loyalty is extreme

swear at the bus driver

tag the truck

yell at the parents

and punch the wall

burn the grass

pass it around

 

keep it moving

I don’t have all day bro

 

 shit in a bowl and give it a price tag

that shit is art

it’s worth it

you wanna buy?

Filed under: humanity, life, poetry

The IRAN in ME

I’m going to zoom out a bit here.

I’m Iranian. Yes. Full-blood, deeply rooted in ideologies, traditions and history of  Persian culture. You may argue that it’s dead, but I will argue that it is a living spirit that goes way beyond family, food, religion, language, music, poetry, politics and pride. It is a solid combination of all of them, still in search of identity.

I am who I am because of who my parents are, my family, my childhood and my life as an immigrant girl, now a woman, living in Toronto Canada. It’s not easy might I add, more complicated than I expected. I have come to accept it however and respect myself and my body more than what I’m expected of.

I am also who I am because I don’t agree with what society gives me. I’m completely against it. I wish I could kill people who don’t deserve to live and take up land, resources and infect the minds of humans. I’m completely against brainwashing people with what is THE RIGHT WAY – THE WAY OF GOD, THE WAY OF JESUS, THE WAY OF ALLAH. I think it’s all a pile of crap to keep us in our shells and used as tools within a system, whether its a political system, a technological system, a scientific system, an educational system…whatever the system may be. We have yet to pursue a system in harmony with nature.

Or maybe not, maybe this IS all nature and we ARE meant to be here exactly the way we are up to this point and our future is in our own hands. 

 

Zoom in: your life as one human. Zoom out: your life as one humanity.

 

Read a book to get ideas, don’t live your life by devotion to writing. Words are interpreted to create meaning, and as we know through evolution and time, things change — it’s inevitable, the way of nature. We are growing up. We’re pretty mature now.

So Muslims, who are you? Tell me! I want to know! What defines you as a Muslim? Because Christians let their faith lead to capitalism and consumer culture and you’ve let your faith limit the nature of your body and pleasures. Sure there are beautiful sayings in the Quran, there are many in the Bible too. Not to mention some other pretty amazing science fiction writers, filmmakers, poets, artists and philosophers with revolutionary minds that manifested to MOVEMENTS in society. They did a good job of literature too, but they never called it the word of God and punished you for disobeying them.

I have the freedom to sit here and type up my thoughts and share it with others. That is nothing new.

What is new is the future of Iran.

Why?

Iran, in my opinion, is the most confused country in the world right now because I can feel Iran living in me since the day I was born. Maybe it’s my dad, or my mom, or the combinations of the two, or the generations passed down in spirit and cosmos. But I am Iran. Iran is a confused, chaotic, versatile, passionate, intelligent and creative spirit that has been encapsulated for thousands of years and has not given up. We are the last hope for this world. We are capable of redefining the Middle East, the cradle of civilization, because of our revolutionary spirit that has lived in us for years.

I don’t know what else to say but…the time is right Iranian people. The media is on us. It’s what we’ve all been waiting for. What’s next? Community. Communication. Poetry. Our poetry will save us. Make a living poet the politician. No other land owns poetry like us. We have lived by it and continue to pass it down.

Use it Iran.

Use it now.

Filed under: creativity, humanity, love, philosophy

revolution finished

 

GOD and HUMAN

MOTHER and NATURE

CHICKEN and EGG

MAN and ROOSTER

INVENTOR and INNOVATION

can’t go backwards

LIFE is always forward

and equal.

 

be born

re-birth

revolution

sex

acceptance

Filed under: activism, art, city, community, creativity, cycling, design, education, experience, future, humanity, iran, life, love, music, nature, philosophy, poetry, politics, school, student life, sustainability, work

what Time is it?

So now that I’ve revealed my disbelief in Time, I should at least make some sense of the theory of relativity and science in regards to this matter.

I don’t believe in perfection, absolutes or even words being the best way to define Nature. Nature is nature. Can nature talk, write, pay your bills, or tell you what you need to do to get a good paying job? No, I don’t think Nature had a clue that that’s what humans cherished in life. Nature is God. I don’t care who you are or what you think. Nature is God. It’s simple, I’ll say it again: Nature is God. All together now: “NATURE IS GOD.”

Good.

So now that we have that straight, why are we trying to define Nature through Science and God through Religion? Science and Religion are systems designed by humans to break apart Nature and God and make them more complex. I don’t blame us though – we are Humans. It is Human Nature to be inquisitive and since we have Nature in Human Nature, we are naturally responsive to our Body and Mind. Our Senses are what keep us alive and guide us to happiness.

It is Time to:

1. Follow your Senses through Body and Mind
2. Accept Nature as God
3. Experience the naturally inquisitive Human Nature respond to Nature

Assuming you could live a whole century and witness society develop decade by decade, at some point you’ll realize that you were always a child and no one listened to you, not even you. All you really wanted to do was play, and no one thought it was the right thing to do, especially the people who loved you dearly. So you didn’t even dare to, because it was Time that was holding you back. It was your fear of Time and everyone else’s proof of Time that stopped you. You started something, it didn’t go well, and you thought it wasn’t the right Time. So you beat yourself and cried inside. “No one gets what I’m trying to do!” You brushed it off and went back to being afraid.

It’s time to let go of Time and let it only be determined by the impact of what you have done. You take it out of you, put it out there, and see what sticks and what doesn’t. You enjoy the stickies — they can get you a little high. Sometimes they can get you too high and you might loose your head. The one’s that didn’t stick are your friends too, and they came to fight for their right. You love the stickies so much that you may forget what was in you in the first place and what you were trying to do. But that’s not Time! That’s learning by doing! It’s called research, art, poetry, design, activism, development, growth — it’s all of those things that are simply experienced. It’s not slow, or fast, it just gets determined by how much you do and how many people you tag on the way.

Play tag. It’s time to play tag!

You’re It!

Filed under: creativity, design, experience, humanity, life, love, philosophy, work

Time don’t exist baby!

Who doesn’t want the world to be a better place?

I don’t know if I know anyone who doesn’t. And I also don’t believe that people enjoy seeing people suffer and die unless they disconnect themselves from reality and live in illusion.

Speaking of illusion, I think Time is an illusion. I don’t believe that it exists. Everyone knows that we live in the Now. But it’s not just Now that we can focus on. Our brains are much more complex than that and unless we live in the countryside, down in the valley or up on the mountains, life just ain’t all that simple as Now. What about doing things and getting things done without having any preconceived ideas of how long it will take? What about doing what your heart desires, what your brain connects, what your vision gravitates? What about all that energy inside you that you didn’t know existed until you saw that photo, that film, that book, that baby, that child, that boy, that girl, that woman, that man, that old man, that old lady, that store, that game, that dance, that song, that laughter, that smile?

Does any of that have anything to do with Time? 

Oh, I guess that boy, girl part does. 

So let me ask you: Are you old? Or are you young? Are you a baby, a child?

We watch our bodies develop and as they develop we start basing our actions on Time, because that’s what our parents tell us, that’s what the institutions tell us, the teachers tell us, the family tells us, the media tells us, the best friend tells us, the spouse tells us, the sibling tells us.

Let it go.

Time don’t exist baby.

You want to change the world – get to it. Follow your heart, feel the energy and use your brain. Love and power are determined by the number of people you touch. Grow your networks and together you are one.

If you are afraid (to do what you wanna do), you’ll never be happy. If you are brave (and do what you wanna do), you’ll be a leader. It’s as simple as that.

Are you ready for the challenge? Or are you still afraid to change the/your world?

Filed under: humanity, life, love, philosophy

internetoflife – the collective language to simply learn

Anyone who is reading this is a part of the book. internetoflife is one word but it assembled of three other words that we know in English.

The final direction for my thesis after 1.5 years of research is internetoflife.com

I believe in the power of the collective to share wisdom and create links.

I believe in words to reflect identity.

I believe in words of wisdom, quoted by you.

So please visit the site and contribute.

First round of submissions for final presentation at my gradshow are April 12, 2008.

Anyone, anywhere you are, if you are reading this and you are interested in the concept of my network and want to support it into fruition, please click on the submissions page. I would also like to request for volunteer translators to translate the internetoflife questions into other languages, so we can get a universal network of words. Text and colour are universal languages — lets ’simply’ use them to broadcast ‘who we are’.

More information on how I arrived here will be posted soon.

You are also welcome to add me to facebook since I have nothing to hide about who I am.

Filed under: activism, art, community, creativity, design, education, humanity, life, love, music, philosophy, poetry, problem solving, quotes, school, social community networks, sustainability

The Storefront: urban re-generator

Think Tank class; 4th-year interdisciplinary design; OCAD Toronto.

semester brief: make a change; design action; intervene

realproblem: Bloorcourt Village; underdeveloped business district in Toronto (between Christie to Dufferin on Bloor)

Join our online network: The Storefront — a strive for our physical space on the streetfront.

If you’re interested in how our class has moved from idea to actualization, you can subscribe to my podcast in iTunes. On the left bar, click ‘Podcasts’, under ‘Advanced’, go to ’subscribe to podcast’ and paste:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/thestorefront

Filed under: activism, art, bloorcourt, community, creativity, design, humanity, podcast

diary blog

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written an update on my work / school / thesis / life more or less because I’ve been so incredibly consumed by its intensity so far. However, it’s not a reason for me to stop writing on my blog that’s meant to be my personal diary. I’ve always loved diaries. I started keeping one when I was in Iran for a few months — this is me in grade 4. Then when we came to Canada it took me a while to get back into the idea of writing reflections of my experiences. I got back into it after my best friend in highschool, who was an inspiration to me since we met, gave me a book and signed the inside with encouraging words to keep me writing poems and memories.

So, I’ve been writing way before blogs came about and I keep a sketchbook full of words and notes — I call it my thought book. This blog on the internet is just an extension of what I have already been doing but now it’s exposed to the world because I think a) it’s important to share your life and experiences, b) it’s important to use the internet in a positive way and c) why hide anything? I’m an honest genuine person and you will see that when you meet me in person, so why should I not share my process and progress in life with the world? Sure, I can put up a bunch of links to cool sites and reflect on the news, but that’s not who I am and that’s not what I see as my purpose of keeping a blog. I collect thoughts; I collect ideas; I collect information and I collect designs. I highlight and highlight and I connect and connect. I talk and talk and I share and share. I love and love and I give and give. Whatever it may be to you — it’s me. So me to you is whatever you see, feel or remember from what I leave behind for you.

A diary is precious — it’s the process of your life. Documentation gets you far and archiving gives people proof of what you’ve done. The only way you can down track anything in your life is if you document it. You can take photos, record videos, audio, draw, paint, build and of course WRITE.Memory is not something that exists — it’s something that gets documented and becomes history. History is only legitimately history if it’s archived, otherwise there is no way anyone will every have any proof to show that that, whatever it may be, actually existed.We have free space; we have access to information; we have freedom of speech; freedom to broadcast ourselves; and we have the world in our hands. What’s the problem? We don’t use it to its full potential.

There is no more NEW — the NEW is working with what is there to do something with meaning, with empathy and with purpose to solve all the problems we have. Sharing is great — but lets share our methods to problems; lets come together and be real about our weaknesses and honest about our love.I’ve been going through a lot and learning so much this year — hopefully I will take more time to reflect on them and document them on my blog as I continue with life.If you check my site out in the new year, I should have all sorts of new things to show so you can see what I’ve really been up to.

Filed under: humanity, life, love, philosophy, student life, work

what does “best” mean?

page 43, Small Change, Nabeel Hamdi

‘Best’ means most excellent, most suitable, most desirable, something which surpasses all others. It is an ultimate state beyond which there can be little improvement, at least for now. It differentiates between talents hierarchically, and therefore unequally, and assumes single standards. It normalizes ambition and desires, differences in need and ideas from place to place, people to people. And, because it inspires envy, it undermines the self-respect of ordinary people. According to Sennet, ’self-respect fades when we respond to the example set by others’. In this sense, he quotes from Rousseau’s The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality:

He who sings or dances the best, he who is the most handsome, the strongest, and most adroit or the most elegant becomes the most highly regarded; and this is the first step towards inequality, and at the same time towards vice.

Filed under: activism, community, design, humanity, life, philosophy, quotes

Bloorcourt Village Festival

I am taking a Think Tank 3: Action class here at OCAD with Bruce Hinds in conjuction with Lewis Nicholson’s class working on the same target. Our class’s project is about making a difference in a community and the community we are working with is Bloorcourt in Toronto (from Bloor & Christie to Bloor & Dufferin). The neighbourhood needs revitalization. It is a targeted neighbourhood that needs improvement and a group of city workers / volunteers in the area assemble the Business Improvement Association (BIA) in Toronto. Keith Rushton’s Think Tank class last year got a great deal of recognition for what they did with Ward19 and the solution they presented to the City of Toronto was what has gotten OCAD a lot more involved with the City; they want our thinking to solve their problems.

The third week of class we had members of the BIA come in and we had a panel discussion on what the problems and issues were in the neighbourhood. We then all wrote a response to that meeting and started discussing possibilities for our approach to the project. I must say…this is what I love doing. I love listening, observing, discussing, coming up with ideas, researching then discussing more and coming up with more ideas and loop loop loop. We traveled to the site many times, took photos, and talked some more. The neighbourhood has many great qualities to it: 3 parks (one of which is Christie Pits: one of the largest most active parks in the city), local residential community, lots of ethnically authentic stores and restaurants, lots of diversity, full of artists and inarguably full of potential. The downsides are just like other downsides of a neighbourhood in demise which includes empty storefronts, drug dealing, bad lighting, no visual interest…basically nothing that really puts an identity to the neighbourhood to make it a destination.

We are about to change all of that.

We had a meeting that we had prepared a presentation for yesterday first with the City in the morning and then with the BIA in the evening. They both went exceptionally well and the room was filled with so much energy and excitement.

We ended the presentation with this:

“We propose to design a plan for holding a (possibly annual) festival event using the street and Christie Pits Park. The festival’s engagements and activities will be entirely based on the collaborations we make with local places including highschools, elementary schools, community centres, restaurants as well as current and former residents.

We intend to hold discussions, create excitement, document submitted ideas and creative input, and feature the results in a gallery/studio within Bloorcourt to encourage the revitalization of the neighbourhood and establish a genuine and visible vision
with a unified identity for the BIA of Bloorcourt Village.”

They are so excited and so are we. This is going to be such a fun project and you bet it’s going to hit the press; and it’s going to take it by storm.

Watch out OCAD and Toronto…here comes Think Tank.

Filed under: activism, art, bloorcourt, city, community, creativity, design, humanity, life, photography, school, student life