Facebook - Imported Technology

there is no doubt how much facebook has facilitated interactions between peoples everywhere. facebook is testimony to how much media and telecom technology has advanced. i can vividly remember working in the 1980s and early 1990s when we did not have the luxury of using emails. at some points in my life, i actually shared my bed with a fax machine!

technological advances emanate out of a certain culture. they are built on a certain set of "givens" and assumptions, some explicit, like scientific and technical rules, and some implicit, like culture and tradition. these givens and assumptions not only impact how a particular technology evolves in a certain cultural setting or society but also how that technology is used.

once that technology is imported by other societies and cultures, the explicit "givens" or assumptions are evident. the technology comes with a rule book that tends to be technical in nature explaining how that technology is to be used.

however, there is no cultural rule book on how to use imported technology. people in the west, especially in america, share a common cultural frame of reference and the cultural assumptions on how to use facebook are implicit; they are values, traditions and modes of behavior they grew up with and that are inculcated into them from birth by the various formal and informal institutions and groupings that embrace them from birth: schools, churches, playgrounds, workplaces, etc.

when a technology like facebook is imported into other societies and cultures, like the arab world, some users in those places do not have a grounding in the informal cultural "givens" or assumptions that accompany the development and use of such technology in western societies. the results are both positive and negative. local tradition is challenged and at times broken. but new ways of interaction evolve. it is another aspect of our world, the arab world, being dragged into the global village, with all the pleasures and disappoints that have typically accompanied such rapid cultural change throughout history, everywhere.

however, one cultural variable remains valid in both west and east; a sense of decency and decorum. facebook has opened mass communication to everyone everywhere and everyone can say whatever they want to whomever they want, and that is a wonderful human achievement. but we should not forget our manners when we use it!

The Pursuit of Ideas

Some ideas and concepts that I learned more than 30 years ago are still with me. I continue to mull them over, digest them, prune them, refine them and use them as additional lenses to view the world and understand it; someone else's perception of reality to augment mine. Maslow's concept of self actualization and John Naisbitt's high tech/high touch formula come to mind.

Khamees Ayesh, an Arabic literature teacher at high school in Jordan, taught his students that one's freedom ends where the freedom of another begins. That one also stayed with me. I try to apply it when managing my relationships to spaces of all kind.

Ideas are first in our heads, then in our mouths and finally in our hands. The longer the gestation period in each location the better.

We formulate ideas as we attempt to understand and relate to our realities. A kind of a clash of titans occurs as our ideas germinate in our minds and move to the spoken word. But the real challenge is when we put our hands to paper, canvas or keyboard to put them in final form. It is then that the contradictions of the predicaments of our existence challenge each other with ferocity. The results most often disappoint and at times enlighten.

Ideas outlive us. Good ideas and bad ones have a longevity that arches over generations and millennia. We still read Aristotle and Plato, Saint Augustine, the Torah, Bible and Quran. Buddhism and Shintoism continue to inspire the lives of many. Discrimination, prejudice and racial or religious purity, ideas that are as old as we have been around, continue to inspire doctrines that wreak havoc in our world.

Our struggle to answer two questions, who are we and how long have we been here, continues and, in process, we domesticate our ideas and each other instead of letting each soar to their natural heights; the truth is not a place or a conclusion but a path and a journey.

Sacrifice

Life is sacrifice. As we move along the pathways of our existence, we tend to give up something for another. Whether we are aware of this or not is another story.

The practice of sacrifice is found in the oldest human records and is common to most religions and cultures. The concept has been with us for millennia. Our ancestors used to offer animals, plants, material possessions or human life to a deity in return for some gain or benefit. As such, the act involved the surrender or destruction of something precious for the sake of attaining or retaining another that enjoyed a higher value. Somewhat surprisingly, or perhaps not, the Latin origin of the verb sacrifice means to make something sacred.

Joseph Campbell’s rendition of marriage in terms of sacrifice is fascinating. True marriage, in Campbell's opinion, embodies a spiritual identity that invokes the image of an incarnate god. He states that the main objective of marriage is not the birth of children or the raising of families. Campbell invokes the image of marriage as being an ordeal in which the ego is sacrificed to a relationship in which two become one. This, he states, is a mythological image that embodies the sacrifice of the visible for a transcendent good.

Of course, becoming one does not negate the identities and personas of the two individuals involved –a common misunderstanding. The act of a true union of spirits creates something that is larger than the sum of the individuals involved; becoming one while remaining true to one’s self is what transcendence is all about.

Campbell does not depart much from Iris Murdoch. In a lecture entitled The Sovereignty of Good, Murdoch alludes to the fact that god can and should be found in the ability of one human being to fully and unapologetically accept another.

It is difficult to imagine life without sacrifice. We give up from and of ourselves to support, elevate and nurture the existence, maturation and prosperity of some other. In doing so, we lose and give up not only privileges but cherished items like our time on this earth; our energy and effort –another limited resource; or our reserves of patience, tolerance and love.

And perhaps we will not miss those immediately. But once we reach a fork in the road and we have to take a new turn in new company, our loss becomes theirs; they bear part of our cross and we part of theirs. Sometimes, what does not kill you does not make you stronger; it makes you a different person, with less and more to offer.

On Forgiveness

there is a set of human values that have been with us for thousands of years. sometimes we receive them in a religious context. or they are passed on to us as part of a school of thought or a certain philosophy. these human values predate us and our religions and philosphies. and they have intrinsic value in and of themselves; there is immense benefit to practising them and applying them. if someone needs a religious or a philosophical reason to do so, so be it. but others may not. we should practice these values not because god will give us hasanat or that we will gain something in this life or the one after but becuase practising them and applying them makes us better people; it helps the good (not as a person but as a state of being) to become soveriegn. and that is a big part of what life is about: our struggle to elevate our humanity and fight for it every day, as individuals and groups. one of these human values is forgiveness.

Stock Market Consolidation

My comments in today's Financial Times on the possible merger of the Dubai and Abu Dhabi stock markets and consequences for exchanges in Europe and the United States at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/53cd2458-3bd7-11df-9412-00144feabdc0.html

ألوان الطيف المتمرد / أو تمرد ألوان الطيف

ذوبان الثلج في تلك السنة كان أسرع من المتوقع, واحتار إختصاصيو فك طلاسم الأثيرفي كيفية تفسير ذلك, فتلاشي أصوات الرعد لا يمكن ان يؤخذ إلا بمنتهى الجديه, لا سيما وأن وميض البرق ظل يؤرق نوم الناس.

وهكذا كانت بداية تلك الايام, إنقلاب الذات صاحب تبدلات طبيعيه أوحت بأن الحال كما كانت سوف تتغير, وبشكل كبير.

أول إقتران بعث الهيبه في نفوس البعض هو ظهور ورود الشقيق في حقول القمح. فتلك الحمراء أردنية معروفة, إلا أن كثافة نقاطها السوداء في بحر موجي أصفر أوحى بطغيان من نوع ما. وعندما بدأت غيوم صغيرة بيضاء تتربع زوايا سماء صيف زرقاء, وفي منتصف النهار, ولدت تباشير في مستشفى حكومي في عمان, وهي تتبسم, وسجلت دائرة الارصاد الجويه ارتفاعا طفيفا على درجات الحرارة في ذلك

اليوم استمر لسنة ونيف

إلا أن نقطة التحول الفعلية كانت داخلية , في قلب الانسان , عندما رفع يديه الى السماء طالبا السماح والغفران لأخيه لا لنفسه , وتداخلت الوان اللوحة بشكل لم يعرف من قبل . كانت لغة جديدة تلك التي بدأت في الظهور , تتطلب تعاون أكثر من حاسة لفهمها . وبدأت الكلمات بالتلاشي خجلا من قصرها . وطالت تلك الهجرة اشكالا اخرى , حيث بدأت بعض الوحوش بالمغادرة , وسكن البعض الاخر . وقيل أن الحالة استثنائية وان الوان الطيف لا بد وأن تصتطف كما كانت , وان قوانين الطبيعة لا تتغير .

لكن ذلك لم يكن وطالت المؤامرة اكثر من بعد . تنحية عقارب الساعة من مناصبها قوبل بتفيق حاد , اشبه بالبهجة . فاحتجاج نبضات القلب المزمن كان بالكاد مسموعا . وأما اعادة ترسيم حدود الذات فقد اضحى هرولة روحية على طريق دون نهاية . فذوبان الثلج المتسارع لا يأتي من فراغ .

your poem II

there are no more words left

except to speak with you

no more time left

except to be with you

the world shrunk

and all i can see

are you and i

standing tall

on a small patch of land

holding hands

the sun is burning bright

on the horizon

and i cannot say

if it is sunset or sunrise

it doesn't matter so much

anymore

because the only space left

is next to you