Why smart people are often depressed

Excerpts from the article shared by wineofwisdom in his comment on "Why stupid people are often happy":

"Both perspectives, pessimism and existentialism, wouldn't necessarily see depression as a malady existing in a person's head. A pessimist and existentialist might, in fact, agree that the world itself is screwed up, that social norms are themselves pathological, that feelings of despair, anxiety, loss, and pointlessness may be typical in people who are exceptionally intelligent and observant."

"Philosophers such as John Stuart Mill, William James, and Friedrich Nietzsche suffered the worst throes of depression. A host of other artists and writers suffered the same fate, including Edgar Allen Poe, William Blake, Mark Twain, Wolfgang Mozart, Charles Dickens, Vincent Van Gogh, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, and Sylvia Plath."

Why stupid people are often happy

Take this guy for example.

Lebanese chauvinism

The new ad by Audi Bank.

My share in the CBC report turmoil

A little bit of background first: When the Hariri investigation began, it seemed to me like some sort of an action detective movie that is worth following up if only for the adrenaline stuff, after I have devoured as a child almost every single book by Agatha Christie, that seemed very logical. I started highlighting paragraphs in the successive reports coming out of the investigation, and underlining a few lines here and there, and having long group chats and fantasies of possible scenarios and so on and so forth. Then 24 came in... the series... and it stole the thunder... the investigation got hotter but I suddenly found myself highlighting lines that seemed of greater concern to me. So if you ask me what I highlighted in the CBC reports you will get this:
To date, the UN inquiry has reportedly spent in the range of $200 million ...The tribunal currently has an annual budget in excess of $40 million...Hezbollah's website claimed the documents cited by the CBC were "purchased from UN sources."...In fact, the documents came from sources close to the investigation... "We paid for our hotel rooms, we paid for our air fare, we paid for our meals, but the information that was in those reports was given to us by sources who were offended at the handling of the investigation, or the mishandling of the investigation," said the CBC's Neil Macdonald, who broke the story..."It was given freely and out of a sense of outrage, and that's that," he said.
Apart from that: Some remote control device bearing Saudi-Syrian fingerprints will soon put an end to the movie and ask everyone to go to bed... that is if they find they still have one.

One more thing, the report might be fishy and very fictitious but I sense that there is something true about Wissam el Hassam having lied to the investigators, not necessarily because he is involved, it could be that he was planning to meet his mistress on Valentines days and indeed requested a day off and then spent the day on the phone planning the date.

Gemayzeh: A secret affair

I have some special connection to Gemayzeh, some sort of a love hate relationship. Let me be frank, I am not going to tell you that I hate Gemayzeh at night because it is too fake and too snobbish, although it is. I do like Gemayzeh on a Sunday morning and better on a Saturday when I can enjoy a Fasulia plate from "Le Chef". Gemayzeh in the day is my love in the open, in the legal if you wish. Saturday night is a different story. Gemayzeh can then be hated for its loud and clumsy Valet Parking people, for the traffic, for what it represents as a fake replica of a small French avenue, for you can be microwaved in one of its bars where the bar is most likely taller than you. For that and many other reasons, yes it can be hated. But it can also be an enjoyable experience. Apart from the wine effect (or whatever you choose), I enjoy watching the street on a Saturday night. For some reason, you feel the rush, everyone is rushing for one reason or another, they are always running late, walking fast, as if running from someone -of course Valet Parking people are running all the time, where do they park all those cars by the way? why can they find parking spaces and we cannot?- They are all rushing to get to a place where they can sit and wonder if maybe they shouldn't have gone somewhere else. In a country where everything is slow, it is amazing to see this place where everything moves fast, except the cars maybe, but who cares, just leave it with the Valet and run. Everyone is looking at everyone. Some looking for familiar faces others avoiding them. You remember that this place might not be the same anymore in few years, or maybe a few months if they keep buying the old houses at this rate. You remember and you hate it again. You want to be part of this mixture of lost souls in the darkness of Beirut and you want to tell yourself that you are not, that you do not belong and that you are there only to watch. But you keep coming back, you keep loving it, and you keep denying it. That's it. My love for Gemayzeh is something more like a secret affair.

The so called Independence Day

Since everyone is blogging about the so called Lebanon's "independence day", which turns out to be a celebration of the Lebanese army, although no matter how I turn it in my head I don't see the connection, at least not in Lebanon, and although to my recollection there is a special day for the Lebanese army. Anyway, if you care to know my own feeling during this "special" day here it is: nothing, nothing at all. I didn't even watch TV today to avoid stumbling upon some of the patriotic songs that our lame TVs and singers compete to air. And I didn't care to say anything about it but I saw that our so called independence has invaded the blogsphere and google I hear. So all I am going to say is this: One day, and it was midday, as I was walking the few meters from my car to my home, in a not very busy street, I pass across a Lebanese soldier in a corner, obviously bored to death. I would usually be thinking in such a situation if I maybe should greet him or at least nod, but would most probably just pass through quietly. But then he whistled and said something like "where to sugar?!".. the kind of sleazy comments girls always hear in the streets of Beirut but from the Lebanese army, that is not supposed to be very common -maybe from internal security forces, some would now fancy to comment-. Of course I did nothing. I even had a justification for him. But I did think that if anyone attacked me now, would I rush to him for help? that's the kind of insecurity we live in and that's the kind of things that come to my mind in the so called "Independence Day" to say the least. Bear with me if I don't get all the enthusiasm.

I feel better now...

I know someone who represents everything I hate, everything. So this is how this person might describe herself with pride: I hate Palestinians. They don't dress well. I hate the poor. They smell. I hate Muslims. They don't behave. I hate maids. They are stupid. I hate Arabs. They are retarded... On top, this person is unprincipled, obnoxious in every sense, stupid, lame... add to this a look that if my grandfather sees would describe as "constantly smelling shit". I am not the type who would care or give a damn about people like that, but I hate that I have to greet her with my fake smile because hardly words come out of my mouth to say anything lest I speak my mind.

Different outfit... same core

I know, the blog now gives you the feeling that the winter collection is out!

I like smart ads

Meet the stupid Obama

While taking questions from reporters at the G20 summit, Obama looks at an Asian reporter who raised his hand and says "I will now take questions from the Korean press". The reporter stands up and says "...I am Chinese".

P.S. I didn't watch it myself, but again a trusted source.
P.S. 2: BBC is running this particular segment. I just watched it.

Taxi wisdom... for real

My husband was in a Taxi in Beirut and as he was paying the driver, he finds out that he has no small money and asks the driver if he has any change. The driver tells him that he will pay him the change once the rest of the passengers pay. There were another Lebanese guy and a foreign maid in the car. Here, the Lebanese guy pays right away to help solve the problem while the maid says in broken Lebanese: I pay when I arrive because I am "sawda" (black). The driver here says: so what if you are black? it's not like I am going to steal your money or throw you in the middle of the road!! "Yes, you will," she says, "they all do that... they take the money and say get out... because I am sawda." The driver replies "but you are my relative... look at my color... do you see me blond with blue eyes?." She pays. He asks her: do they really do this to you?. "All the time," she says. He drives her right to her destination and says "may God be with you".

Taxi wisdom

A British guy who lived in France for a while had the following conversation in a Beirut "service" (Taxi):

Cab driver in English with a strong Lebanese accent: Why are you crying? (The guy just looked upset)
British guy (trying to speak slowly): Because I had a rough fight with my girlfriend.... she wants "la liberté".
Cab driver: Did you hit her?
British guy: non... non... jamais
Cab driver switching to French: Moi.. Je frappe ma femme chaque jour. Ici, la liberté, il n'ya pas... femme aller. Il y'a beaucoup. Allez... Toz.


True story from a trusted source sitting in the back seat.

On the edge

I sit there watching TV... or that's what you would assume. I am in fact just watching the reflection of my hand holding the remote control device for the past half an hour in the shadowy spots of the screen. I was watching the news but the news ended some time ago. What was it about? how different from yesterday? or last year? or the last century? war and peace. The formula that enslaves us but the words that we dare not name. I was thinking: everyone is afraid of war but peace frightens me to death. I know how to cope with war but I have no clue how to function in peace. You are maybe more at risk in wars but less alert in peace. The worst of all is living on the edge of either of the two. You don't dare to grab your weapon lest you are misunderstood or leave it behind lest you are shot in the back. You are that PC that someone had given a zillion instructions in no time each undoing the previous one and then redoing it until it lost track of what it is supposed to be doing. Confusion creates dysfunction. Between that and war, I definitely choose war. Just grab a hatchet and smash the PC and the TV to pieces and watch it fall apart, a reflection of your own soul.

Blackmail

Lebanese parents, mine included, desperately try to keep their children close. They try all sorts of manipulations. They know your weaknesses and they take advantage. You play the fool. You play the game. My mother's technique: She cooks my favourite food. It works.

Another small confession

Speaking of memory, having a selective memory is annoying but can be fun too. I can watch a movie and then forget all about it and then I can watch it one more time and enjoy it all over again. The fun part is that my husband who has a very strong memory watches me in amazement cry over the same scenes and wonder what will happen next and laugh my ass off at a joke that I heard not long ago. Okay, I am exaggerating a little bit here, or not.

My selective memory

I have a selective memory; no matter how I force myself to remember something I am sure I know, I know I will fail; I had never saved it in the first place. I don't remember the names of many of the people who work with me, who have been working with me for some time, I just don't care to remember their names. I can make an effort but why bother, if it mattered it would have stuck. Again, why would I? Unlike them, I live in the margin. I will never be part of their world and they will never enjoy the life on the margin.

On the margin

I have this constant feeling that I live on the margin. I do have a whole life but it's one on the margin. The margin space is huge and a whole population inhabits it. Sometimes, the feeling is so intense that I feel that I live on the margin of the margin or that I have become the margin itself, that space where you scribble missing notes, sketch down shapes of your boredom, or leave neatly blank. There, you only contemplate the solid paragraphs, the letters perfectly straightened from top and below, sometimes justified, other times aligned right or left, you know that you will never be a word in their bulky world, or even a comma, anyway you never fancy to be. You cross your arms and watch. Power is them, you know that, because they stick together and you roam astray. You dream of the day when you turn or be turned into an eraser. Then you will have all the space there for you alone, you can invade them and expand the margin, but you are convinced that all you can ever hope for is for them to allow you to keep that small space you enjoy. There on the margin, you can be a sticky note, a red mark, or a stain, but for sure one that stands out.

The Dead Fake Society

Some people in Lebanon find pride in pretending that they do not remember your name. They think that by doing that they project an image of themselves as important and busy people. The most annoying among them are those who tell you "remind me of your name?" "of yes, yes, we met yesterday!!!". And you would be sure that when you met only "yesterday", that person had asked you all kinds of personal questions about you let alone where your name comes from and had listed all the people they know with that name (because they know a lot of people of course). Yesterday, I witnessed a conversation where a guy told another "of course, I know you, you are XX, my friend always talks about you!" I find out later on that the guy is gay. I don't want to stereotype, but I specifically asked if he was gay because of this not so common behavior among straight men in Lebanon. (Not to say that this behavior cannot be found equally among Lebanese gays).
Now there is this other category of people with whom you might have had long conversations or had coffee with let's say not so long ago or had an unforgettable fight with, or seen a million times, and then one day they pass by, throw a glance at you, a glance of "I know you", then lower their eyes and go by without even a smile. I do understand that in some of these situations, one or each of the two people would be wondering if the other had recognized them, but in most cases, it is this recognition that they find hard to admit.
So this pretentious Lebanese knows a lot of people, you included, and behaves the same with all of them. When they find themselves in a crowd but unaccompanied, you find them restlessly looking for familiar faces, and then they spot you and they run towards you, with "don't you remember me? we met yesterday". Of course you remember them but then you would say "remind me of your name!!!"

Slow motion

I was stuck in the traffic and I was stricken by how everyone around me was stupid: the policeman, the muscled guy in the black shirt, the street boy begging to wash his car, the curly headed lady leaning over the steering wheel unaware of how the horn of her Peugeot is making me want to put an end to her life. I am not going to accept that they are all victims of a bigger problem beyond them called traffic jam in Lebanon. No, that is one thing and their stupidity is something else. But nothing made me want to jump out of my car more than that stupid very old man with that stupid smile on his wrinkled face driving as slow as if he is walking on a high rope above the Amazon river, because he thinks that the slower he goes, the slower time becomes and the farther away his death.

I was waiting for the elevator, cross legged, my elbow on the elevator's edge, when I realized that I have been waiting for more than five minutes. I remember I had a rush of thoughts invading my head, some meaningful ones and some nonsense. I can't remember any of these thoughts now, all I remember is the image of me waiting by the elevator, cross legged, my elbow on the elevator's edge. I did not see myself stand there, yet in my memory I have that copy image of myself standing there and that useless memory is now carved in my head. As useless as it sounds, as stored it is in my memory to the extent that I have to write it down here so that I get it out of my system. And yet now it has become even more memorable after it has been written.

Before the age of speed, and when everything around was slow, the "meantime" had a certain meaning. Roads were not mere connecting lines but were part of the destination plan. People used to take food for the road, stop for a bonfire, or just contemplate sceneries. In the slow motion age, same as in the speed age, people invent coping systems. Here we are stuck in between the two ages, we are like that stupid old wrinkled man in the car unable to reach to nowhere and slowing everyone behind us.

Critique and self critique

I love when people say things about me (good or bad) that I don't already know about myself. It's rare but when it happens, I am impressed. One of them is that "I have the talent to change the subject without giving my interlocutor the time to react". How annoying!!! and yes, I do this sometimes.

Animal Pain

I am not so much of an activist for animal rights. Not that I don't care but that can't be among the top things I care for when so many human beings enjoy less rights than many animals. But it breaks my heart to see a dog with three legs, or an old donkey with an injured back, even a bug with crushed wings struggling to fly, or any animal in pain, more than to see a human being in pain. Maybe because I know what physical pain is for humans but I wonder what it is like for animals. Humans can make a certain philosophy out of pain, but what do animals do? what's their defense mechanism. Who do they blame? How do they unleash their anger?

The Fall

It's about to rain now. If my grandfather was here now he would probably tell me how the next olive season would be like. I say, when it rains, it feels right. Good things usually happen to me during the fall, not so much during the summer for instance. But that's not the reason why I like fall; on the contrary, it is because I like it that good things happen. Not so clear. I see. But I will find better ways to explain it to myself.

My Mother Fairuz

Today I go see Fairuz and "see" not only refers to sight here but it involves the five senses combined in the verb "to feel". Fairuz for me is something I breathe. This is not poetry, but I can't imagine myself born in an age where Fairuz is yet to be born or has gone long ago. This icon has done to my being, affected what I am now, and carved my mind and emotional intelligence more than any other ideology, religion, science, or philosophy has. If you can define music then I can define the feeling Fairuz inflicts on me. This feeling is a weird mixture of the fragrances of my childhood, the pain of adolescence, and the sweet and sour tastes of my days. There were days when I thought that Fairuz could be my mother. I like this theory about mothers, that motherhood could be seen on women's faces and that there are women you meet that you feel could have been your mother, Fairuz is one of them. This is another feeling that I find hard to explain. It is not in their attitude but rather in their facial expressions, in their eyes, in the age of their skin and in the pain below it. Fairuz is all of this.

Subjectively

I think that the word "habibi" is the most beautiful word in the Arabic language both phonetically and semantically. You only have to hear either fairuz or myself say it to know what I mean.

Ego confession

I can be objective but never neutral,

I am balanced in the realm of my mood swings ,

I can end a sentence that started with 'I love you' with 'I hate you',

I have convictions as static as a river,

I can change my mind every minute (now every 20 minutes),

Decisions, I take them based on the weather and the chemistry between my pillow and my neck.

I believe I would make a very good dictator.

Touched

Wine of wisdom wrote on his blog:

"I'm afraid that at some point I'll hang on to words and mistake them for life itself. The less i live the more I write - a formulae of exhaustion. I mustn't live in words; words must dwell within me."

I can't say why but these words go straight to the heart. The full post might give an answer.

Confession

I might not be modest but I am humble. I am not arrogant but vanity spills all over me.

P.S. After writing the above confession, I discovered that Jean Paul Sartre has a saying: I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm. This reminds me: if you discover something that was already discovered but which you had no idea existed or how it came to be, or if you say something already said which you have never heard of, and although you will not be credited for it and although you will still be bound by copyright laws, that does not mean that you cannot credit yourself with such a discovery. You reinvented the wheel, maybe, you were not the first, certainly, but it is still your invention.

The 20 Minute Plan

A friend gave me an advice that I think is worth sharing here. I would like to call it the "20 minute plan". He advises to plan your schedule in 20 minute partitions and every 20 minutes plan what you will be doing in the next 20 minutes in order to manage your multi tasks. I tried that although at first it took me twenty four 20 minutes doing one thing and then only half a 20 minutes eating (I spent the rest of it thinking where words go after we say them) but it did work after that. I watched 20 minutes of a usually 2 hour political talk show and I worked out 20 minutes on my treadmill instead of 40 (I have to thank him for that) and then I skimmed through the newspaper for another 20 minutes and only managed to read up to 3 articles but I assume I maybe need not read more. Now blogging should not take more than that either and if I do stop in the middle of a sentence, I trust that you won't wonder.

One of the times when Hollywood makes fun of Arabs and I laugh

I wasn't watching this movie but I overheard this part:

- The most beautiful dog in the world. Isn't it?

- He's cute. what's his name?

- Anwar Sadat. After Anwar Sadat former president of Egypt.

- Right. Because you you're a fan of his policies or...

- No because they look exactly alike.

Here the camera gets a close up of the Dog's face and you have no idea... you have to watch.

P.S. From "I love you man", movie not recommended otherwise, but you can Fwd to 39'14'' or watch the scene here.

Meet Funny Ralph

Ralph made a funny comment the other day about one of my posts: The smartest among the religious people, he said, are those who convert. "Islam is bullshit, they would say, they want us to believe that God talked to Mohamad in those revelations, that can't be true!." But it is very believable that a woman got pregnant from the holy spirit and gave birth to the son of God who also happens to be God himself and who rose from the dead to bring salvation to humanity. That, I can buy. End of quote.