think I had been in America for little over a year. There was something very gripping about this book. I love the way it was written. I love the language used. The subjects of the book, and, most of all, how the main character calls everyone a phony. The actual literature was written pretty laxed so it was not hard to understand, especially for someone who was just learning how to speak the language. I think at the time this was the best point in my life to read this book. I was lost in so many ways, and I think the story line really spoke to where I was in my life. The teacher who had us read this book gave us an assignment to write a letter to, Holden, the main character. The letter I wrote to Holden was to try and give him hope for losing his brother to suicide.

There was never a time in my life when I was outright suicidal. I have done things in my life which might have seemed like I had no regard for life. I might have said things proving my total disregard for the living, but again, I don’t ever remember a time when I was totally serious, or even semi-serious, about taking my own life. Looking back, there might have been instances whereby I have talked and acted like I was borderline suicidal. There might have even been days I wished I no longer existed. I might even have questioned my own existence on many different occasions, but that is not the same thing as committing, or attempting, suicide. I could even point to a time or two where I wanted the outcome to look like an accident, so it would not have been looked at as suicide, because I understand it. I understand the feeling of no hope, no return, nothing being able to fix the torn soul you are trying to amend, and piece back together one ripple at a time. I don’t ever think it’s a matter of choice in many situations; I think it’s a matter of giving in. But, how in the hell would I know?

I have only voted once, and that was during the second term of Obama’s presidency. This is something I still regret to this day. I wish I had never voted. A lot of people do not like this about me, but this is a personal choice, and the idea behind it is I personally don’t think it makes any iota of a difference in the grand scheme of things. I was unable to vote until 2012 since I did not become a citizen of these United States until then.

I was on 14th Street, in 2008, celebrating Obama’s first win with tears in my eyes, even though I could not vote, for being the first person of color to make it to The White House. ‘Tis was the season of hope. ‘Tis was the season of change. At least that’s the way it was all packaged up and sold to all of us whom gobbled it up double fisted stuffing our faces without ever questioning “anyone’s” motives. Then I watched him, and his cabinet, act just like every other president this country has ever mustered, and in some cases even worst. I watched him send thirty thousand troops into war the same year he won The Nobel Peace Prize. I watched him bail out more corporation, and banks, then Clinton and The Bushes combined. The Citizens United Act happened under his watch, and he, himself, got elected with the help of Super PACs. More innocent people got killed overseas with drone strikes during his tenure than any other presidency. During his two terms he deported more people than, again, Clinton and The Bushes combined. He signed backdoor deals with the likes of Apple, Google, Twitter, YouTube, and Microsoft to opensource their data to the government. The first time an Apple Phone was legally hacked by the government was during his stay at the white house. But, the worst of them all, was, he publicly assassinated an American citizen and his minor son without Due Process.

The whole reason why America, publicly, invaded three different countries, in the last twenty-two years, was to bring them democracy. Now, here it was killing people without ever giving them a day in court. Another reason why I never understood people getting so incensed when Colin Kaepernick began to take a knee in solidarity to show his support for the continued brutal killings of people of color by the police. The whole, supposed reason, why America invaded multiple countries “fighting terrorism”, was sold under the “Freedom of Speech, Peace & Democracy” umbrella, so that someone like Kaepernick has the right to take a knee if he so wishes, and even burn the American flag if he feels like it.

The history of the region known to most of the world as “middle east” is actually all, either, West Asia, or Northeastern Africa. In fact, “middle east”, as far as I am concerned, is a crusader’s term coined during the time when the most western part of this planet was known as France and England. That part of the world, and the history of goes back, as far as we know, about ten to fifteen thousand years. The two main languages of the area are Language Isolates, meaning no one knows where they essentially stemmed from. The area consisted of the Elomytes, Egyptians, Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians, and Persians. Aside from the Chinese, these civilizations, were, still are, the creator of all knowledge, and the developers of everything we have in today’s industrial world. Cyrus the Great was the inventor of “The Wheel of Human Rights”, or “The Cyrus Cylinder”, an artifact sitting in The British Museum, introducing democracy, equal rights, some three thousand years before the French took all the credit. You cannot imagine what it’s like to have this type of history as the background of your roots, to constantly being reduced to a terrorist, towelhead, bombmaker, and a Muslim fanatic. 

“This is how foreign I am” is a sentence I have had to start with explaining to people regarding things, to this day, reminding me of how much of an alien I really am. To start, I still have a huge issue with pronouncing the difference between “V’s” and “W’s” when speaking in a normal pace. No other language I have ever spoken has such a stark difference between the pronunciation of these two letters and the words that begin with them. For example, trying to say “a weathered vest” or “you are very welcome” fast and out loud is something I have to think about before saying. Otherwise, it comes out unfathomable, and I sound like I am, either, coming out of a dental office and my entire mouth is numb, or suffering from a very recent stroke. Van Winkle is a name I had to practice saying correctly – we had a teacher named Van Winkle at my high school; it’s not like I really like that name and I sought it out, just to be able to pronounce it. I am not even sure where you would hear a name like that.

“This is also how foreign I am” is just another way of explaining the aforementioned foreignism. Someone who was once very dear to me, and ex-girlfriend to be exact, had a sibling that attended a school in Maine. I have been to Maine twice because of it, and I loved every minute of it. It is a beautiful state. The first time I was up there was before I had ever made it back to Denmark since I left in 1994. The weather was crisp with light hints of arctic breeze. The air felt clean. The streets seemed familiar. This was also the first time I had seen rocks on beaches since leaving Denmark. I am not sure why these were the things that really stuck out, but for whatever reason these were the first things I noticed.

The first morning we woke up there, we walked outside, and something deep inside of me just really got nostalgic, and I got this overwhelming feeling of being back in Denmark. I mentioned this to the ex, and saying how much Maine reminded me of Scandinavia, the rocky beaches, and how much I loved the weather and the feeling of being there, to which she answered “me too; I love the feeling and weather of New England as well”. I was so confused. I said “I thought we were in Maine”. I thought somehow that we had left the state of Maine in my sleep and no one told me. I used to drink pretty heavily back then, so being transported to a different state in a blackout was not really out of the question. She looked at me with the softest eyes, and the most caressing demeanor; the way a parent would look at their imbecile child for asking the dumbest of questions, wondering how their offspring will ever make it through puberty. She said “my poor little foreigner; New England is an area, not a State.” This whole time I thought when people were referring to “New England” they were referring to a state. I thought the New England Patriots, were the football team of set state. Come to find out New England is an area comprised of six different state, which includes Maine. Go fucking figure!

“Home is the floor beneath your pillow” is a rule by which I have lived my adult life. This helps when you have lived as an “outsider” your whole life. The reason I put outsider in quotations is because of the absurdity of the word. If you’re a refugee, you have pretty much left everything you know for the unknown because your current circumstances were that horrifying. No one flees their birth place because they were living lavishly, wanted something new, and thus intrepid into a new world with nothing but the clothes on their back. People do move, of course, to other parts of the world from whence they came. But refugees, illegals if you will, people who truly uproot themselves for a “better life”, usually do so out of desperation and to relieve their families of the atrocities they experience with each passing day. This was the same reason why my mother decided she had enough of Iran, and why we fled. The reason I say “my adult life” is because these are notions and feeling I have felt my whole life, just never had words nor a voice with which to describe them.

Even though I am a citizen of Iran I am only allowed to stay there for a ninety-day visa, because I never did my military time. Since I left Iran, I have only been back once. In 2002, my mother, brother, and, I went on a two-month vacation. I never expected to feel the way I did when I touched Iranian soil. Something came over me. I felt this belonging I have never felt before in my life. It was as if the very air I was breathing was giving my consciousness a long-lost embrace, touching the inner workings of my soul with a mechanical hand turning the dials back to when I was taking my very first steps. As time went on, and I had interacted with Iranians in Iran, I realized to them I am also a foreigner. I had lived outside of Iran for far too long for them to consider me an equal. To them I was just another American visiting Iran, whom happened to speak fluent Farsi. To them I was an imported object, an imposter, and not an equivalent; a programed entity with similarities subjugated by foreign rules mimicking my counterparts.

Many things on this planet give me a sense of belonging, while at the same time make realize how foreign I truly am. While I have heard people describe the holiday season, from thanksgiving till New Year’s Day, as the self-pity Olympics, that is the time of year I feel the most foreign. It is the time of year, I have seen people become joyful to the point of nausea, and, I have seen people cry themselves to sleep. Whatever the reason maybe, it’s the time of family, and the missing link in the life of any individual in the western world. Some people make an enormity out of this season, which also give them reckless abandon, to drink, smoke, self-medicate, overindulge, and, or basically numb themselves into an abyssal darkened oblivion. I was of the latter for a long time, and to this day, I hate the sound of Christmas music; it really gives me the heebie jeebies, and Mariah Carey and go fuck herself! At the same time there is something very envious about it all. It’s hard to explain. Hating something while at the same time being envious of it all. Seeing friends throughout the years getting all excited about being around family, being around friends they have not seen, waiting for the ugly sweaters to come out, eggnog to start flowing, through the cul-de-sacs, as the Christmas carols song in high notes bring about a new light in each passing set of eyes, making you wonder if it’s all real or something of a show they all put on with each passing year. The wishing for a white Christmas. The tree decorating. The wrapping of presents. The opening of presents. The way they make people feel. The way people feel, in general; whether sad or happy.

Funny enough Christmas began as a Pagan custom, going all the way back to the Romans, Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians. These were civilization whom worshiped the sun and the stars; they believed in the harvest and the solstices. They relied heavily on the constellations, and they stole a lot of knowledge from one another. But then again, these are our guesses. We still haven’t a single clue as to how they really built the pyramids. December 25th is the winter solstice, and the sun passes through The Cross Constellation, then stays hidden below the horizon for three days, and reappears, as in the “death” and “resurrection”. The Pine, or Fir, Tree has always symbolized life in many cultures because it remains green throughout the seasons. This was a way for the Catholic Church to repackage and sell Christianity to the pagan people of the west, or the remaining ones anyway.

When I was a lot younger, and lived a lot more wildly – this goes back to me having lived different lives, because what I am about to tell you is a time of my life I don’t ever want to relive; it seems so out of touch, and it’s a miracle I, not only survived, but, somehow came out unscathed – my friend and I used to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas together. There were a couple of friends I used to do this with, but one in particular comes to mind, and pertains to this story.

One Thanksgiving, we met up at his place, like we normally used to, and we would start “pregaming”. All this meant was we would start drinking way before we were supposed to be anywhere. We never really had to be anywhere, but drinking is something we always did. When I got to his place, we started with drinking wine, and since there were a lot of bottles, we drank without any regard. Now mind you this was in the morning, and we had plans to go to a friend’s house later that night, which usually meant sometime close to midnight. We basically drank wine for about ten hours straight that day before even getting to the party. Copious amounts of wine and drugs, of all sorts, later, we finally made it to the party.

I had a skateboarding accident when I was fourteen years old, basically split my right eyebrow wide open, and fractured a small piece of my skull. Because of the extend of the injury I have had major nerve damage to the top right side of my face. To this day, there are parts of my head, on that side, that just feels different, and hurts in a different way than the rest. The reason I am saying this is because when I would drink, or smoke, too much, my left eye, being normal, would close up, as eyes do when you have had way too much to drink, or smoke. My right eye, on the other hand, would just stay open.

So, when we go to this party, I couldn’t figure out why people were starting at me, or why my friends kept asking me if there was something wrong with my eyes. I finally went and looked at myself in a mirror and realized that I looked like someone whom had just crawled out of an insane asylum. One eye almost completely shut, and the other one more open than normal. I had to wear sunglasses for the rest of the night so I wouldn’t freak people out. Never occurred to me that my behavior might be freaking people out, but somehow the eye was. That night, I also earned myself the nickname Doctor Weird Eye.

Iran is currently going through some serious uprisings. I am not going to get into the political reasons as to why this is happening, but this particular history goes back to before World War I, and specifically, as mentioned earlier, also, during the time Iran was a democracy under the care of the publicly elected Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, after World War II. But nevertheless, there are things happening in Iran which have been an issue for a long time. This might even be considered a human rights violation, but no one seemed to care until recently. It seems all of a sudden, everyone cares for whatever reason. It is as if, overnight, everyone just grew humanitarian limbs, which they wish to exercise and to practice its dexterity. I have had friends reach out to me regarding this, whom I didn’t think had a political bone in their bodies, and outright surprise me to a point where I had to ask myself “do I need to get more serious about this?” I seriously had to sit down and ask myself why I didn’t want to get involved, or I just didn’t feel anything for this movement.

I outright refuse to watch anything about it on television, as this was only a hot topic for like eleven seconds on mainstream media. Even on Iranian news outlets, mostly coming out of Los Angeles, this just seemed like people riding the “fad-train” gambling with the innocent lives of the young on the frontlines in Iran. This is always the story, right? People sitting around judging and telling others how to feel about an agenda while they are leagues away from the killing fields, as the young, the misled, the unfortunate, the unprivileged, and the minority do the bidding for the rest of “upper society”; those who, not only, have a voice, but the means to make a difference in whichever direction they seem fit. 

Because of what is happening in Iran there have been demonstrations worldwide. I had been hearing about the demonstrations happening in the Washington D.C. area at Farragut Square for some time. I had been meaning to make my way down there at some point. I honestly just wanted to see what this was all about, and since I do not mingle with many Iranians or stay around such circles, I was curious to see if anything had changed in the last forty plus years. I thought something might have changed in the way we see things, in the way we do things, but nothing had changed. I was genuinely surprised. I thought we had grown. I thought we had learned from our past mistakes; I thought we had learned our lesson. I thought this would be the time we would seriously try something different. But again, that day I was reminded why I do not see eye to eye with most Iranians.

I usually have my camera with me for such situations, and this was not my first rodeo. I was there for most of the Black Lives Matter protests in the Washington D.C. area. I was downtown during the election periods, and I was even there during the Pride weekend festivities watching “The Church Folk” get into it with people whom were only there to have a good time and celebrate their freedom of choice, and I am not even talking about abortion.

I made my way down to Farragut Square, and as usual had my camera with me to document the event. The first few shots I snapped off were of four men sitting across the intersection I was crossing. I walked up a half a block, and started taking pictures of people dressed in all sorts of different costumes, since this was Halloween Weekend. There was a gentleman who was watching me taking pictures of this group with a smile on his face, and I asked him if I could take his picture as well, trying to be polite. I was about to turn around and walk back a little to get a better angle on my subject, and realized I was being approached by an older man, damn near a senior citizen, whom I could tell was Iranian from a mile away. I could also tell this man was not sober; don’t ask me how I would know something like that, but let’s just say I have had plenty of practice, and I can whiff out a wet duck from a neighboring county. He walked right into my face, and personal space, and told me not take his picture. At first, I was confused, but then I realized he was one of the four men sitting across the intersection I had just taken a picture of. He told me to delete the pictures on my camera. I started laughing. I had been through this before with a handful of teenagers during the Black Lives Matter Movement and Anti Trump Rallies. One of those situations actually got pretty bad, whereby they were telling me I did not have a press-pass, and I was not allowed to take their photo, asking me what my name was, to which I responded “my name is GO FUCK YOURSELF!” since we were standing on public grounds.

However, this made me want to look up the law as to what I am allowed to do without a press-pass, and the law states if anyone is standing on public property they are allowed to photograph whatever they want without anyone being able to stop them. Now fast forward to this old man telling me to delete his picture with violent intentions in his eyes; again, trust me, this was not my first rodeo. I could tell this guy wanted to give me the business, and I was almost encouraging it. Mentally, I took a step back, and realized I would only be doing the public a disservice by punching this old man, because I was going to get him to a point of punching me first so I could claim self-defense, and legally knock him and his consciousness into the upper atmosphere. Instead, I asked him to get out of my face, which he didn’t, kept telling me to delete his photograph, and that I was not allowed to photograph him.

I asked him if he knew the law pertaining to this instance, and, told him, he was more than welcome to get a police officer. He never got a police officer. I again reminded him that I was well within my rights, as both of us were standing on public property, to photograph whatever I wanted. This went back and forth for some time, as the guy I originally intended to photograph was standing there watching this whole situation. He asked me if I was ok several times; I was. The old man finally walked away, I briefly talked to the other guy, took a photo of him, and then made my way to the demonstration. I was met with the same resistance, and the question was and still is, if you don’t want your picture taken, either cover your face up, or don’t come to the demonstration.

The thing that struck me the most was the different types of flags that were presented there, as if they weren’t all from the same place. I had to remind myself this was the reason Iran was in this situation in the first place. I ran into a friend while there, and he had to explain the different types of flag represented. There was the original Iranian, The Mujahedeen, The Kurdish, The Pahlavi, The Persian, and even the Iraqi Flag. I walked around snapping photos, as I normally do, and kept hearing people arguing over who was in the right as to what Iran should or shouldn’t be, whom it should be governed by, the reason why we as a country were here in the first place, and it seemed like everyone was just passing the buck.

To me, they were all at fault. We made all of this happen. Even though I was not even a part of it, I still feel responsible. I realized that day I don’t even belong to these people, and why I have been staying away from Iranians my whole life. The arrogance it takes to stand thousands upon thousands of miles away from what is happening in Iran, then argue who might be right, and what brought the country to this point, even though “you” left with your tail between your legs, is beyond astounding.

I feel so terrible for every Iranian that is going through this situation at the moment. I cannot begin to explain the agony I feel for what the young, the poor, and the voiceless, of my so-called homeland, is experiencing, and there is absolutely nothing I can do for them. Seemingly all they want is freedom, and all United States is doing for them is big fat zero. Where are all the people of these Americas whom were screaming “U.S.A.” when Osama was killed in the name of freedom? Where are the lobbyists who had a hand in “liberating” Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria? How come we are not saving the young being raped, tortured, and executed on a daily basis in Iran? Why did this government pump close to a hundred billion dollars’ worth of funds into Ukraine, but can’t send a helping hand to people dying in the streets of Tehran?

Am I seeing this all wrong, or is this business as usual? Is this the same thing that happened during the time of Mossadegh, whereby they scared the Iranian people with the communist threat building in the north, poisoning the minds of Iranians making them believe Russians were invading to take away their religion?

This is why I don’t feel like I belong to a single order. It has and always will be about wealth, power, and land. It will always be the powerful taking advantage of the weak. It will always be someone like me watching from the sidelines, wishing I could make a difference, but realizing millions before me with the same thought tried and failed, and were either silenced or killed. The most glaring examples were Mahatma Gandhi, Malcom X, Fred Hampton, Martin Luther King, Patrice Lumumba, and Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. This was also during the time the CIA realized it was easier to defeat a country or an organization from within rather than going to war with them, and you could follow that into the downfall of South America, West Asia, and Africa since the end of World War II.

I have never liked the idea of belonging to a group, because they might eventually help me out in the long run. I have never wanted the help of anyone, because at some point they might use that against me. To this day I am not sure how I feel about “strength in numbers”. I have never understood why we live in a world where two people can’t work out their indifferences. If need be, go outside and duke it out, for god sake; you might both just learn something. There is a lot to be said, and learned, about getting punched in the mouth. Trust me, I would know. I have never understood someone expecting someone else to take care of their dirty laundry, take out their garbage, or stand in their shoes. I do wonder where this is all going. I am not sure I am the right person to answer all of these questions, but what I have been attempting to do is to express my personal opinion – yes, I get it; we all have one - about a subject near and dear to my heart.

Again, this is a movie most of us from that part of the world have watched. This the same story recycling itself as history sits back and laughs. How are we to stop it? My generation never seemed to be able to get it together. I am so proud of the young people of Iran willing to put up this fight in the face of the dangers they meet each moment. It is, without a doubt, bravery to the point of stupidity, and I mean that in the most sincere way possible. No one else before them have gotten this far, and no other time, that I remember, has the rest of the world taken notice. Maybe this was the time and place, all at the same time. Maybe this is fate meeting faith; opportunity meeting chance; integrity meeting loyalty; love in the face of immense hatred!  

I hope they succeed, and I wish nothing but the best for all of them. I cannot begin to explain the sense of life I wish for them and the freedoms they deserve. This life is so fruitful and demanding, yet so fragile. Whatever it is they wish for I hope they get in return a thousand-fold. What I have seen in today’s young of Iran gives me hope for the future, because at this point I am a dinosaur and a fossil; an afterthought. This is the time when the old need to shut the fuck-up and let the young just handle this! But again, space, time, life, and existence, is but a mere murmur; frail, flimsy, and malleable.

That feeling of your fingertips gracing the ending edges of reality as if you’re standing at the very last drop of the worlds grappling for dear life; a sense of belonging you lost ages ago without ever knowing you needed it to exist! The sound of your breath dancing to the eruption inside your chest. Your stomach doing summersaults around your midriff. Your synopsis approaching Mach Eleven trying to catch up to themselves; stand in line, so to speak. Your feeling of calm has been this cocoon of solitude as your only home for a few decades. This is a reality you built yourself as a defense mechanism, without ever really knowing it. Though the question remains, how did I ever end up here, and how do I get back? Is ignorance really bliss? The bigger question, which eats away at you without holt, is, would I even want to turn back? And, what would that even look like? If you don’t relate to the “norm” and what “real life” is supposed to look like, how in the world are you to know which direction to take the next time you trip and fall onto that next proverbial fork in the road?

There is a part of me that is constantly fighting with the other; the ying and yang if you will. The dark and light. The pessimist constantly arguing with the optimist regarding the realist. Knowing what is real and fake in this world has become an art form. It is hard to believe anyone, as most people don’t even know how long they have been lying to themselves. Most people live in a surreal life where either FOX or CNN is the truth. Even if you didn’t believe how unbelievably market driven these two corporations were before the pandemic, you would have to be damn near mentally handicapped to actually believe anything that comes out of their mouths. I am only mentioning those two because they are a part of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, and these are, again, not my original thoughts; to a lot of people, this is just common knowledge.

This kind of thing has been going on since the dawn of communication. People have been fed bullshit for as long as humans could speak to one another. I do wonder if there is ever a time when we as a human race can look back and say, we really had no idea what we were doing back then, but, thank god, now we are at least on the right track. I feel like every time we take a step in the correct direction, whichever way that might be, we take about twelve backwards. It is as if, like I mentioned before, this is all predestined, but this time around it’s all controlled from behind the scenes. It is as if someone, somewhere, is pulling all the strings, only they don’t even know which one to pull and at what time. It’s like children playing in the sandbox, arguing over how many pebbles each own as they throw handfuls into each other’s eyes.

There is a part of me that wants all of this to burn to the ground, as I don’t really see a way out of the human condition. And, I mean all of it. Let it all burn to the ground, and let us begin from the start; all over again. I don’t really see “us” making this any better than we have found it. I don’t see us leaving anything behind worth saving. I am talking about all of us. I am talking about everything this world is made of. From the gutters of the slums to the golden toilets of the penthouses. From the bitter ends the unfortunate meet to the lottery prizes which comprise being born into wealth. The lonely tears of a lost mother burying her adolescent child, to the neglected youth being raised by the maids imported into the household.

I don’t think there is world in which everyone is happy and living to the fullest; that would negate the true definition of reality. Someone, somewhere, is always getting fucked. That is the nature of NATURE. Otherwise, natural selection would cease to exist. I don’t think there is place on this planet where everyone’s wishes come true. There isn’t a single place on this globe where the sun shines all of the time. We are all made up of the same mistakes, yet we live such different lives. We don’t think of anyone else on the same level, let alone the same playing field as the rest of us, and we are not even thinking we should be playing the same game. We don’t think we are the same “humans” as the rest of the people we are standing next to.

One man’s hope is the next man’s dying breath of regret. One man’s hard work is another man’s quarterly loss. In this day and age there are plenty of lopsided parts of life to point a judging finger at while you sit in your comfortably climate-controlled home, typing a woke message to let the people from your “clan” know you are with the program; “so and so is live on IG”; that type of fuckery. We are so ready to let the other side know we are willing to die on this hill, if need be, but when push comes to shove, no one is there to stand up for what they actually believed.

We pay lofty prices for a little glitter of happiness while we choke the dreams out of others, just because we can. We don’t think of anyone else when we have our mind’s set to get ours. We only sacrifice when it’s witnessed. We never want the world to be a better place, because the world needs to be a better place, but because it sounds great at dinner parties as they serve overpriced butter-seared “dolphin-safe” tuna.

I do always ask myself why I act the way I do on a regular basis, but at the same time ask myself why I have to check my emotions. I have never understood why I can’t just live my life without a care in the world. We are not even in the neighborhood of the same emotions that we hold up against the next man suffering next to us. I cannot be the only one seeing the world this way, I know that for a fact. I also know, someone like me, people who feel the same way as I do, always sort of keep to themselves. Not because we are afraid, we are just tired. Tired of all the horseshit. Tired of all the acting. Tired of all the consuming and regurgitating. The fake smiles. The handshakes. The pretending.

The ideas that run around our heads only to be left there, taking up space, because none of it will actually come to fruition. The long-lost dreams of yesteryears growing new sprouts to crack the skin from beneath the surface, reminding you what could’ve been, knowing fully well most of it are fairytales you have sold yourself over and over again. But this work has simultaneously been the best and yet the most excruciating art form I have ever engaged in. I have been sharing parts of me I wish didn’t exist, but it is my personal road to salvation; I am finally expressing the way I view the world without hesitation, with the tools I have been given, and been practicing to use, pretty much my whole life. And for what? A handful of morons, just like me, on social media to clap their hands in agreeance, telling me how brave I am, validating my fears?

All of that makes me who I am. All of these twists and turns make up the person writing these words. Maybe someone will someday relate, and maybe it might make them feel a little less lonely. Maybe not. Maybe, someday, the poor soul of a refugee child misplaced because of OUR negligence, will feel the warmth of belonging, to what they have become, through impossible times and odds. And again, maybe not. God knows I have, and still going through it. I don’t know when this switch got turned on. I am not even sure when I started feeling this lost to have to find my way back. Since that day till now I have felt twisted like a lifeline with thousands of knots beaten into the stream of my being, trying to figure out what to even consider myself, and which side of the fence to even swing onto, let alone stand on.

However, as jaded and dark as I might be, at the end of the day, and, in the end, love will save us all. I know that sounds really corny, and a handful of years ago, you would not catch me dead saying some shit like that, but believing in “a higher order”, true love, true affection, true empathy, and just simple truth, is what, will always conquer all; never forget that!!!