Philosophy of mind, ethics, phenomenology, and mindfulness. Generally, a critic & gadfly. Roams like a bee collecting nectar.
Paris, France
Joined March 2009
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If you wish to venture into infinity,
Explore the finite in every direction.
If you wish to delight in the whole,
You must learn to see the whole
In the smallest of things.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)
I believe we are embodied, conscious beings with genuine freedom. Several values matter, some moral truths go beyond opinion, and reason should remain connected to lived experience. I also suspect reality contains more than physical processes alone
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In Greek mythology, Heracles was given one day to clean King Augeas's stables, which held years of filth. He didn't pick up a shovel. He turned two great rivers through the stables and washed it all away at once.
Lebanon today carries the heaps of decades: wars, inner fighting, corruption, sectarianism, debt, despair. No shovel is big enough.
But Lebanon has two great rivers of its own: its youth and its diaspora. When they flow through the fields together, not around them, the cleaning becomes possible.
Lebanon needs a tsunami. 🇱🇧
في الأسطورة اليونانية، طُلب من هرقل أن ينظّف إسطبلات الملك أوجياس في يوم واحد، وقد تراكمت فيها أوساخ سنوات طويلة. لم يحمل المجرفة، بل حوّل مجرى نهرين عظيمين، فجرف الماء كل شيء دفعة واحدة.
ولبنان اليوم مثقل بأكوام عقود: الحروب، والاقتتال الداخلي، والفساد، والطائفية، والديون، واليأس. لا توجد مجرفة بهذا الحجم.
لكنّ للبنان نهرين عظيمين: شبابه ومغتربيه. حين يتدفقان معاً عبر الحقول، لا من حولها، يصبح التنظيف ممكناً.
لبنان يحتاج إلى تسونامي. 🇱🇧
#Lebanon #لبنان
My Happiness
Since I grew weary of seeking,
I learned the art of finding.
Since a wind opposed my course,
I sail with every wind.
Friedrich Nietzsche 15.10.1844
“My attitude is that, however difficult life becomes, what matters is doing something interesting with it. This has much to do with the physical world: looking at things, snow and light, the smell of your screen door, and everything that makes up your lived experience from moment to moment. What a consolation to know that these things continue to exist, and that you can think about them and turn them into something on the page.”
Anne Carson, 2026 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature.
From her interview with Will Aitken, “The Art of Poetry No. 88,” The Paris Review, Fall 2004.
Anne Carson: "Mi actitud es que, por muy dura que sea la vida, lo que importa es hacer algo interesante con ella. Y esto tiene mucho que ver con el mundo físico, con mirar las cosas, la nieve y la luz y el olor de la puerta y todo aquello que constituye a cada instante tu existencia fenoménica. Qué gran consuelo... saber que estas cosas persisten en su ser y que puedes pensar sobre ellas y hacer algo con ellas en la página".
'Hombres en sus horas libres'
Traducción: Jordi Doce
A beautiful, beautiful poem by Rilke. It invites this reflection:
The flower’s pinkness is inherited, shaped by nature, not by a will of its own. Perhaps the ego claims authorship of qualities and properties we receive but think we make. As they depart, we cling, yet the will of nature is stronger than our individual will.
Rosa Hortensie
Wer nahm das Rosa an? Wer wusste auch,
dass es sich sammelte in diesen Dolden?
Wie Dinge unter Gold, die sich entgolden,
entröten sie sich sanft, wie im Gebrauch.
Dass sie für solches Rosa nichts verlangen.
Bleibt es für sie und lächelt aus der Luft?
Sind Engel da, es zärtlich zu empfangen,
wenn es vergeht, großmütig wie ein Duft?
Oder vielleicht auch geben sie es preis,
damit es nie erführe vom Verblühn.
Doch unter diesem Rosa hat ein Grün
gehorcht, das jetzt verwelkt und alles weiß.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
I cannot help but pause, held by the beauty of a rainbow and the flowers on a balcony. A moment ago, I was caught in the rain; now, I am taken by the rainbow. Such a fine line between one state and another, in nature and in the mind.
#Mindfulness
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What I love about Baroque music is this extraordinary coexistence of stability and movement. Repetition never feels static: sameness becomes the ground of variation, and variation reveals new possibilities within the same.
Passacaglia – Handel (Animated Score)
One of the most remarkable works of the Baroque era, Passacaglia by George Frideric Handel is a masterful display of harmonic brilliance and continuous variation.
In this animation, every note and movement was carefully synchronized and rendered in Blender, turning the score into a captivating visual and auditory experience.
October 1st, on my morning walk in Brummana. A hint of autumn in the sky. As the sun rises, the distant houses catch the light while the valley rests in shadow.
Wagner’s Pilgrims’ Chorus from Tannhäuser (1845) symbolizes the spiritual journey from temptation and estrangement, through repentance and purification, toward forgiveness and return. Its recurring theme gives musical form to pilgrimage itself: leaving, suffering, seeking, and coming home transformed.
The music begins with solemn restraint, then gradually gathers voices, weight, and radiance until it rises in a magnificent crescendo, as if the inward journey has become collective affirmation.
youtube.com/watch?v=oDdb65l-…
It is reported that after composing this, Handel told his servant—“I think I saw all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself seated on His throne, with His company of Angels.”
Soli Deo Gloria
