Part Two 2008:
My life story changes everyday – by that i mean every time i learn something new (which is often). I find consistency a hard one. i find discovery an endless process. i find seeking to be a state of being and uncertainty a way of life. I like Yes and No. not yes or no. Why? because every time i learn something new, my perceived reality changes. (i understand that some define reality as definite and definite as reality; i don’t… i can’t). Being sure, is simply a sign of not knowing or searching enough. whether it be politics, sociology, psychology, philosophy or theology. knowledge becomes wisdom when it starts to see single events on multiple levels simultaneously. or when the individual becomes self-referential.
So today i live in brussels. I just terminated a contract in the South Sinai (Egypt) as a journalist/marketer with an E.U. development project. If everything works out i will be starting the Special forces (para-Commandos) in the beginning of november 08. It is in Belgium but functions under Nato. Why? i don’t know. maybe a good story in which i can re-live childhood fantasies in real life. life is short. there is so much to do in so little time. I still want to study medicine. I want to move back to canada some day. i want to walk up everest. I want to hitchhike from egypt to south africa. I want to paraglide in New Zealand and snowboard in Antarctica. I want to see all my friends again in one place. I want to reach a frame of mind that acts and reacts as though it was my last chance to do so. I want to be able to tell people i love how i feel about them before they or i pass along. I want to stop judging, completely – accepting that the last thing that i am is better. we struggle the same, love the same, cry the same, and laugh the same. i have done less or more mistakes than my neighbor only because i haven’t had his or her life. I believe what i believe only because i was born at a certain time and place, and in a very special family. I try to do with what I have been given. . . and live a story where every page i write today, every chapter i finish tomorrow, will be read with not regrets. I also hope that this story is a page-turner, an unordinary life that pushes the limits wherever possible. this is my ambition… maybe it is grand, even too grand, but i only have one chance… i may as well try.
Part One, 2006:
Often i look outside and wonder how and why i am literally in the middle of north america, living in a town surrounded by dirt roads and 400 people.
I was born in Karachi, Pakistan…12th biggest city in the world i think. lived there until the age of seven, when the gulf war started, and then moved to Belgium. After a few months i found myself in southern Germany, right by the border of france going to an american school. I always thought i would return to Pakistan, it was my home and i hadn’t even really realized i would never see my house or friends again. Germany was a new world to me, but i was young enough to adapt quite quickly. People came from all over the world, and i was just one of them. after several years i moved to england for two years. Again hit by a new world and culture that i had much more difficulty adapting to. I looked like them, but that was about it. i returned to Germany without my family at 16, and after graduating i travelled northern africa having no idea where i was going to next.
I first touched Canada when i was 18; landed in Vancouver international airport. My family was over 3000 miles away and i was born on exactly the other side of the world. Again no one knew who i was… i was a clean slate for the 4th time in my life and i had left everything for the 4th time in my life. two years later i started over again in Manitoba, studying theology after having done philosophy in Vancouver. A year later i moved again to study sciences at Concordia in montreal. This was my 6th start over in life at the age of 22. identity is a hard one for me and my family; we have accents in every language we speak. Everybody i meet has one culture and may have witnessed a few others, i can’t even begin to describe my culture. I don’t have one. I hear all different types of people speaking confidently about the same issues… and its always different. Eventually these things seem to catch up. Providence College… here i am studying theology again and communications and media. how did i end up here? out of everywhere in the world, i am here in otterburne. Sometimes my mind can’t get around that simple concept. Driving through canada trying to imagine myself 6 years ago imagining about where i am right now; crazy. what’s next? pf… that question brings a rush of anxiety so strong that i never let myself think about it too much. Here and now; Providence and its people. i must live in this moment, because this moment is all that I have.
