Thought Picnic: In the open and broad light of day

I know I did

The last thing I did was send a message via WhatsApp and I shut down the phone to conserve battery power. Soon after, rather than put the mobile phone in my belt holster, I put it in my bag, I also switched off my Samsung Galaxy Tab and my mobile wireless dongle– I vividly remember all that, in that order.

Whenever I put my mobile phone in my bag, it always goes into the upper zippered compartment in the bag, it is the same place where my pill box and dongle goes.

But it’s not there

As I left one place for another close to midnight, I looked in my bag and somehow, I could not find my mobile phone, my mind raced ahead of my reality – I had lost it, and with that, it defined what I could see and what I could not – I earnestly believed I had lost my phone on the second and third time of checking. I was literally driven to distraction, well almost.

Now, impulsively, I could have returned to where I was to ask if anyone had handed in my phone, but I decided it could wait, but that wait almost made the night look like it would never end.

Wait for the morning

I knew there was nothing I could do until the morning, but I had to have a plan of action, return to the venue to ask about my phone, report it lost, engage the remote control antitheft facility to locate it if it gets switched on, have a picture taken of the person using it and send a message that I be contacted immediately before performing a remote wipe of the data.

Then again, I was ahead of myself, there is too much data on that phone for me to scrub it just like that, besides, it is my most reliable point of contact in these times of transition apart from the second interview I have scheduled for Thursday – mitigation, contingency, recovery and near panic – well, not really.

I tried to scheme what I needed to do and after having made out my plan to go out first thing in the morning to ask about my phone, I did everything to switch off from the bother and got on with other activities using my handy gadget that harbours the demons that haunt me constantly – the self-destruct button – a rational fatalism and much else.

Your spirit speaks

As the dawn broke, just as I reached for my bag, a voice in my head said, your phone is with you whilst another jocularly said, Fat Chance!

In the open light of day, as I considered unpacking my bag for one last time, the first thing I picked out of the upper zippered compartment was my mobile phone.

This clearly illustrates how our minds can becloud our reality leading us to believe something completely different from the truth despite the fact that the recollection of past events were as vivid as anyone could have them, I knew I put the phone in the bag, I could not think of how it could have slipped out – but there.

A switch for the mind

Besides, whilst this was another test of how I handle situations, I have been informed by experience again that I should trust my judgement a bit more, especially where I can recollect to minute detail what I did before.

More importantly, what you just need to time, maybe a clear head, maybe just absence from the situation or a wait until the dawn – usually that means you are tackling the problem with a fresh mind and all that exacting preoccupation of the mind and plans – We need a switch for that thing called the mind.

Daytime television a cure for current news

Cannot stand the news anymore

Even I cannot believe it; I have not sought, desired or watched any news for almost a week. It is strange, I am your news junkie doped up on an overdose of every snippet of news from all the networks, especially with a digital channels that give me access to at least 10 stations including Al Jazeera.

I can only attribute my lack of interest in the news to the gnawing propaganda machinery that has slanted the required objective assessment of issues in the Middle-East and the way global leadership conveniently tags every legitimate aspiration to self-determination as part of the war against terror.

The meaning of the war on terror

In fact, we can redefine the war against terror as any situation where America and the West have no immediate financial gain as their interests are threatened by people who have another perspective to the issue.

This is because this broad definition is what is happening in practice, each issue is assessed in some self-interest monetary terms or the ability to exert hegemony to emasculate other nation states.

Nowadays, suspicion is enough cause for proof of guilt as is the case of Iran’s nuclear experiments.

The peace of apathy

It allows Lebanon to be leveled in the quest to humiliate Hezbollah militarily in a 19^th Century strategy that believes in military solutions to what is essentially a historical situation that needs bold diplomatic moves that take full account of the affected people.

Anyway, the news becomes staple that creates apathy, as if I now care about how many rockets land anywhere or the collateral damage counted in innocent lives extinguished in the facelessness of an American precision weapon or some Syrian-technology missile.

It is obvious, this is no Six-day-war and there would be no winners in this fracas; the reoccupation of Lebanon would entrench the forces that Israel wants to uproot, but, who is to say Israel does not like living dangerously.

Is Judah also Israel?

Somehow, I am coming to the view that the situation in the Middle-East cannot continue as it is, people have striven to plant the land of Israel within the confines of what was the smaller kingdom of Judah – the more this happens the more it appears like an aberration.

Biblical scholars had better start dusting their biblical history and ancient cartography.

I would suggest that there would be most likely, like in the ancient times, be another dispersal of the Jews – etymology of Diaspora - before they are resettled again in places that might not bear any semblance to what we have today.

Those given to eschatology had better read the signs of the times again and look for deeper interpretation of prophecy – Peace, will not come to Israel on the edge of a sword or the tips of sophisticated weapons.