This is my happy place. Skin flecked in sunlight, toes nurtured in soil. I've felt this kind of self-expression recently, where I've just started to draw with my finger on my phone screen. I open the simplest function of iPhone photo edit, where it lets you mark something with a 'pencil'. And I just draw what comes out. Without putting too much thought into it. And the program allows no corrections. If you want to delete, the whole line will be gone. That leaves us with the original line that we drew, no corrections. You either accept what you have, or start over with a new line completely. I remember what my art teacher told us years ago, when I was just a kid. She said, that every artist puts their own self into what they create. And one way or the other, you are resembled in that creation. So when I think of it, I know that what I draw is actually myself. It's either a wish or hope, something I see in myself or wish to have. Something I believe or see. The second one is my favorite. To me, it resembles that there is always peace in us somewhere. Beneath everything that society puts on us, we are just people. Beneath everything, our soul is pure. Beneath everything, we are free. And we have the energy of the whole universe inside of us, if we are just able take time to find it within.
"Real adventure is defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive. And certanly not as the same person."
Yvon Chouinard
I've felt remorselessly bored at times. I've also felt extremely alive. But when I go outside and feel the wind blowing through my hair, through my fingertips, each time I feel I can fly one more time.
Dreams and hopes have drifted to another direction, and I feel I am excalty where I am supposed to be right now. And sometimes I think of how freaking much I love this city. How much I adore being in this beautiful, incredible country. It has been 2 years. But it just feels like a beginning.
Time is relative, as everything else in this life. I've bounded my soul to the roots of this ground, but I know the time for leaving is not far, not any more. There are things to do and things to see, things to feel on this planet. And we were not made to have one place of our own, but everything was made for us to use, us to enjoy. So when the road is calling we must go. The future is uncertain, but it was never certain to begin with. And it never will be. This is the beauty of life. We really do never know. So take today and make it count. Let the sweet smell of blossoms and pine trees in your senses. Let the wind in your hair. We are all messy minded, trying to make peace in this clutter, we aim for something unknown. Or is it really?
I love movies which make us think. Here are 3 eye-opening movies I love, exploring real-life issues around world culture, and social and ethical expectation around gender, discrimination, and inequality. These movies show us the real life of real people, their issues in societies, and in the people's hearts.
1. Kaakka Muttai (2014)
It's a brutally honest story about two kids and their one simple dream - to eat a pizza, opening up a world we might not be aware of. Two boys, growing up in a slum in India, who make their living stealing coal from the railway yard. They have one big dream - to eat Pizza from the newly opened Pizza shop, which they can not afford. It's a movie what definitely touches the heart to its bottom.
Imdb rating 8.5
2. Sonita (2015)
Sonita is a teenage Afghan girl, despite living as a refugee in Tehran, facing the threat of being sold into child marriage by her family, – is determined to pursue her dream of becoming a rap star. She protests over her parent's plans to sell her as a child bride by recording a music video, channeling her frustration about oppressive traditions, which brings her to global attention. Making a risky return to her homeland, she attempts to get the documents to an education in the United States.
''Sonita'' is a powerful documentary, giving us a glimpse (through an optimist case) the reality of Afghan women. I's a real story, where the film makers where actually the ones in her rescue.
Imdb rating 7.8
3. A Borrowed Identity (2015)
Also known as Dancing Arabs What makes us who we are, and what divides us, is examined in "A Borrowed Identity," a heart-tugging drama about Jewish and Palestinian Israelis. The story is about love, rebellion, tragedy, and cultures that can both collide and embrace.
Gifted Eyad, a Palestinian Israeli boy, is given the chance to go to a prestigious Jewish boarding school in Jerusalem. As he desperately tries to fit in with his Jewish schoolmates and within Israeli society, Eyad develops a friendship with another outsider, Jonathan a boy suffering from muscular dystrophy, and gradually becomes part of the home Jonathan shares with his mother. After falling in love with a Jewish girl, he leaves school when their relationship is uncovered, and he discovers that he will have to sacrifice his identity in order to be accepted. Imdb rating 7.2
We used to study together, live together, play together, dance together. But when your friend finishes this chapter of life, travels abroad. Falls in love with the views, beauty and landscape, they might not return. And nor might you. In today's world, changing the country you live is easier than ever. Distances seem shorter. Travel is not a problem. But what I miss lies in something else. The little things. The easiness of 'Hey, I have wine, come over' calls from a best friend. Time passes, life goes on. Today, write to a friend you haven't talked for a while.
