Subzero Blue

Alternative Energy: Is The Price Justified?

A couple of days ago I was flipping through tv channels when I came across this show that was just beginning; the show was about biofuel, and the presenter listing the different points of the show went on about how they would talk about how cost-effective biofuel is and whether the outcome justifies the cost.

This is an approach that I’ve been seeing in a number of places by a number of people, and I’m totally against it, because we don’t really have an option anymore; this is not a business issue where you evaluate what you’re going to get out of doing something, compare it to what you’re putting in and then decide what to do; this is a totally different ball game, whatever the cost, we have to act!

Through years of ignoring nature and scientific facts we’ve driven our planet to the brink of chaos and disaster, and if we don’t act fast to come up with and use alternative sources of energy, it won’t be long before we lose the most precious thing we can leave for our children and future generations: a habitable planet to live on.

So instead of asking whether the price is justified, we should ask how we can make it affordable and accessible for more people, because the justification is stronger than any there could ever be, and there is no need to even think of discussing it.

My Perfect Tunisian Summer Day

Inspired by an off-topic question posted in one of the comments, I felt like posting what a perfect summer vacation day in Tunisia would be like for me:

– Wake up whenever I feel like it
– Have ftayer (pancakes) for breakfast
– Hit one of the beaches in the North of Tunisia for half a day (Best Places To Swim In Tunisia)
– Go back home for lunch, preferably Macaroni or Couscous
– Rest, watch a movie, take a nap…
– Go out for some ice cream and a walk on La Marsa’s Boulevard
– Have a delicious Bambaloni (Tunisian donut) in Sidi Bou Said
– Meet with some friends and enjoy the evening over a nice cup of tea with pine nuts in the Sidi Chebaane Caf

Do It, Just Don’t Get Caught!

I think one of the biggest problems of the Arab world today is the “Do whatever you want as long as I don’t catch you doing it” mentality and attitude that’s being applied to a wide variety of things we just don’t want to handle.

This problem exists at all levels of our Arab societies, and it’s simply a way of avoiding to face the issues and problems that exist and taking the necessary steps to address or solve them.

An example I’ve seen so many times at the family level: The tough father forbids his son to smoke; but he knows his son is smoking behind his back, he smells the smoke, he finds the traces, his son stinks of smoke; but as long as he doesn’t smoke in front of him and he doesn’t catch him smoking, it’s somehow fine!

Again at the family level: the parents are conservative and don’t want their daughter having any relationships with boys, yet in reality they are more or less sure she has a boyfriend, still it seems to be ok as long as they don’t catch her with him.

At the society and government levels, there are many other examples as well, one of which is homosexuality; As a mainly conservative society, homosexuality is frowned upon in the Arab world, and is even illegal by law in some countries, but the general approach by the society and governments is to ignore it and let gay people do whatever they want as long as they’re not caught doing it.

Prostitution, extremism, bribery, nepotism, and the long list continues, are all other serious issues that are dealt with in the same way in countries around the Arab world.

The same approach is used in so many other places, at so many other levels for so many different issues and problems.

This policy of turning our back on things and acting like they’re not there happening right behind us is surely a failed one, it will only make the situation or problem worse, as we run away from the responsabilities we have, postponing our decisions, and letting our indecision and fear control us.

The fact that a certain issue is a hard one should give us all the more incentive to face it, solve it if it’s a problem, reach a compromise if it’s a sort of conflict, in short find a way to deal with it and move forward.

If I Were A Woman…

– I wouldn’t nag and nag and then nag some more…
– I wouldn’t talk simply for the sake of talking…
– I wouldn’t spend over two hours getting ready to go out for only half an hour…
– I wouldn’t go into panic mode at the slightest hint of a wrinkle starting to form on my face…
– I would always be on time…
– I wouldn’t be a bimbo…
– I wouldn’t be insanely addicted to shoes…
– I would only go shopping when I needed to…
– I wouldn’t obsess on how big or small a certain body part of mine is…
– I wouldn’t be a tease…
– I wouldn’t talk about things I have no idea about…
– I wouldn’t give a shit about this or that celebrity’s new look…

I think you get the idea…

But above all: I wouldn’t complain and nag about how much I want to be treated as an equal to man, and then ask to be treated specially, as a woman, when it suits me better.

These points are inspired from the different annoying things I have seen in a lot of girls and women at work, at the mall, at school, …etc throughout my life.

Obviously not one person can have all these things together, that’d be a disaster, although I’ve seen some people come pretty close, and it’s really rare to find a girl/woman who doesn’t have at least one of them; I believe my dear wife is one of the closest there is to that side of the spectrum; lucky me.

Update: I’ve obviously upset some people with this post, who think that it’s a sexist post. I just wanted to apologize if it came across as such, it wasn’t meant in that way at all. The idea of the post is that we, from both sexes, find a number of annoying things in the opposite sex, and this post just summed some of these things in women. It doesn’t imply in any way that we men are perfect or superior, in fact I know that we’re even worse in our own ways, and I’ll even be posting about that soon.

Why Were We Created?

Why were we created?
That’s one big question; one that doesn’t necessarily have one exact answer, but well depending on who you ask, you’ll be getting a range of different answers.

For example,
A pious person would tell you that we were created to worship God.
A scientist would tell you that we were created to discover the amazing secrets of our world.
A philosopher would tell you that we were created to think.
An artist would tell you that we were created to simulate the perfections and imperfections of the world through art.
A philanthropist would tell you that we were created to help others.

And the list of answers continues, every person bringing his own ideas and beliefs to the table, further confirming that there is no universal answer or truth behind it, much like every other question we have in life.

Out of curiosity, why do you think we were created?

You Live, You Learn

You live, you learn
You love, you learn
You cry, you learn
You lose, you learn
You bleed, you learn
You scream, you learn
You grieve, you learn
You choke, you learn
You laugh, you learn
You choose, you learn
You pray, you learn
You ask, you learn
You live, you learn

These great words come from one of my favourite Alanis Morissette songs “You Learn“, and the big important keyword here is “learn”, because going through life without learning from our different experiences is basically nothing but a huge waste of time.

Everything that happens to us happens for a reason, and it’s up to us to learn that reason, learn the lessons behind it, and do what is needed to make our lives better and more like we want them to be.

How To Have A Better Life

I was just surfing around Scribd when I came across a really interesting post by Joe Mazzella, called “A Better Life“.

I’ve been thinking about the issue of happiness and what a person can do to have a better life quite often lately, and I think Joe sums it up really well and in a beautiful way.

…the only way to have a better life is to live a better life, and only way to give your children a better life is to show them how to live a better life as well.

How do you live a better life? You start by living more for your soul and less for your wallet. You spend more time hugging and less time buying.

You turn off the television and take a walk with your children. You smile more and worry less. You spend more time with your loved ones and less time at the office. You laugh longer and more often.

You look in your heart more and in the mirror less. You make your first job spreading joy rather than earning money. You realize just how much God loves you and you spend your days sharing that love with everyone you meet. And you always remember that your life is a gift from God and how you live it is your gift back.

I couldn’t agree more…

The Pursuit Of Happiness

… And it was at that time that I thought about Thomas Jefferson writing that Declaration of Independence. Him saying that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I thought about how he knew to put the ‘pursuit’ in there, like no one can actually have happiness. We can only pursue it.

— Christopher Gardner (The Pursuit Of Happyness)

Do you really think that no matter what we do, we can never really attain happiness; we can only pursue it?

Small Talk, Foreplay And Conversations

Isn’t it weird that whenever we need to talk to someone about something, we can’t simply just dive into the subject and start asking whatever we have to ask or saying whatever we have to say, we always have to start off with some small talk, a set of meaningless questions and answers that are just for the sake of making a little pre-conversation.
Is it because we think it’s rude to just jump into a certain subject?
Or is it because we want to set the mood before we launch a discussion?
Or is it because we don’t actually know how to start?

Personally, I think small talk is a waste of time, if you have something in mind, just stop beating around the bush, and go straight to it, it’ll save you both time and effort, and will win you more time talking about what you really want to talk about.

Small talk, I think, should be reserved for those awkward moments when you’re with someone and you have nothing to say to them, they have nothing to say to you, and there’s this haunting silence hanging above you; that’s when it could be considered somehow useful.

In the end, this interesting thought crossed my mind, and well I sort of liked it, so I thought I’d share it with you in the form of a quote (Yeah I’m quoting my thoughts now, I know…):

“Small talk is the foreplay of a conversation, only it doesn’t feel anywhere as good.”

True, don’t you think?

Anyway, just to make things clear: foreplay good, small talk bad, or maybe not bad as in bad, but just a waste of time.

The Inheritance Of Dead Ideas

It is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant, all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.

— Henrik Ibsen

It’s so true…
We carry so much useless and unwanted baggage that is passed on to us from the previous generations, and implicitly it just weighs us down, stifles our chances to be creative and imposes illogical limits on our lives, choices and freedom.
It is our responsibility to not pass any of that to our children and to really give them a clean slate on which they can freely draw out their lives.