|
|
 |
|
55.1%ANMag Issue 17 Personal Maintenance
Anywhere but Here
By Lina Alotri, Contributing Writer
Sacramento, California − Am I destined to be somewhere, a certain place that I have been wanting to be in since as long as I can remember? I only get a little taste of it. But I am supposed to be there. That is where I should be. I have been dreaming about it a lot recently. Even with all its deforms, I still love it. Lebnan jenneh 3ala il arid. Hayk bi oulo (Lebanon is heaven on earth; that is what they say).
Anywhere is better than here. Fake and mechanical push-the-button robot kind of life that has no meaning, the kind of life where you go to a neighborhood, and you get lost because all of the houses look exactly the same, the kind of life where it feels like you are eating bland mush or plastic rubber, the kind of life where you cannot go outside for a little walk because it is not safe, the kind of life where there is not anything interesting or beneficial on television, the kind of life where you get singled out because of your ethnic group or religion, the kind of life where the constitution applies to only a selected few, the kind of life where animals are treated better than actual people, the kind of life where it is ok for men to exploit women, the kind of life where there is no where to go and nothing to do except work.
It is the kind of life that is meaningless and pointless. What kind of life is this? Am I living the Western dream?
The problem is everybody wants to be westernized instead of modernized. Nobody can stop the world from changing. I hope that there will still be a little special place on this earth for me to call home before it turns disfigured.
Wait... Hold on for one tiny split of a second: A place that I can call home? What am I thinking? Home is not here. Did I forget the eternal bliss of paradise? Isn’t life supposed to be just a small test? I always knew that there was something better than this. There is more to life than just this.