Author Archives: eliefares

A Lebanese Meditation House Is The World’s Best

I recently stumbled on a gallery that featured the winners of the World Architecture Festival, which took place in Singapore in early October, and which awarded the best architectural projects of the world that took place between January 2012 and June 2013. The projects didn’t need to be built in order to compete.

A Lebanese project, as I’ve found out, was chosen as the best house among future projects. Designed by MZ architects, the meditation house looks quite odd and definitely not anything we’re used to as Lebanese. It’s made as something that blends into its surrounding hills and mountains, doesn’t challenge the location it’s in and provides its owner a means for him to feel closer to God.

The house also has a room which is dug vertically into a nearby cliff. The house itself, it seems, satisfies the requirements of Islam without it being anything typically Muslim. The vertical room is akin to a minaret. Its location, overlooking its surroundings and the seaside, can be considered to be a dome and the direction towards Mecca is conserved.

You can check out more information about the meanings behind the house here.

Check out the following renderings of what the house will look like. I personally wouldn’t want my house to be like this and I’m definitely not an architect in order to appreciate the work that has gone into it. But at least this is a ranking that matters.

Confessions of a Control Freak

It’s my way or the highway. And it has always been that way. Sometimes, the highway part happened literally. I don’t know when it started. I didn’t even know about it until recently.

Hi. You probably know my name since most of you have been reading this blog for two years. But I’m Elie Fares. And I’m a control freak.

You know those friends who always choose a restaurant and wouldn’t go except to that restaurant? Well, I’m one of those people. Annoying, definitely. But you can’t escape them nonetheless and frankly, I have no clue why. My plans have to go through all the time. It’s not because I’m bossy and I like to lead groups, which I like to do. It’s because, in my head, my plans are always the ones that should be going because, well, I planned them.

The above, ladies and gentlemen, is part of the diagnostic criteria for obsessive compulsive personality disorder. The silver lining is that I don’t fit enough criteria to be diagnosed. No mental illness for me (for now).

I never noticed this part of me until it was pointed out to me by someone whom I’ve hurt deeply: events where I’d be in total control, have people do my way and not even notice it. Slowly, a pattern emerged. Without me even noticing, I’d build a plan. I’d get people on board my plan. The resistance to my plan would be sweet-talked into getting on board again. And I have my way. Everyone should be happy, correct? Well, not quite.

How long has this been taking place? Looking back, I believe it has been taking place ever since I can remember. My friends and I never go to the cinema unless I’m choosing the movie. There were times when we’d go to the cinema and we’d go into separate theaters. Excuse me, but I’m not spending any money on an Arnold Schwarzenegger flick.

In other instances, when I wouldn’t get my way I’d simply cancel being part of an outing altogether. It’s better to stay in, I’d say, watching movies and series. Who needs people anyway?

I always failed to see humor in a situation. If it doesn’t go according to plan, there’s obviously nothing good that can come out of it. I couldn’t lighten up. It just didn’t come naturally to me.

Even the times I traveled were full of me ordering people around without noticing. At the time, I thought it was a necessity at the time. In retrospect, I should have let loose a little, been more at ease and had more fun. But I just can’t help it. It’s either I get to have a tight hold over things or things don’t go well at all and I figured people will eventually come to terms with that.

I was mistaken.

Over the past weekend, I decided that I should see how I would function in a setting where I didn’t have to plan out everything. So I went out with my friends and, hard as it was, I had no say at all in the restaurant pick. They chose somewhere in Jbeil. I obviously disapproved. The place was an open space, arguile and smoking included. I disapproved as well. I also disapproved of the menu. But I didn’t say anything nor did I make it known. I tried as much as I can to enjoy the company in spite of the loud music. Yes, I disapproved as well.

Shock #1: The food wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Shock #2: The place was still too noisy, too loud, too not up my alley. But I had fun anyway.

Shock #3: It was a relief not to have to worry about having chosen something and others possibly not liking it.

Even being at the hospital has proven more difficult for my personality type than my other friends. I couldn’t stand things being utterly disorganized, people doing whatever they wanted and me being in the midst of it having no idea what to do. And I got in trouble because of my “attitude.” There was nothing I can do.

The people I don’t see often don’t have to deal with this aspect of me because it’s not that apparent. But through being a control freak and all the perks that come with it, I’ve made the life of very close people a living hell. I’d say I’m sorry again and again but it wouldn’t suffice.

I’m not sure if I can completely become the person that I want to become. It’s just so easy to fall back on what I know. Sometimes I think if I want to change for the sake of the people I’ve hurt. But that’s not true at all. I have to change for me.  I don’t want to ruin friendships that have changed me and hurt people who mean the world to me. I’ve hurt them enough. There’s a limit to how much people can love you unconditionally. I have to become more vulnerable and let go. I’m working on it. I need help.

I wish I could go back in time to change things.

Hi. My name is Elie Fares and I’m damaged and I’m sorry to those I’ve damaged. Now you know.

Fekko El 3e2de

Fekko el 3e2de

When it comes to mental health, Lebanon has a long way to go. My rotation in psychiatry at one of the country’s hospitals has opened my eyes, as I wrote about here, to a domain of medicine that many don’t want to believe exists, preferring to even have cancer than a psychiatric disorder.

Families, in 2013, would rather revert to exorcisms in order to tackle issues with their sons and daughters, rather than take them to doctors. Explanations of demons instead of some chemical imbalances are preferred. The stigma of the word “insane” haunts any other demon-less explanation.

The victim in all of this, apart from the patient, is our ability to truly advance as communities, especially as we tend to believe that not calling a disease by its name makes it all okay.

Technically independent from AUBMC, the Embrace fund is trying to change how Lebanese view mental health and they’re resorting to a great campaign, in my opinion, that they’re titling: “Fekko l 3e2de,” which translates literally to untie the knot, referring to the “knot” that mental health perception imposes on Lebanese societies.

They’ll be having a gala dinner in a few days to support their campaign, with a performance by Ziad el Rahbani. Find the details here.

This Website is Banned As Per The Lebanese Ministry of Telecommunications

Picture via @ohmyhappiness, click for full size.

Picture via @ohmyhappiness, click for full size.

Yesterday afternoon, Twitter user Raja Farah was busy researching late Lebanese politician Habib Pasha Saad when he stumbled on a page that wouldn’t open.

The notification as to why that particular website was unaccessible was a simple prompt: This website is banned as per the Lebanese ministry of Telecommunications. The above screenshot is what he got.

Using modern technology, which seems to have escaped our ministry of telecommunication, I managed to access the website in question. It turned out to be a directory of people: trying to build family trees, connect with relatives you may not know, etc. There was nothing more to it and definitely nothing less since it was pretty bland as it is. And yet, the website was banned. I tried to access it using a different ISP and the website would refuse to load even though my internet connection worked quite well.

katagogi.com

The page Mr. Farah was trying to access had nothing striking as well. I managed to procure the following screenshots of its content. As you can see, there’s simply nothing there.

Yesterday as well, it was revealed that another website was blocked as well, pertaining to the Mansour Labaki scandal. You can check out the details regarding it here. The Mansour Labaki website also has next to no shocking content. It provides next to nothing new on the case; it doesn’t give any new information, it doesn’t give any proof as to what the man did. It is, however, not accessible for anyone whose IP address is Lebanese.

Ladies and gentlemen, it seems we have more things to worry about when it comes to censorship in Lebanon than the banning of movies, books and possibly some music. It was only recently that they removed two movies out of the Beirut Film Festival because they didn’t fit with the moral code they want to enforce on all of us. But we now have another big brother watching over our heads in order to make sure we get “proper” exposure: our ministry of telecommunications.

I remember well when that same ministry made itself  the knight in shining armor fighting for my rights as a citizen to have my data remain private from security personnel who wanted to use it to fight terrorism. But there are other rights that pertain to me, as a citizen, which seem to be trampled on left and right. What right does anyone have to grant or restrict access to any sort of information to me? Isn’t this a violation to one of my fundamental rights as well?

How many websites already exist that we can’t access because someone out there decided that we had inadequate intellect to handle their content? What criteria is followed to decide that we, as a Lebanese population using our dismal and detrimental internet services, should not be allowed to access this website and not the other? What right does the minister of telecommunication, or whoever decides these things, have in order to decide whether a website should or should not be allowed to the general population?

They tell us day in day out about how our internet and telecom services have improved recently. They brag about 4G, about prices dropping and whatnot.  We have faster internet to access less and less websites. It starts with the ones I listed here, but who knows where this will go?

We have 4G and better 3G, supposedly (the reception in my hometown would beg to differ). But bringing in 4G phones into the country, or any phone that you want, for that matter is simply going to hell and back (link) with regulations upon regulations whose only purpose is to make your life as an irrelevant citizen harder while not making a dent in the business of those who’re supposedly targeted by these rules.

This isn’t about politics. I couldn’t care less who’s the current minister of telecom, who was before him or who might come after him. As I look at this, a clear pattern unfolds in front of me: the supposed advancements in the telecom sector we are having are coming at the expense of my personal freedoms as a consumer and as a citizen. The more we’re “advancing,” the more we crave for how things were before all this “improvement.” True advancement is giving people choices. It’s giving them full access to everything they need to formulate opinions. At this rate, I’d say take back your 4G and give me those choices for that is true advancement.

Farewell Wadih el Safi

We only appreciate our artists after they die.

Wadih el Safi, one of the three remaining giants of Lebanese music, bid this world farewell today at the age of 92. Perhaps it’s easier to mourn the loss of this man, the national symbol that he is. I choose instead to reflect on the life that he has lived, not on the last days of weakness that we tend to remember those who leave us by.

Wadih el Safi, in a career that has spanned almost seven decades, has put a mark on Lebanese music and culture that is tangible and unshakeable even to those, like me, who were not exposed to him growing up. My memories with Wadih el Safi are not those of a typical Lebanese who associates him with rousing patriotism. Whenever I think of him, I think of the songs about family that he would sing, about being a father talking to his son, a father having a discussion with his daughter… I remember how the people around me feel whenever they listen to those songs and how vulnerable he makes them, in the space of a few minutes, with his melody and voice.

They called Mr. el Safi the voice of Lebanon as he sung about this piece of heaven that he called home. It’s a shame that the voice of Lebanon is leaving this country while his piece of heaven is probably anything but. You may be wondering why someone like me, who’s the last person you’d imagine would write about such a thing, is actually doing so. But with Wadih el Safi’s demise, Lebanon has lost a key pillar in the little that remains in the culture that is truly honorable and decent of this country we call home.

Wadih el Safi’s death isn’t just that of a singer that the Lebanese population likes because they feel they must, out of respect. His death takes us one step closer to the full realization of the cultural demise that we are heading to, especially when it comes to music and arts.

Farewell Wadih el Safi, the man who has lived and has done so abundantly.