Subzero Blue

One Chapter Ends, Another Begins…

Today was my last day at work, bringing an end to another chapter in my professional life, turning a new page for me to pen some new experiences on, launching a new adventure for me, a new quest.

The last day at a job is a very emotional one for me, especially when you’ve made so many great friends there, bonded with so many people, shared countless unforgettable moments, and became part of a really warm family.

I hate goodbyes, and today I had to say goodbye to a number of people I’ve truly come to love over the past years, people I used to see every single day, and spend a big part of my life with.

The decision to leave was no easy one, in fact far from that, especially because of all the great people, but nothing lasts forever I guess, and I just reached a point where I had to move on professionally, take on new challenges, learn new things, and build another layer of experience to get me closer to my final goal.

To all my friends and team-mates, I’d truly like to thank you all for the beautiful moments we shared, for the good times we had, the bad times we pulled through together, for every single thing you did for me, for being awesome, for being such an important part of my life.
I’ll never forget you, and will always cherish the memories we’ve created together.

Well, what next for me? The next step for me is quite a big one. On top of leaving a job, I’ll also be leaving my country Tunisia, jumping aboard a plane to a new destination, putting up my weathered nomad’s tent in yet another country, where I’ll be taking on a new exciting adventure, meeting new people, making new friends and writing another chapter of my life, full of hope it’ll be a rich and fulfilling one. Next week I move to Dubai.

I’ll be writing more about that on here as it happens, documenting the move, my exploration of Dubai, and sharing my thoughts and experiences.

Until then, I’ll count on you for a little wish of good luck, I’ll be needing it.

Fate, Our Old Bittersweet Mysterious Friend

Last night, I sent a little tweet on twitter asking: “What do you do when even fate is having trouble deciding what do with you?”

It was a question that occured to me and that I thought was quite funny, after a little surprise I found waiting for me in the evening, that reminded me how sarcastic our old friend fate can be, and how it sometimes chooses to mess around with your mind for fun.

The message on twitter got replicated on my facebook wall, on friendfeed and elsewhere; and it got a number of interesting replies, one of which was by my friend Amine Kochlef, that got me thinking more about life, fate and its inner workings.

Amine’s take was: “We decide for ourselves, fate is just a mirage built upon our cultural background.”
Very beautifully said, but I don’t totally agree, yet I don’t disagree either.

That view eliminates fate altogether, implying that everything is in our own hands, we decide for ourselves, we build our own lives, make our own choices, and go wherever we want to go.

The problem with that view, as much as we’d like to believe in it, is that it only works in a world where we’re alone, with no exterior influence, only affected by our own actions, with a direct and clear cause and effect relationship for everything.

The thing is we’re not in such a world, and people’s actions are complexly intertwined in a way that a little action by someone could have a direct or indirect effect on someone right next to them or someone else halfway across the world; now multiply that by several several times.
All these actions are things that a person has no control over, but are all factors that come into play in their life, and affect the outcome of their own decisions and actions.

This plethora of actions taking place around us, sometimes fall into place to work in our favor, and in other times against us; and some of the words we have created to describe all this are: luck, coincidence, jinx, …etc.

One of the definitions of fate is: “An event (or a course of events) that will inevitably happen in the future; Your overall circumstances or condition in life (including everything that happens to you)“.

This view eliminates our role in determining what happens to us, putting it fully in the hands of this so-called fate, which basically means that whatever we do, the results will be the same as it’s all pre-determined no matter what we do. That of course cannot be true, because it goes against basic logic and truth.

Like most things in life, I think the truth falls somewhere in the middle; we don’t live in a strictly direct action/effect world, and neither do we live in a world where only the effect exists no matter the action taken. I think it’s more like a bunch of actions/reactions/effects combinations.

These combinations of actions, reactions, effects, coincidences, lucky strikes, jinxes and what not are what I think fate really is; a living ever-changing sequence of intertwined acts that touches every single one of us, plays games with us, gives us a break at times, blocks a road some other times, puts us at a crossroads every once in a while, and creates the circumstances around us that we operate and

Tunisia Blog Awards 2008: Why Is It Up In Flames?

Before I even start this post, I’ll have to admit that I haven’t been as active as I once was in the Tunisian blogging scene, even though I try to always follow what’s going on.

It’s not that I don’t feel like I’m a part of it anymore, neither is it because I think it’s gotten mixed up or anything, in fact quite the opposite, I’m very happy with where we’ve all gotten to. Just a few years ago, Tunisian bloggers could be counted on the fingers of one hand; now we have hundreds of active bloggers who are writing about everything, and voicing their opinions and thoughts about any issue that comes to mind. Day after day, the Tunisian blogosphere is representing the Tunisian society more and more, but in a more open and free way, and that can only be great, and I can only be proud that I’ve been there to witness it all from the beginning.

Anyway back to the topic of this post, the big hot story of today in the Tunisian blogosphere, the Tunisia Blog Awards 2008. It seems these awards are going up in flames, with many blogs joining the anti-TBA campaign, strongly condemning how the organizers have been filtering blog submissions and not accepting certain blogs, that are actually very popular ones, and who would certainly end up winning if left to join.

I’m personally not too hot for awards thingies of this kind at a stage like we’re at, and haven’t even checked who has been nominated and accepted, all I know is who hasn’t, and I think some of them are among the best Tunisian bloggers we have, and that it is unacceptable to ban them from joining because of what they write.

Some of these blogs were even nominated and won in the last Tunisia Blog Awards, so what has changed since then?

Well it seems it’s because the organizers are trying to make a bigger deal out of this one, bringing sponsors on board, thereby making it commercial, and because of it having to run a “clean”, “friendly” and well, let’s just say it as it is, censored event.
Yep, yep, it seems money brought its old friend censorship to the party again!

And that’s totally wrong, the blogosphere is a whole, it’s not a selection of friendly neutral blogs, as great as those might be, it’s everything, it’s a mirror of the Tunisian society, and should be taken as such.

This should be understood by the organizers and explained to the sponsors. It’s either you organize and sponsor a true Tunisia Blog Awards, or you just don’t do it. There is no compromise. Done otherwise, it can be called anything but the Tunisia Blog Awards, because it wouldn’t be representative of the Tunisian blogosphere, or the Tunisian society, and that would make it meaningless.

Of course, there should be rules, that should be clear from the beginning, and that should be logical, not for censorship purposes. These should be communicated on, explained and held on to. And everyone should stick to them and just them.

Another point my friend Houssein made is that on top of everything, this crisis was very badly managed by the organizers, with them staying silent while the fire grew bigger, not admitting they’re wrong, not taking part in the conversation, and actually trying to stop it by closing the group’s wall on Facebook. That last point is unexplainable to me, I mean what were they thinking? These are bloggers you’re dealing with, and you’re shutting down a group wall? They’ll just run to their blogs and open fire on you!
If anything it shows ignorance to what bloggers and blogging is all about: freedom, expression, conversations and opinions.

Nothing personal against the organizers, whom I’ve met, and who are a very sweet and cool bunch, but they just did everything wrong with this.
I’d really hate to be in their place right now.