Come Again... ?

Yes I will. I am back in Madison, Wisconsin in the US of A. I never would have predicted that I would be back here after working and traveling abroad, but life and karma had different things in store for me (and Amie) than I predicted. Nor did I ever believe that I would be back working for the same firm I interned with as a Freshman and Sophomore in College. Life has taken so many interesting and perplexing turns recently.

And I didn't yet mention in cyberspace that I am engaged. Yes, Amie and I made it real - the same woman that has appeared intermittently throughout this blog over the last 5 years. We did, we made it, and we will be making it official before the law and the Everlasting Soul on July 30, 2010.

I have flashes of feelings and emotions from my travels that come to me ever so often. Sometimes I am walking down the street, or in the middle of a story about those times, and there I am, back again. I'm walking with Amie through the middle of those crowded Indian and Asian streets, a million smells and even more thoughts passing through my brain - overwhelming it to the point of sheer denial that my life exists in the midst of it all. And I realize, that my travel experiences to this point have left me in a state of disbelief that life can be so real and complex and confusing and enlightening - all at once. So perhaps that meer fact is what has anchored me back to this city, maybe it is my only chance of rebuilding my world into something that I can understand and articulate - in hopes that I can have a chance to pull from the last 18 months those lessons and truths as well as falacies that must be shared.

I have been scared to open this door for a while now, intimidated at the scope of what I will undeniably have to embark upon. And then to, there is my unwillingness to take ownership over everything that I have seen and done, as if it is easier to let it all pass by like a dream that quickly slips away as you turn your eyes to the events of the day. Increasingly, my heart and Soul have proven so restless as to convince me of this impossibility of silence. We are living to share with each other, and to celebrate the good with the bad so that we may somehow understand that we are not alone, that there is purpose to be found in chaos, and that there is some great symphonic unity of which we all play a part, however big or small that part may be.

So I open up my life to the new possibilities of realization and epiphany as well as union with the subtleties of everyday life in the here and now. I open up my heart to the peaks and valleys of those around me so that I may demonstrate a greater degree of empathy to the real challenges and celebrations of others' everydays. And I open up my Soul to the invisible guide that is experiential cognizance that finds union in seemingly disparate realities.

Let this declaration be my catalyst.

Madison Soul Global

And... I'm back. Again, in the place where the dream began. A slice of inspiration with subtle elements of the lives I've lived embedded in the places I hold dear, and the ones I am still discovering. Finally, my stubborn silence has been eroded by the warmth of family and friends, and the Soulful Energy of identity in place.

Learning.

And it's never ending, this changing perception of time and place and purpose and reason and logic and understanding.

I'm still not certain of where I am, where I am going, or even what I am doing - but therein lies the beauty of the times. I can do, go and be anything, anywhere. I have two certainties contradicting my confusion. To quote Paulo Cuelho in "The Pilgrim": You have only two certainties - What time is it? Now. Where are you? Here. Now begin your fight for truth." (That may be a liberal paraphrasing, however I believe I am doing poetic justice to the essence of his message.)

My last posting was in reaction to things that I learned in Laos about a cruel, unjust, vastly unrecognized crime against humanity. And it brought me great silence, especially in the face of the warmth and joy of the Laos people. Subsequently, each stage of our travels were viewed through this lens, and were somehow irreconcilable in juxtaposition one to the next. The struggles of Vietnam have bred a certain harshness and edge into the psyche of the Vietnamese... but also an irrefutable resilience. Cambodia... the dichotomy of the glory and fall from grace that has been achieved and committed in the name of the Khmer - Angkor Wat in all its majesty stands... and the legacy of the Khmer Rouge lives on. It seems I have buried most of the questions and sadness elicited by those things: pictures, places, bones, videos, testaments, emotions, human essence, injured Soul... And the silence those things create endures, against the passion of the Souls who demand recognition. Leaving Cambodia, the memories remained but struggled against the hard reality that life goes on in spite of itself - or perhaps out of a singular strength of manifest Soul. Thailand... somehow calm, clean and orderly against the backdrop of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. And then Koh Phangan... a life apart, but still, there is struggle for the Thais to maintain their dignity and identity while creating a sense of perfection and paradise for their unsuspecting guests.

And then there was time crunch and exhaustion and budgets. The curse of the overzealous, curious traveler is that you want to see too much with too little time. And so in sacrifice of a depth of experience you attain the title of having "been there". Of course the observant Soul never misses the world turn. And so Malaysia passed in a whirlwind of experience in the Kuala Lumpur metropolis with a pervading energy of tenuous inter-ethnic compromise - an ironic expression of our preceding journey from the Arab Gulf, India and Southeast Asia. And Singapore was just a "been there" as we passed through by bus and metro to the airport, as clean as it was made out to be as well as efficient. We successfully made it through the country in less than 24 hours.

Tokyo warrants a posting entirely unto itself, and may get one as I wind down. It is my hope that different experiences back in Madison and the next chapter of life will elicit different recollections and reorganizations of memories and experiences. The danger in this account writing of such experiences is that I run the risk of letting things go to a world apart as they are beginning to feel. But then there is potential to weave my experience of a lifetime within the running thread of local reality that will create a lasting fabric of inter-connectivity. And thus, realize my ultimate discovery - that as human beings and experiences, we cannot shed our fundamental unity that is our Soul. I've seen it. I've lived it. I've hated it. I've loved it. I've released my doubt into the truth that the Soul Is.

How to Get My Head Straight

So here it is, I'm in the middle of another work day with more than my fair share in front of me. How do I clearly construct a document describing what our first governance body will look like? How do I get our Omani shareholders to cooperate in the moments leading up to filing for our AIESEC company? How do I leverage the media to recognize the great things that AIESEC will do for Oman? How can I gain the trust of the government ministries so that they will bestow us with their blessing to move forward?

And what do I do in a room full of white and black?


The last couple days have been an up and down like I haven't experienced in a while. I had a meeting with two of our three shareholders, who we are now referring to as Guardians, during which I could literally see and feel everything coming together. I saw the potentials turning into reality and all the planning turning into action. And now comes the follow-up... Like twisting arms, pulling legs, slapping wrists and breaking knuckles (not really, but try to see my point). In the midst of it all, I see myself succumbing to the weight of the Omani work ethic - lulling me into a place where deadlines don't matter, time moves but I stand still. And all the things worth doing feel all too ominous. All of these feelings after I felt like I could change the world only two days ago.

And then their was the white and black. I don't think I will ever get used to this. I decided to go to a play at the university at the bequest of a student friend who was acting in the play. Called "Shakespearean Night," it was a comical look at how Shakespeare would have directed his own plays, albeit if he were Omani and acting in front of a crowd of Omani students and teachers with sprinkled expats. Costuming was good, acting was laudable... the setting before unimaginable to me. I should have expected it really, I know that school - it is not ultra conservative, but still segregated to a degree (by sex that is). And so, the late-entrance experience, what to me is already usually awkward, skyrocketed in awkwardness as I took a quick glance upon entry to see black in the two sides with a big, wide white stripe down the middle. For those unfamiliar with the colors of sex, male is white and black is female. Now, the awkwardness wouldn't have been that great had we only been our usual crowd of a few dudes. But, we were with women, an Omani and a Colombian. And instead of playing by the rules, we all sat down together in the big White Stripe. And I began to sweat...

But, what begins well ends well, so I am starting to think that all of the apparent build-up by the Omani codes of conduct surrounding male and female interaction are really just meant to keep everyone on edge, and those in the younger crowd just know what is expected of them but don't really have as much esteem for the rules as I initially expected. I've been having these thoughts for a while, but just now built up the courage to express them. Hopefully this goes well, too. And please know that I only have good intentions.


So... my head is crooked, cocked just a little to the side - searching for ways to get straight again. I've got this persistent nauseousness that flares up from time to time, but never really leaves me. I can't figure it out really, although I have a few theories. I am love deprived, and not just the romantic type. Any and all physical contact with people has been removed (save for a casual handshake here and there) and the biggest reason I have to believe that I am yet human is that I still feel the primal urges for eating, sleeping and, well, you know... I am only hoping that there is some brevity to my insanity. Amie, it's time for you to be here.

A new vantage point

I am back in Oman again. I was in the United States for a brief two and a half weeks, a time I looked at as an eternity before I left, but a time that passed all to quickly once I was there. I must say that my attitude about the country, and what it means to be an American, has changed significantly over the past five months. I began to look not only at the great list of faults that America and its leadership has been racking up recently, but also at the enduring principles and qualities that help it retain its value. America has an overwhelming sense of acceptance of other peoples and cultures - at least that is, once you have been able to cross its boarders. Of course it is false to believe in any Utopian society, and I will never believe that I have found one, yet there can be perpetual attempts - and I am more akin than ever, to think that the United States is one.

Many people say that nowadays the sense of family, responsibility and duty in the United States is gone, or at least, isn't what it used to be - as if that were an entirely bad thing. First of all, how can we expect something so dynamic to remain the same forever, and secondly, whoever say that was all perfect in the first place. I am motivated to talk about these things because of my own singular experience in my family unit, pulling from the principles and values this experience has instilled in me. Perhaps after writing all of this I will begin to realize that I am trying to make a general statement about a massive unit based on quite particular examples - but I would like to believe nonetheless that some of what I am saying is representative of a greater trend.

I am not going to get into the inner workings of my family life at this moment. What I want to say is simpler than that, or at least more brief. What I have realized from the fast paced changes that my life has been going through in the recent past, and the prospect of even more changes in the near future, is that life doesn't stay the same anywhere - and each person, most of all, is going through their own unique changes. What I am beginning to realize about myself is that at some point, after all of these blazing changes have taken their course, I will be ready to anchor one part of my life in a certain place, or at least with certain people very close to me.

I am coming into a period of my life where a lot of big decisions will need to be made. And I have committed to a relationship that demands that these decisions be made with my counterpart in mind. I am so excited to start this process, and I am ready to start seeing what types of changes these decisions will be bringing.

Ups and Downs

It's been a fast and slow couple of months. The days have been flying by but the moments have sometimes been dragging on.

Relationships are important. Love relationships are even more important. All relationships change, and it is through the juxtaposition of myself next to the various relationships that I've been able to maintain that I can evaluate who I am and how I have changed.

When so much is changing all around you it is sometimes easy to let the small things fall through the cracks. For a short while that may be ok. But in the long run, the small make up the big - and if you keep letting the small things slip by then you may just end up losing it all.

I am going through a big reorientation of self right now. I am weeding through what I once knew and what I know now, evaluating what has transpired and blending it all together to decide who I want to become.

Parts of me have become comatose during this period of change and adjustment. Only now are these parts of me reawakening. I have been keeping myself in a tightly focused direction, because to let myself go would mean the dissolution of all of my ability to understand my immediate purpose in day to day life. I am getting stronger now, and loosening my blinders to open my mind and heart again to the rich surroundings of my personal and internal world.

Keeping this tight direction has made me start to stumble - and I would be up for a fall if I could not bring myself to look up. The downs are always good though, because they make the ups possible. For me, its just important that I climb higher than I fall.

To those who keep up with the developments of this blog, I apologize for the series of reflective entries, and the lack of filler in between. My absence was a low of sorts, and the upswing promises to be more productive and insightful than ever before.

The Search for the Soul continues

A Little Taste of India in Oman

As has been iterated to me several times, India and Oman have an intimate history. The two cultures and countries have been exchanging people and and goods for centuries, probably millenia. Therefore, it shouldn't have been much of a surprise to me when our good Indian friend in Oman Deepkamal invited us to participate in an Indian festival being hosted in his neighborhood. However, as I walked into the venue, had a little traditional food, and then started participating in the traditional stick dancing that is such a part of Kuvrati culture, I couldn't help myself from thinking - I can't believe I'm in Oman right now. From everything that I could see, Brett, David and I were the only people present who were not Indian themselves - there were certainly no Omanis there. Yet, what struck me as incredible was not my own contrast with our Indian hosts, by simple visuals and our bad dancing, but the simple fact that this festival was taking place in Oman. None of the women were veiled, men and women were free to speak and interact, and a likeness of an Indian god was present where those who chose were free to make their prayers and offerings. And this festival was not done in secret. To be completely honest, I couldn't believe that I was in a Muslim country.

Maybe it is simply due to my own ignorance about the true tolerance of Islam for other people's cultures and beliefs. Maybe it is simply another testament to the openness and warmth of the Omani people and culture. Perhaps it is a little bit of both.

After the last week's events of the Eid celebration, which itself alone was enough to move mountains within me, and then this simple show of acceptance and openness, I cannot help but to say that I love this country.

Oh yeah, and the festival was a blast too.

The World Is Not Flat...

It's connected. Or connecting...

I finished reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman not too long ago. Along the duration of the book, I couldn't help but see how AIESEC is fitting into this flat world that Friedman describes - collaborative across borders giving people from all different parts of the wold access to the same tools and ideas that can truly promote understanding and cooperation. It's shocking now, working in Oman and collaborating people from Dubai all the way to New York.

AIESEC will truly be one of these catalysts of the flattening process that Friedman describes. It will only grow in importance as it grows, inspiring in the world a connecting process unlike any known before.