During this quarantine, I have been rebelling against the eurocentric notions of cohesion and focus in my creative work. Constructs such as cohesion and focus limit creativity and make life a banal and unbearably bureaucratic nightmare.
As a mediocre artist and pseudo intellectual, I should be encouraged to express my freedom and madness without constant creative limitations. During this quarantine, around 200 ideas come into my consciousness a day, and if I fail to channel them in a healthy and creative manner, I am almost guaranteed to have another mental breakdown like John Stewart Mill had in 1826.
All my ramblings end up becoming poor randations of Kafka’s letters to his father, but they are a sufficient way of combating the feelings of existential dread that haunt my soul daily with dark thoughts. I am trying to let go of all these dark and obstructive thoughts through aesthetic therapy.
I am truly exhausted with academic and journalistic writing, which has become filled with creative limitations. I am on a spiritual search for my inner self, and the only way I can get some answers is through art and creativity.
I have become so unfocused and delusional that the only way I can create art is through getting my ideas out vis-à-vis the stream of consciousness method, which was perfected in David Foster Wallace’s magnum opus Infinite Jest.
I have messy hair, bright eyes, and a raspy yet reserved voice. I am characterized by both boundless energy and introverted melancholy. All my writings and art are an attempt to dive deep into my roots and confused soul. I try to create work that is both subtle and complex, but I fail at doing both.
I love bands such as Radiohead, The Velvet Underground, Blur, The Clash, Kraftwerk and Talking Heads. I love French rock singers from Serge Gainsbourg to Alain Bashung. I also like Marvin Gaye, the disco producer Giorgio Moroder, Alan Vega, Bo Diddley, Johnny Cash, Public Enemy, Elvis Presley and Lou Reed. I adore electronica, the musical revolution of the late twentieth century, as well as hypnotic Gnawas guembris and Sufi trance sounds.
My favorite song at the moment is called "Minouche", in which the Algerian-French rockstar Rachid Taha sings on sensually: “Minouche ma minouche, pourquoi tu te fâches, ne prends pas la mouche, ma jolie peau de vache… Minouche, donne-moi ta bouche” (Minouche, my little Minouche, why are you upset, don’t get into a huff, my pretty vixen... Minouche, let me kiss you).
I love Taha because he is an unpretentious and humane artist that celebrates his culture while exposing its hypocrisy. Taha was always an outspoken post-colonial political voice who was fearless in the face of authorities and critics.
My interest in film ranges from contemporary French, Iranian and Turkish cinema. I also love John Ford Westerns, Coen Brothers films as well as those of American Auteur Martin Scorsese.
I also adore the films of Spanish Auteur Pedro Almodóvar and Swedish Auteur Ingmar Bergman. I have dreams about Pablo Picasso exhibitions and I dislike Andy Warhol’s pop art. I like Jean Cocteau, as well as the writings of Kahlil Gibran, Omar Khayyām and Abû Nuwâs.
My favorite food is spaghetti. I also like koshari, couscous and baked beans. I wish I was less pretentious — as I have become unbearable these last couple of years. Pretentious and moody folks like me only act the way they do because they are insecure and bitter about their lives. I wish I could talk to the everyday person on the street again.
I feel like I am way out of today’s mainstream and that I better belong in the times of Serge Gainsbourg. I think our culture as a whole has become more and more restrictive, it's hard to be physical and charismatic.
A lot of the time, I have a confrontational attitude. It's not my thing to smile and be charming. I have never fallen for cosy certainties or hippy-hugging harmony. I am more of a strange growling rebel without a cause, of the outlaw archetype.
I am gregarious and quick with a smile. I always had and strived for a cosmopolitan group of friends. I've never wanted to just stay in my own neighborhood, my own community. It's a kind of conformism. You have to be adventurous.
I wish I wasn't so quick to trash dumb Hollywood movies, since calling them dumb is a pretentious thing to say. In my free time, I love to tell long stories and talk about my favorite auteurs.
I also love discussing Middle Eastern politics and political philosophy at the dinner table. I have really vivid nightmares about the end of our world. Most nights, I can never get a full night's sleep because I am nervous about everything. I love mother nature and humanity is raping it — but soon mother nature will do the same to us.
The world leaders around us are liars, thieves, humiliators, killers, oppressors, traitors, envious, rotters, diggers, propagandists, destroyers, humiliators, slavers, lazy, It's time to get rid of them! Ask them for an explanation!"
With the people I like and enjoy hanging out with I spill out my political opinions loudly and profanely. I have always made a business of scandalizing nearly everything around me.
I am an equal opportunity offender, whether I am criticizing anti-immigrant bigotry or the homophobia and misogyny of North African culture. I am an intellectual loner firing my Winchester at smug hypocrisy and half-baked platitudes on all sides.
Our culture is not democratic, they have neutered the people. There is no right to speak! Neither law, nor consideration. At the same time, there are democracies where the same types of crimes are taking place as in Arab dictatorships — democracies that are losing their way. It's a very frightening time.
Politically, I describe myself as a pan-African environmentalist. I don't like eurocentricity. We're still in the era of the West and America holding on to their role as the arbiters of pop music and film of Africa and everything else, even the economy and life itself. Africa is just left to die, just as African culture is just left to die too.
I see myself as a cosmoplitian metrosexual liberal, but I criticize liberals the most because I expect the most from them. Liberals have become hypocritical and naive, but they are a much better alternative to the unimaginative neoconservatives who unequivocally worship the free market at the determinant of mother nature.
I despise woke culture, as it denies self reflection and the complexities of human nature. I am skeptical of white liberals who belittle minority groups with terms such as “people of color” — denying them their own intellectual and moral individuality. I hate political correctness because it is restrictive.
I am interested in identity, democracy, the root causes of violence, the persistence of idealism in a broken world and the gulf of understanding between Eastern and the Western nations. I wish more people talked to their neighbors and took more interest in what's going on in the world. One should not be afraid to speak out against injustice.
I am uninterested in religion, as it is not valid for people who want to think and reflect. I also dislike the moral decay and rampant individualism of our age. I want my good humor and spirit to make people love God although he might not exist.
Leave the past to the past. The last have been buried. Don't hurt anyone. Don't be jealous of anyone. Turn the page. I like joyous love. As for me, my heart is pure! Joyous!
I love making love and falling in love but I hate being in love. I would make love to a beautiful woman under the Parisian sun and a blue starred night everyday for the rest of my life.
Love is complicated and painful. As a matter of fact, although I am a Feminist, deep down I have misogynistic tendencies.
I have never respected any of the women I have romantically been involved with. Each woman that I meet in my life gets more consecutively irritating than the other. Often, I see them as moody, selfish, inauthentic and irrational.
I find any beautiful and intelligent woman to be alluring and heavenly. Any part of a beautiful woman's body is the most sexy, pure and humane phenomena known to man.
A woman's breasts, butox and genitals are the most aesthetically pleasant phenomena on this earth. I have an unhealthy porn addiction.
I get more upset about the deaths of my favorite artists than I would about most family members.
Every time I try to be happy, it only lasts for a week and I go back to my typical existential dread. Sometimes I hope I die a painless death in my sleep. Other times, I am energetic and euphoric about life.