Persiflage & Paroxysm

The first rule of journalism in the Arabian Gulf is: Never offend anyone with too much truth. It’s simple enough to remember, but hard to apply. In those Arab countries still languishing under totalitarian rule of one kind or another, the rule is stricter still: Never report the truth unless it is the right kind of truth, the official version of the truth. While in the Gulf most foreign journalists get kicked out of the country for ‘going too far’, in other less civil Middle Eastern locales, the offending journalist can be shot, bombed, garroted, or can simply go missing. Ultimately, there is little one man, or woman, or a group of men and women can do, no matter how righteous or brave they are. Regimes bolstered and supported by global powers over decades are as unyielding, as fixed in place, and as hard to ignore as the Ancient Pyramids. One thinks that if the world is shown proof in living, moving color, blood and guts transmitted daily over the sacred internet and some televis...

The worst feeling of all is when you can sense that people envy and despise you, and it can be for the smallest and most insignificant of reasons. You don't have to have a big ego to come up with this conclusion you just feel it. Some dismiss it and chalk it down to paranoia, but it is very real. It’s like an aura of darkness and hostility emanating from someone; but it’s usually buried under a plastic smile. You can just sense it and it can come from those closest to you, a sibling, a cousin, a friend, a workmate, a neighbor, or a perfect stranger. It’s an unmistakable feeling and it’s wrong to assume that it’s not a big deal, because it is. People, good and bad, spend an extraordinary amount of time plotting how to defeat others who they view as too successful and thus a threat to them. They can plot to release a malicious rumor, for example, to ruin the reputation of a good, kind, and generous man, and find a way to take away what he has. they do this not to get it themselves, b...