علاقة مع شيء | A Relationship with a Thing

    They said to love is to be loved back, to be cared about and to be understood with just no words, for it made me question my “unusual case” love for long years, made them say that I am crazy, made it unbelievable, however I always thought that though how strange it is, there is still something about it that is a little bit…mmm…let’s say different and special.

It all started with my childhood, at the age of 3 was the first time my eyes fell on her, she wasn’t as beautiful, fancy, valuable or contemporary as much as her other peers, but something about her just blew my heart away, dragged me into a world of drawing, reading, fantasizing about her and her alike; W3W; a FIAT 131, Model 1975, salon, red brick Star; maybe she’s not anybody else’s star, but she’s mine, she stole my heart since the first sight, her love represents my age, for her I learned to drive, I saw her running through, and I saw her with much less life. I always believed that she’s alive, she’s feeling me, and she’s sharing my care to her, yet with no single word…

Through our years of using W3W; she has never complained, never said “I won’t go there or I won’t do that”, even during my teenage when I was sneakily grabbing her keys from my father’s bedroom, to have a nice grown-ups’ moments with my friends, she was there for me, helping me and still without a sound,

The day my father decided to abandon her and to get a new, healthy chick; after long years of her loyalty and undoubted services, is the same day our connection grew, and our love deepened, and it’s the day I knew that she’s hearing me and listening to my needs; she started doing actions like flattening her wheels in time of our need for her, stop her battery’s beats when we leave her just to hang out with the new chick, yet deep in my heart I never replaced her, never saw someone in her place, for she’s not a normal chassis, she’s my chassis, my W3W.

“On SALE” the time has come, to leave my dazzling charm, and get some bucks or grants to choose among the shinning lads. I refused and fought the plan, because it’s not the way I planned, I wanted her to stay, and bring another just to play, I didn’t want to separate my darling from my bait, “he’s crazy” I know you say, for a “car” he sings and prays, for “it” he’ll cry and grieve, and he’s thinking night and day; W3W is not a car, it’s a love that has been since so far,  a life I would never tell, a story I would never share, and she’s my darling and my star.

One day, parked she was, a buyer came with an interest, to own my little girl, in my head I had a second thought, but too beaten from everyone I was, I almost agreed to let go, almost allowed the deal…

 And though, she stayed in the rehab for the whole past year, and she was actually going pretty fine, and things were getting to normal, but the day he came, some strange story happened…

In the morning I used her to get to my work, and later that I parked her to wait for its new owner, I didn’t feel that she was alright, she was sad and not reacting with me, I tried to know what’s wrong, yet physically everything was fine…He asked to see her chassis, I politely asked her and she didn’t mind; we checked everything, all the liquids, the battery and the electricity were ready and good to go, yet I was feeling something bad about her, she doesn’t seem to be alright, and here it’s the time to ignite my love, the moment that always gives me pleasure, the moment we connect; me and her become one…so scared, I felt she was, not happy of the cause, igniting was not answered from her side, she simply didn’t respond, I patted her and tried again…no answer, my heart was almost dancing inside, finally she has replied, finally she showed that she cared, I acted as if I am giving it another try, I just hoped that she will not believe that I am abandoning her; so, I tried  to push a bit to the front or to the back, yet there was no response, as a stone in her place she stood, the happiness was so close to appear on my face, with the words uttered out of my mouth “well, as you see it’s not working, I think it can’t be sold in this condition”, the second, they started to walk away, the further they have gone, I looked at her and winked to her and said let’s give it a try…I jumped in, connecting with my key to her heart, at first she thought that this is another trick and a new trial of mine, yet I gave her a little pat, her engine roared of happiness; I tried to move forward where the buyer made his way, she refused, so made a little reverse and took the other way, and since that day I knew, that it’s not a one side caring any more, it’s mutual love…I won’t care what they say or do, if they try, they can try, but me and my love are inseparable…and on my way with her I will always make it through…

 THE END

بطَل فتيِ | Stop bullshitting

There was a story that my father used to tell me since I was young; to cut a long story short, he was searching for a job in Iraq in the 80’s first half of the last century. After around a month of an on feet searching, day after day, door after door job search-by the way my father is a Mechanical Engineer- he by coincidence finds a factory in a street he passed by almost every day without noticing it. Knocked the gates asking for a vacancy and luckily finds one.

He passed through an interview of many questions and that One Question that stood out “do you know electrical engineering??” my dad answered “No, I’m a mechanical engineer, yet I very slightly know electrical” and highlighted that SLIGHTLY. The reaction of the Iraqis was they laughed their asses out provokingly to my dad that he assertively asked what is that so funny thing he said was.

In a polite way they tried to calm him down replying that “don’t be angry we don’t mean to provoke you, but this is the first time ever that any Egyptian answers us a question with an  I DON’T KNOW TO DO THAT THING IT’S NOT MY EXPERTISE :)”
This is football, we've been watching that game decades back, and some of us played it for some time so we know some football. But how old are we in the experience of investigation, management, anatomy, economics, diplomatic or politics or military efforts? Multiplying that crisis by the number of circles out there we end up in a population broken down into few small dictatorships. And that’s one reason of why we are now so deviated from what we really want, breaking incidents can shift the whole focus from a major objective to smaller ones. Because as this or that deviation source takes place we get into the pot of “I KNOW IT”. And we end up in battle of opinions rather than sharing constructive ones and do our work, the thing that really works to the favor of building a mature modern community.

In football, whenever we watch a football game we tend to criticize the coach for a substitution, starting line-up or playing strategy. Even the players, whenever the player is in a one-on-one situation with the goalie of the opponent team and he for some reason misses, most of us say he should have placed it on floor or in the cross bars. –Motivated you are J-

I’ll start by myself admitting, I sometimes be that Mr. Fahlawi who knows more. I may give an objection over something that is off my field of knowledge or expertise with a motive of logic or driven by the know-how of the mechanism of whatever I already know or passed through that was a bit similar or so; or I may say a kind of experience benchmark .

It’s no shame to work your mind in issues taking place before your eyes, read slightly about it, and ask more about it. Try to find out a point of view and form your own opinions that in the end collate to form your entity and value of existence. But in my opinion that I believe it bears being wrong equally to its probability to be correct. It’s important to keep in mind that – especially in off field matters – it’s important to keep the opinion as some point of view that can be either right or wrong totally or partially, in other words "not an absolute". And how can our off field opinion be The One and Only while we usually say when discussing matters of our knowledge as “I guess, assume, believe, expect..etc.”???

If we treat topics we already know about with this level of modesty, so we better be even more humble when we get to speak about things we don’t know much about. And hereby lies the crisis; A person first has to admit a low level of knowledge and the average level of experience. That admittance should surely open up our minds to know more, expose to more and form an opinion of better quality while giving room for more civilized & fruitful conversations.

وَفَوْقَ كُلّ ذِي عِلْمٍ عَلِيمٌ

A big problem that’s taking place amongst all of us is that we are still rookies in politics and how countries are built and managed yet we keep speaking on what is right,what is wrong, what has to be done, what can and can’t be done –off course patriotism- as if we all really are into politics for ages now; And lots of us keep repeating what’s said from the So Called elites “Nokhba” disregarding what it really means or what it really is. And in case of opposition to the point of view we adopt encounters, some reject the fact that this opposing opinion is probably also a result of research and analysis exactly as the one we possess and present.

In a nutshell, we shouldn't question anyone’s’ motive when we are not on a same page about a specific issue, and it is much better to investigate the CVs of the people we might follow (and not passively follow under any conditions) and better build our own CV rather than

That’s ONLY one thing of those lots I learned from my father :)

NB. This article was written back in 2011 by my brother.