Identity Crisis: The Nationality Dilemma

A year ago, a friend of mine visited minors in jail. She told me she met some guys who were sent there because they were gay and I though, "How messed up can this country be?"...
During this independence day, somehow, the flags, the tarboosh, the sherwels reminded me of something.  

I am Lebanese. I have always been and will always be Lebanese.
I might not be able to build a family here but this land is my land.

And this is how I realized that my nationality is very similar to my sexuality.
Hard to accept at first, but once you understand it, a true blessing.

So this, my friends, is why I waved the flag so high, this is why I wore my tarboosh so proudly.
You can say all the shit you want about this independence being a joke, but this is why I celebrate the Lebanese independence.

Just because, I am Lebanese.

The Paradox of the Stone.

God is all-powerful, or as theologians put it, “omnipotent”; there is nothing that he cannot do. This is part of the definition of “God”.

So can God create a stone that is so heavy that he cannot lift it? Either he can or he can’t.

If God can’t, then he isn’t all-powerful. If God can’t create a stone that he can’t lift, then there is something that he can’t do: create the stone.

If God can create a stone that is so heavy that he can’t lift it, though, then he also isn’t all-powerful. If God can create a stone that is so heavy that he can’t lift it, then there’s something that he can’t do: lift that stone

There is, therefore, no way of answering the question above that preserves God’s omnipotence. If there is an omnipotent God, then he neither can nor can’t create a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it. This, though, is absurd; he must be either able or unable to perform this feat.

This is the paradox of omnipotence. Many critics of theism have used it to argue that the concept of omnipotence is self-contradictory, that there can be no omnipotent being, and so that God cannot exist.

Buzzinga!  :-)

Source.

A Cause.

It is believed that one becomes an adult when he learns to give himself.
Give his soul, his heart, his whole.
Find a purpose, find a cause.
A cause that will transform everything he believes in, that will push his limits and that will teach him that the world he once knew is nothing compared to what is out there.
A cause that is going to be the only constant in his mercurial life.

I feel like a man without a cause. I feel trapped in my childhood.
I want to give myself but I have nothing to give myself to.

What can I do to make this world a better place?
Gay activism from inside the closet?
Helping a country that cannot even help itself?
Working for a society that I cannot stand?

I reached a dead end.

I need  a purpose to grow up.
I need to grow up to find a purpose.

So I'll wait.

Tiny step after tiny step.
Everything is changing.
Who knows what the future holds?
Change is the only constant.

Living the Life.

I am the Lebanese teenager.
I go to school 6 days a week. I come back home, have lunch and study, spend some time with my parents when they come back, have dinner and go to bed.
I go out on Saturday nights.
I spend Sundays with my family.

I spend Christmas with my family.
Go out on New Year's Eve and come back home the next morning for the traditional family lunch.
I do something useful during summer.

And it goes on and on, and it has always been this way.
And it will always be this way.

I am going to college somewhere in Lebanon, because that's what my brother did, because that's what my sister did, because that's what everybody does.
I am going to graduate and everyone is going to celebrate.
I am going to work for some time, then I am going to leave Lebanon for a couple of years.
I am going to come back and work at my father's company.
I am going to start a family and raise my kids just the way I have been raised.
They are going to have the life I had.

A life where there is no place for their dreams and expectations.
A life where the world is not their oyster.

Can I change anything about that?
I can try. I can work my ass off to get a scholarship somewhere and leave this country.
I do not like this country and I will do everything I can to leave as soon as possible.

Online Gay Communities

Don't forget to check Mo. K's article on online gay communities in the Middle East, e-community vol.1.

Beirut Boy and I answered some questions about our work online.

Don't forget to check the other articles of My.Kali magazine which are really interesting!

My.Kali.mag is an LGBTQ (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and transgender, Q; questioning or queer) concerned monthly magazine. It concerns gay (and whose just interested) people from all around the world and it’s dedicated for people who live in the: Middle East, for foreigners who live in the Arab world, for those who live in closed-minded/open-minded environments, for those new-gay-to-be, for those who're away from home and for those who're interested in entering the world of My.Kali.