"A World of Troubles"

This blog post is dedicated to James Foley, the brave journalist who was beheaded by members of the Islamic State currently terrorising and occupying northern Iraq and eastern Syria.

This morning I woke up, just another random day during the summer. I do not really have anything to do since I am currently without a full time job and simply waiting for my masters degree to start, and since recently I have developed an interest in current affairs, the first thing I did was turn on my laptop and visit the usual Times of Malta, BBC News, CNN and so on.  And wow, it was not even 9:30 a.m. and I hadn't even had my coffee yet when I read the words "IS warns US", and there was a picture of some random dude in orange on his knees, and another dude with his face covered and wearing everything in black holding a knife in his hand. (picture is actually provided below)

Well ... you have to be really dumb if you haven't already realised where I'm going with this. The guy in orange is James Foley, an independent US journalist who was kidnapped in late '12 by Islamic extremists while heading from Syria to Turkey while the other guy, is a member of the terrorist group known as the Islamic State. To cut (yes, I know that its gruesome, but the pun is intended) the long story short, James Foley was beheaded on video, with  message from the Islamic State to the United States, telling them they they will drown in blood.

But why? Since the departure of all US troops form Iraq in 2011, a new insurgency has risen. Previously it was part of al-Qaeda, but then it moved off to form a separate organisation. Along the years it has had a variety of names such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and more recently, simply the Islamic State (IS).  Recently, even al-Qaeda itself distanced itself from this terrorist group because of, and I quote al-Qaeda itself here, "for its brutality and notorious intractability." The aim of this group is to establish a new state in the greater middle east areas for the Sunni population of the areas and introduce the Sharia Law of the Quran as its main legislation. And the worrying thing is that it has made huge territorial conquests in northern Iraq and eastern Syria, with the execution thousands of innocent civilians and the generation of hundreds of thousands of refugees in the process. Recently it has also established what it calls a Caliphate, ruled by the terrorist group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and has imposed its brutal interpretation of the Islamic Sharia Law across these lands.

The above map shows the lands actually controlled by IS in dark red, the areas claimed by IS in light red, and the rest of Iraq and Syria in white.

So what has the US journalist James Foley has to do with all this? We'll get to that soon. First of all: the main opponents of this group are the the Iraqi Government in south east Iraq, the Kurds in north east Iraq and the several Syrian tribes, or what is left of them after the Syrian civil war, in south west Syria. Secondly: these opponents have gained the support of western countries like the US and EU member states, and also of other Islamic countries, even Iran!

However, so far, only the US actually did anything to help the IS opponents, by air dropping humanitarian aid in the areas where refugees are located, and more importantly by using air strikes against the Islamic State to aid Kurdish and Iraqi fighters. And that is where James Foley comes in. Foley was beheaded on video as a message that the Islamic State will launch terrorist attacks whenever it can against the United States and all the other countries that oppose it if they continue, or try to intervene and attacking their militants.

I am no expert on war or international politics, and even though I have my opinions on what should be done, that is beside the point and I will not discuss it here. All I want to do is raise awareness about what is happening in the Middle East, which realistically, is not that far away from our own shores. We might be going to work, the beach and to some bar for a couple of drinks everyday while enjoying our summer, and over there western citizens are being beheaded, innocent civilians hanged or crucified, or flogged to death, just because some idiot motherfucker who blindly believes in his own twisted misinterpretation of the Quran, and his followers, decided to do these atrocities.

Just take a minute, and think of the lives that are being lost, even of those who just go there innocently to report the news, for us to know what is going on.

James Foley, all I hope is that your death wasn't in vain.

P.S. The name of this blog post, "A World of Troubles" is the name of James Foley's blog, to whom this blog post is dedicated.

Dystopia

I just got home from a relaxed night at Sliema with some friends of mine, and as usual the first thing I did was to turn on my laptop. I still had several tabs on my browser still open from earlier on during the day. Amongst several random tabs, including some really cool music a friend of mine had sent me earlier on and the usual Facebook, Twitter and Gmail tabs, a particular article on the Time Magazine tab still open caught my interest. However, and this might be the half dozen Long Island Iced Tea's talking on my behalf, before I proceed with my usual rant, I feel the need to mention this cool track, The Bay, that my friend Andrew sent me earlier on today (see video below.)

Wasn't that an awesome one?! Anyways, where were we? Ah yes, Time magazine, well this article was just a new update regarding the political crisis going on in Ukraine currently (the link is given right here: Ukraine’s Lawless Warzones Recede as Rebel Fighters Fall Back), however it quickly got me thinking about the current situation in Eastern Europe and how sadly, it is at its worst since the time of the cold war and the Balkan wars of the 90's. For all those who know me, you all know how random  my train of thought usually is and I wondered a but about the planet we live in, and even though we might live in the part of the world where the situation is not that bad for the average person, and to which most people from other places try to get to, the brutal truth is that the world is a very very ugly place and many countries are riddled with civil war, poverty, religious oppression, so on and so forth.

A lot of people dream that someday in the future, the world will unite and generations yet to come will live in an idyllic society. However, I do not believe that humanity will ever live in such a utopia. If one took a small look at the world's history, consider Communism, it has failed miserably both as a social and also as an economic experiment. And what about the American Dream? If one took a small look at the current situation of the United States, 49% of the American wealth is held by only 1% of the population, and as time goes by, the gap between the rich and the poor keeps becoming wider and wider.

People can call me a pessimist as much as they want, but I think that in the future there will never be any utopias or perfect altruistic societies. I think eventually we'll degrade to a dystopic society which we read about or see in several science fiction books and films, and to quote the great Sheldon Cooper, "society [will break] down into small feral bands of tattooed motorcycle riders fighting to the death over the last few cans of tuna fish". Anyways, I can make several more arguments like the ones of the failed ideologies such as communism or the American Dream, however its 02:03a.m. and I'm really tired. Probably all of this will happen a long time after all those who are reading this article, are dead, myself included, and thus it will definitely not matter. However, if there are any time travellers out there (YES! I'm talking to you doctor!), please do seek me out and answer this one simple question for me: Was I right about all of this? Good night!

'da fuck is going on ?

00:37 a.m. ... I just got home from a bar-be-que with some friends, and after a couple of glasses of wine, I remembered that I hadn't written anything for quite a while now. And ironically, my last post back in February was titled "I'm back !" and it was supposed to be my return to writing after the mid-year examinations at uni. But a lot has changed since then. The second semester has come and gone, I finished my thesis, and also my final examinations at uni and winter is long gone and the scorching summer sun is out ... not right now of course but you know what I mean ...

For starters, I'm not even a university student any more now. And that is quite sad actually cos I had gotten used to the idea and now after four years it feels quite strange not to be anything. I haven't even got a job yet, so that makes the situation even worse. But I'm not really worried about it to be honest since I am starting a masters degree in September, but lets not go there for now. So yeah ... basically everything is changing around me and right now I feel like a kids top spinning all over the place. I am about to leave this island in a couple of months, I have no job (or decent financial income for that matter), my car is in the shop for some reason or another, and I got a bazillion other random things going on ... 

00:56 a.m. ... Nineteen minutes later and I barely managed to write two paragraphs. I'm listening to some really cool deep house music actually. Just got to know about this really cool dj, "Ten Walls" and cannot stop listening to his track called "Walking with Elephants", one can listen to it ... its the following YouTube vid.

But anyway, I'm quite impressed by how anti-climatic life after uni is. I always imagined the moment that I would "finally leave uni" to something big and that afterwards life would be perfect. The budgie in the .gif below was actually how I thought finishing my finals at uni and leaving would be. But it wasn't. Its true that I got drunk and had an awesome two weeks at the beach and partying and so on ... but now that I am at home and have some time to reflect, it's definitely not what I imagined it to be and life is far from perfect. Most of my friends already found jobs, others are planning to do their respective masters degrees just as I am however, we're all gonna be at different universities, which means that we won't be seeing much of each other after the summer.

And the lack of money right now is also seriously affecting me. I mean, how the fuck can a soon-to-be-22-year old engineering graduate with an addiction to partying and going out live with €0, actually no, less than that ... damn that visa card ... oh well, something will come up as it always has. 

01:17 ... Fuck this shit, I'm tired after spending the afternoon by the sea (see photo to the left) I'm feeling quite tired, and this wine definitely isn't helping. Its been a nice weekend though, I nailed my thesis presentation, got drunk, England lost their game against Urugay ... and sadly so did Italy against Costa Rica. Ffs, I got fed up even of ranting about how mediocre the life of a student gets after said student finishes and until he/she finds something else to do next. I seriously don't know when I'll write anything new after today, since laziness is seriously deepinging its claws in my skin and affecting me even more every day. And like a 1950's Looney Tunes cartoon, I'm ending this post ...

 

I'm back !

Hey everyone, I'm back ! Well I wasn't anywhere in particular to be honest, however its been quite a while since I last wrote something. However, and I cannot stop emphasizing on this point ... IT WAS NOT MY FAULT. Blame the infamous University of Malta for what happened to me ... It was a tougher semester than I expected it to be and I honestly swear that I didn't have any free time to write! I even had to quit going to the gym, and even out of the house to manage to make time for my academic commitments.

So what have I been up to ? Actually quite a lot ! I managed to do five assignments, six laboratory reports, six exams, an interview ... and I still got two more interviews left, but I can officially say that the first semester of my fourth year at university has come to an end ... just one more left to get that degree! 

But I have to admit, there was a bit more to it than academic material. I went on holiday with one of my best mates, Nathan. We went for a weekend back to Nottingham, where I was doing my Erasmus exchange semester last year. And it was an AWESOME weekend ! We met with some very good friends of mine, Darren, Davynya and Arjun and others from all over the world and it seriously felt good to be back there for a couple of days. I seriously didn't want to come back! But there was no other choice, and after a great weekend full of booze, pretty English ladies, ice-skating and archery, we had to come back to face the exam period. 

Then came Christmas and New Year's, for which I cannot really complain about it because it was all about going out and having fun at the several open-bar parties we went to. Although, it still feels weird writing 2014 rather than 2013. Its always like that, as soon as I get used to writing one particular date, boom new year's is upon us and I have to get used to the new number. New Year's Eve was quite fun actually! Me and my classmates spent it at a small club in Mellieha and I actually couldn't ask for anything better.

And apart from those two main events, there were a ton of other, such as the Annual Grad Ball, which even though I am not a graduate yet, I still attended, because, what the hell, why not? And also came Nathan's Birthday, and oh, I nearly forgot to mention ... I GOT CONDITIONALLY ACCEPTED FOR MY MASTERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM !! I was so happy when I read the letter, wings were about to spurt out from my back and I'd have flown out of the window haha :-) 

But now, back to routine ... this semester shouldn't be that bad. I only got three subjects to study, and a thesis to finish! And I am going to attend Tango lessons ... don't judge me ... its something I've been wanting to do for a long time now. Hopefully, I'll manage to do everything as planned, and by December I'll be graduating with the rest of my fellow classmates.

Anyways, I'm off to watch a movie now, and tomorrow back to the gym :-3 ... I know, this post wasn't really about anything interesting, just me rambling about what I've been up to lately but I don't care, I wanted to share :-) See you around guys and dolls ! 

Plough the fields ...

Last week I was really really unlucky. After a long day, last Tuesday, I finally got home in  the evening but soon after, started shivering like a mad man ... and it was the start of three damned days locked up in my room at home due to a sinus infection. But in those three days, which I wasted just watching movies ... a LOT of movies, read a bit from a book .. .and the rest just had nothing to do except think. And the thought that was hogging most of the area in my brain was about the boredom that struck as soon as I couldn't do any of the other stuff with which usually I fill my day. And that got me thinking, about how that even though that we complain a lot about work and most of our daily chores, without them we would actually be much much worse.

What's wore than waiting for an entire day to pass just looking at the whitewashed ceiling of a room while on a freakin' bed! At least, when you go to work, or to some random boring lecture at university, or even just do something that normally we'd consider as annoying, time is passing quicker and you;d be able to say that you did something at the end. And I realized that even  though we all complain about work and stuff, without we'd all be more lost than not.

Several philosophers, and eventually psychologists, came to the conclusion that humans need a reason to live, and the very basic reason is to do something satisfactory with one's life.  The feeling of being able to say "Yes, I did that." no matter how trivial it is, at least you got a purpose in life, and no matter how small, one would have made something with their own existence. Even by itself, work keeps up fit and mentally healthier than others who do not do anything. In Maltese we say "ix-xogħol salmura tal-ġisem" or "work is the body's preservative" ... but then I also have to admit how that saying ends in "imma l-għażż, balzmu tal-Madalena" which translates to "but lazyness is life's sweet nectar".

Anyways, all I'm trying to say is that, unlike a few days ago, I realised the importance of keeping busy and doing something useful with oneself rather than stay there and do nothing! It keeps you sane ...

Insecurities

It has been an amazingly hectic week, and only now I got some time to sit down and write something. Actually its been since this morning that I've been looking at the blank screen on my laptop for more than a couple of hours, trying to think of something to write about, and I seriously could not get any ideas, until a little earlier. It just occurred to me that it is nice to waste time and do nothing, occasionally. Probably you are thinking that I am just a teeny weeny crazy for saying so, since a few weeks ago I was iterating and re-iterating in my previous blog posts, that one should not waste time ...  and seize the day .. and so on and so forth ... bla bla blah ...

However, after having an extremely long week, jam packed with lectures, assignments, lab sessions, thesis work and a billion other academic activities and tasks to do, I felt like my brain needed a break from everything and just enjoy the simplicity of doing nothing and having an actual break. Even the usual television series that I usually follow, felt like too much to handle and I just wanted to lie down on my bed and do nothing. But how did we end up having such a hectic life style?

Usually after the kind of question I just asked in the paragraph above, I'd write something meaningful, such as historical origins; where, who and why came up with a particular notion. Today, I honestly do not have any answers. I tried looking up such stuff, but I failed miserably. I have to admit I have spent the entire day trying to come up with something that makes sense, and after that I ate lunch, took a nap, went to Ryan's Pub for some quality time with my friends, look at them on the photo on the right; and came back ... and I think I'm on to something.

I honestly am not sure if its only me or everyone else, but I have to admit that the reason why I jam-pack my schedule with more tasks to do than it is humanly possible to perform, is  because I am scared of being alone and doing nothing. But what do I mean by scared and alone? Its not that I am terrified of the dark, or anything on those lines; its just that the idea of being in a quiet place by myself, and thus being able to listen to my inside voice (which some people call conscience) scares me. And this only means one thing, that I did, or am doing, something wrong, that deep down I know that I shouldn't have done. What this thing is, its actually irrelevant, all I know is that its there and that I should deal with it, deal with myself.

On my way back here from Ryan's Pub tonight, I was alone in my car and for once I didn't put on any music, which gave me some time to think about what is really going on in my life. And I realised what its actually so terrifying. Its not the silence, it not something I did in the past, be it a long time ago or recently, its just that I do not have any guarantee about what's going to happen in the future. Up till now, whether I admit or not, my life was quite planned out ... primary school, followed by secondary school, followed by sixth form, followed by university ... but now, now that I am in my final year at university, what's next?

I'd like to say that I know what's about to happen next ... but the truth is that I do not have a fuckin' clue. Maybe a Master's degree, maybe not ... maybe abroad, or maybe here in Malta ... who knows? And I have to admit, I'd rather "die" of doing a lot of things, that not know what's going to happen next, but then again, we aren't supernatural beings to know what's going to happen in the future, and just have to accept that fact, whether we like it or not. I've been honest today, about what's really scaring me right now in my life ... and what about you? Is the future scaring you .... ?

Occam's Razor

I think it has happened to all of us when a simple problem is sometimes misunderstood by anyone, even ourselves, and instead of finding the simple solution, one would deliberate about the problem and what to do about it for hours and days. And after a long time of deliberation, to avoid making a rash decision and risk making the situation worse, one would eventually realize that the best solution would have been the simplest one since the problem itself would not have been as half as complicated as on thought. And that is it, usually when we are faced with  a problem we tend not to analyse the problem, but  to over-analyse ... and make it look bigger than it actually is ... and exaggerate ... and imagine problems where there aren't ... and panic! 

One of the subjects I am studying at university is the science of how to apply mathematical models to basically anything we see around us every day and thus, study and analyse how the particular object or action behaves over space and time, using such mathematical models. And similarly to dealing with everyday problems, one can do the same kind of mistake in this subject, when considering to many details that affect a behaviour or process or object, than what is actually needed and thus complicating the math too much. And it was then when the lecturer told us about how to "keep things simple" in an eloquent way, quoting William of Ockham. 

It was in the early 14th century, that the English friar, theologian and philosopher, William of Ockham, the weird looking dude shown in stained glass on the right, came up with a simple concept that is actually to deal with problems. Born in Ockham, Surrey, in the year 1287, he joined the Franciscan friars at a very young age, and studied theology at the University of Oxford. He was a very good scholar at the time and was given the nickname of Doctor Invincibilis, or Unconquerable Teacher as it is translated to English. After several arguments with the pope of the time, he was accused of heresy because of some of his ideas, and eventually was excommunicated.

"Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate". Plurality must never be posited without necessity. That rather complex sentence with big words, translated from Latin, only means that we should shave-off everything that is too complicated, but not what it is necessary, before dealing with a problem. And that line of thought is known as Occam's Razor. By the way, I honestly have no clue why it is referred to as "Occam" when it is clearly documented by historians that William was from "Ockham". I guess there was a typo along the way which nobody actually felt like ever fixing. And its makes perfect sense, why consider all the complications of the world where we can deal with the simple parts of a problem to solve it anyway? But then, we should also not over-simplify anything. Occam's razor specifically says to not include complications, but this holds only as long as they are not necessary. Later on, after the time of William of Ockham, other philosophers and mathematicians, such as Isaac Newton and Bertrand Russell, asserted the same school of thought, and the principle is still used today in philosophy and mathematics.

And I, even though I am a nobody, believe that the same principle can be applied into use for every day life. Everyday we are faced with a ton of problems, most of which are trivial and solvable in seconds, however others would be quite a challenge to deal with them. Tackling a problem is a very good thing, rather than leaving it to accumulate with others that one would haven't dealt with. Yet the most important is not to panic, as this robot on the left is telling you, and the simpler one keeps said problem, the easier it will be to deal with it!

P.S.: Sigur Rós's music video of Hoppípolla below has nothing to do with Occam's Razor, its just that the song is awesome and I wanted to share it somewhere else rather than the usual Facebook and Twitter. :-)