1 February – I am relieved that Brexit is happening, and that the impeachment saga will be over soon and that self-indulgent politicians in London and Washington could find more amusing issues to squabble about, or, for a change address the destructive and menacing global and national challenges afflicting all of us such as poverty and extreme inequality, health care, global warming, and such less sensational but really existential issues!

Oh, it will be Harry and Megan, the umpteenth Israeli elections in one year, and the global scare about a virus that killed less than 300 people. About the same number of people were killed daily in Syria for several years, to give just one example!

5 February – On the #UN, oblivion and optics: So you are in a conflict country or a country nearby and you arrive at a meeting room for NGOs involved in conflict and rights issues to find the building surrounded by big #UN marked 4X4 cars with antennas — including one that blocks the entrance to the building with #WFP markings. 

You go to your meeting room with the NGOs and you cannot discuss your issues in peace. The room is invaded by the raucous behavior and noise from the 30 UN guys who are receiving a security training (not people’s security but their own security, a training that I know is partly required to satisfy insurance agencies requirements for staff members). 

And funnily enough it is these NGOs that work on the ground in conflict area. They deliver aid, write reports and do advocacy and not these UN guys (not most of them who only go to hot areas with the blessings and after agreement from the dominant belligerent party, i.e. the government of Assad for example). And after all that the UN noisy and over-trained but underworked guys call the NGOs Implementing Partners …. really! 

Excuse my #rant against certain behaviors from oblivious UN staff members (I worked on both sides and I know and it is early morning).

6 February – Those who heavily sit in a corner and when they move even in a crowded room they are like ‘dementors’ sucking out life and energy, those whose depression is not of the human healthy kind nor of the ultimately enlightening personal kind, those who are self-indulgent and always on guard about how others see and treat them … those types, avoid them or handle with caution. After all they truly suffer and are their own miserable punishment but until they catch up with themselves and bring it down they spread misery and deadness around them.

28 February – “When we fail to look at death for what it is – as an inseparable part of life – and do not live our lives accordingly, our thoughts and actions become disconnected from reality … Eventually, we would meet death as though we have never lived in the first place, with no clue as to what life is and how to deal with it,” Gesha Dadul Namgyal, a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Buddhist ideas often mesmerize me by their deceiving simplicity, almost naivety or circularity (“if you are disconnected form life then you don’t live” kind of argument) but then you think twice and thrice and become intrigued with how perceptive such statements could be.