A dream on a heavy rain afternoon

I had a very weird dream when i woke up. I thought it was 6 am of the next day, while it was only a 1hour sleep on an afternoon where the thunder and rain didn't stop pouring on the empty street of that cold city.

In the dream, I was working at my desk at M********d and Kris, my current manager, came to my desk and told me, in a dark sparkle of illumination: "I want you to think of a new name for our product, a brand for sports clothing"

I was shocked at first  and surprised, as it is not in line with my normal job, and then said "Kris, this is crazy". He then told me with his usual nonchalance "just do it! I know what I am saying".

I told him, with my usual stubbornness "I will do it, but just take my advice : sports clothing has nothing to do with the core business of M********d, it will never work, believe me".

Anyways, I started working on the task at hand until late at night and then my manager came by again and told me that he will drop me home.
I followed him to the parking of the company, but it turned out that, instead of dropping me near my place, he dropped me in the middle of nowhere, near an unknown bus stop.

There, some kids were walking and a girl asked me "what are you doing here? My friend will go to France, so I want to know" (????). In front of my deep surprise by the incoherence of her question, I decided to explain, in plain words that I was dropped here, for, again, incoherent and unknown reasons.

After that strange small exchange, the kids left and I saw a small house with a light open. In front of the house, I then noticed that it looked more like an independent office than a normal traditional house. A sort of house that has been turned into an office, at least partially. I then knocked on the door, hoping that I could ask someone about the bus, where it goes, for how long I should wait, and all this information that might be important to me if I wanted to end up at home at the end of this long, tiring and bizarre day!

The door opened and I found myself in front of a man sitting at his desk. A man I've never seen before, but a sort of blond German but with a fake tan in his 30s. Very sporty I supposed. I was surprised - like if it was the only surprising event of my journey in this dream. I saw near his desk, on the ground, a printer that had just finished printing some business cards.

The stranger finally looked at me and said "N*****e, come on in, I was expecting you".

Of course my surprise grew bigger. I've never seen that man.

He then took the business cards, handed them to me and told me "you are now working for me! These are your business cards". Still shocked, I took them, looked at them and there was on the top the brand name I was working on when I was at work. My name was in the centre of the business card, and under it, it said "Assistant Manager".

He then smiled and told me "don't get cocky, you are only the second on command, a second me, not ME, so come back here early at 8 am tomorrow".

I held the business cards closer to my chest, and before leaving, he told me "by the way, have a car or you are fired".

I smiled and left.

And then I woke up.

I died on January 10th 2011

I remember I wrote that sentence on a piece of paper on the day of my birthday: "I died on January 10th 2011".

I might die again soon, or... I might finally live again. I have been in a state between life and death all this time. Maybe I am like a cat, with 7 lives. And I actually feel pain for cats if they feel the same pain I do when they die, when they say goodbye to life.

Everything starts to loose its meaning all of a sudden, everything becomes fade, almost erased. and then... a sad blues song starts playing in the background of your life, with a bitter taste, almost like a strong cheap Tequila and lemon in a dark lost motel at the end of the world. And words repeat in your ear, things you said, things you heard... The story just keeps repeating itself again and again, even if I've never pushed the shuffle button.

I wonder if we always remember why we used to love someone or not... Does time erase it all and only keeps burning memories? Or is it simple brain chemistry that rather chooses for us to feel stupid than sad and regretful? They always say that time heals everything. I am still waiting, so Time, please decide already, because I am tired of waiting for you and for your blessing. Decide my fate already because I am loosing all faith... I gave up even the idea that we build our own destiny... whatever, just decide for me, because I am exhausted.

If I die again soon, then that would be the end. Unless, like in movies, when all hope is gone, when all colours turn to black and white... then a hero comes, saves the day. I have no faith in heroes, I am only used to anti-heroes, as sad and miserable as I am. So, Time, Faite, Sad Hero, I am waiting for you.

I am ....

I don't know who I am.
I've been asked to define myself, to tell what are my core values... I didn't know. The person in front of me had it all figured out, they simply shared 5 core values around which everything revolves. I was amazed and amused. Amazed by how people know themselves so good and amused in front of my lack of words, of my incapacity of saying anything... I couldn't talk, but my heart was racing. My heart felt it all but there was no word to define who I am. It's easy to say that my core value was freedom, it's exactly like trust, it's such a lose word, a sort of bucket in which you can put everything. Am I that shallow? Maybe, but my heart was racing, I was feeling everything.

I've been told once that I am someone who, when I feel something, I feel it fully. I live happiness fully, and sadness as well. Maybe I felt who I was, but even now I am incapable of sharing it. Others say that I am an open book, we can see everything on my face, through my eyes. Was it supposed to be positive or negative, I don't know, and to a certain point, I don't care... Because of one simple question : do I really want others to define me? And yet, I am referring to what they say, to what they think, to what they perceive.

I think it's not that important to me to define myself after all. I am a sort of human ball of emotions, always changing but most importantly, always in a very real and strong relation with what I represent... yes, without being able to point it out or what it is in words.

It is easy to define ourselves by our origin, ethnicity, place of birth, age, profession... name... this is what society is doing to each and every one of us. This is their definition.

My definition would be, I am me, another human being in this vast and yet small planet. I am just another grain of sand in that vast deserted universe... a grain of sand that is incapable of defining herself... And is that so wrong after all?

Surpiiiiiiiiiiiise !

I had a really nice surprise at work yesterday...

It was sweet and elegant

God on Trial

I've watched that movie a couple of times already. I simply love it.
There are so many things to say about that movie, but it is a brilliant one; they actually didn't need a multi-million dollar budget to make it fascinating, it simply used what every one of us might think in his or her darkest moments.

Human feelings are complex, sometimes indescribable... but, when we take away our identity, our pride, our origin... when we take away what makes us human, when we are at the highest peak of disappear, then an amazing energy comes to us, an energy that brings us back to who we are, to what defines us as humans.

I do not want to talk about people's suffering, be it any minority that has been through group slaughter, slavery or even eradication. This is not about one specific ethnicity, faith or origin. This is about each and every one of us.

What I really loved about that movie is how we actually rebel against what is not just, what is not fair. It is human to blame others... maybe even to blame God. The dynamics of the conversations are not only moving, but it makes you wonder, think... look at their perception of the world, on these very personal, almost intimate relations that we have with God or the Universe.

When we loose everything, when even dignity is lost, we do rebel on who we can (God in that case I suppose), we do question everything. We define a self-centric justice, but ... what amazed me the most is, at the end, either you judged God guilty of charge or not, you come back to that only certainty that you have left, and you see both sides putting their hand on their heads, in a last moment of despair... and pray.

"- And now what? God is guilty, then now what?
- Now, let's pray"

I cannot quit speaking about this movie, about the deep feelings of experimenting suffering as shown... If I have to summarise it all, i would say ...

Beautiful.

Let's celebrate our differences!

Today I was interviewed by a couple of students around diversity… How do I manage the cultural difference both at work and in my private life. The discussion was actually quiet interesting, it always is. Discovering how others see you in such an environment is definitely enriching, but I was amazed though on how people tend to generalize everything.

I should say that I was a real case study for them! Young professional, woman, foreigner (and not any foreigner, I came from an Arabic north African Muslim country), so basically, I offered the whole package! That was all funny to me, I laughed when they expected me shocked, but hey, laughing is the best medicine.

As expected, we spoke about stereotypes, about Saudi Arabia, about being a young professional with all my cultural background in this country and in this environment… And what I’ve noticed is that people think that every young Arab woman will behave the same! Honestly, in that global environment we are living in, the differences start to be so thin, barely noticeable, and the whole diversity that you can see is no longer based on age, gender, ethnicity or even belief. We are diverse and different because our personalities are simply different, because our view of the world is different, certainly not because we were born in a place instead of the other. And I feel that this will be the tendency. If I can say that, at least by the way I perceive things, while I only had a PC at the age of 12 and Internet at the age of 15, what can we say about the other generations after us that actually start their lives with an iPhone at hand?

I have no lessons to teach, not even a thought of the day, I just want to share a view: let’s celebrate our differences, because each one of us is different, and we are all the same.

Trust?! what a weird creature

Last month, I was, for the first time, taking part of the European Management Meeting in the company I work for. It was an interesting event, what stroke me most was an exercise we had to do in the morning where we have been asked to draw some of the company’s values. Trust was one of them. Trust! That value that is generally treated as a big bucket where you can actually throw anything you don’t know.

It is an amazing concept that I still can’t define or put any sort of action plan on. How can we be build trust? What does it even mean to trust someone? What does it mean loosing trust, having trust, sharing a relationship built on trust? To me it says it all, and it doesn’t at the same time. Anyways, we had to “draw” trust. So after a very short conversation on the confusion around this trust and some comments like “we cannot speak about trust at work”, etc., some people gave an example saying that when you throw a baby in the air, he/she still smiles at you because he/she trusts that you will catch him/her back. Can a baby really trust? I am not sure, but we had all these senior managers that have years of experience in life, what do I know if babies really trust that person specifically or are they just enjoying the moment, flying with no wings?!

We had others who gave an example of shaking hands, like a customer and a supplier (really?!), and other examples confusing trust and integrity (and as hard to believe as it might seem, bankers were on the loop)… After these few attempts of “creativity” around how to actually draw trust, we finally decided to ask the worldwide expert in everything (yes, it actually does exist), so, thanks to Steve Jobs - and our salary, we had an iPad and we went to www.google.com/images, and looked for “trust”.

It doesn’t really matter what we had actually drew, although it was a competition that apparently has decided the team with the most creative mind (based on what criteria? That has been set for things that are beyond my miserable knowledge as well).

The competition itself was actually an opportunity to take the time and speak about what we felt around that theme, trust. And what I came out with, from the whole exercise, is that trust, either in our private life or at our work, is a very difficult concept, we generally tend to put everything under its banner and we generally have no solutions for it. Yes, maybe a lame conclusion and probably too pessimistic in the sens that criticizing things without trying to bring any answers is just a loss of time… But I do understand that, like a tree, trust is there, growing in its corner, as long as it has not been broken. Once it is, and it is an eventual turn of events anyways, then it will take the necessary time to grow back, effort to understand, and energy to get things where they had started.

Maybe a last advice, while you have a genuine trusted relationship, try not to loose it, otherwise, you will end up in that big confusion bucket, just like the European Union… a big corpus, throwing one thing at a time!

Just a passing thought...

I was thinking the other day about the previous blog I had (in French)… And I realised that, although I haven’t been writing for a couple of years, I am not capable of brining any inspired thought, or positive for that matter. When I read my posts again, all I see is saddness.

I am quiet skeptical, realistic with a tendancy of pessimism, but maybe this is exactly my drive. Thinking about it, human beings, seek comformity even in anti-comformism. At the end of the journey, all we want is to avoid being alone, dying alone, miserable. It is not something we can avoid, we are born alone and we will die alone, but we all want to have that comforting thought that we will have people around, people that love us and comfort us. This might be the ultimate fear, not being remembered, or even worse, not having anyone feeling the difference between our living state and when our existence just stops there.

We have just reached 7 billion people in this planet; not all of them will remember us or will notice any difference. This is just normal. The saddest part would be that none at all would notice. We all read about these old people, especially in Europe, who die in their lonely appartments without anyone knowing, until the morbid smell of a rotting flesh reaches other habitants. No one should have this kind of goodbye. Is life really worth living? Great question really, but it certainly is when we live our lives fully, with no regrets.

Do I have regrets? Maybe, maybe not… But I know that if I had to go through many things I lived again, I would certainly change it all.