It pays to be FREE

Zahir, in Arabic, means visible, present, incapable of going unnoticed. It is someone or something which, once we have come into contact with them or it, gradually occupies our every thought, fills our entire being, until we can think of nothing else. This can be considered either a state of holiness or madness.

While I was fighting for a cause, I heard other people speaking in the name of freedom, and the more they defend this unique right, the more enslaved they seemed to be to their parents’ wishes, to a marriage in which they had promised to stay with the other person ‘for the rest of their lives’, to the bathroom scales, to their diet, to half-finished projects, to lovers to whom they were incapable of saying “No” or “It’s over”. To weekends when they were obliged to have lunch with people they didn’t even like. Slaves to luxury, to the appearance of luxury. Slaves to life they had not chosen, but which they had decided to live because someone had managed to convince them that it was all for the best. And so their identical days and nights passed, days and nights in which adventure was just a word in a book or an image on the television that was always on, and whenever a door opened, they would say: “ I ‘m not interested. I’m not in the mood.”

Staring at the mirror everyday,
She hates the one looking back at her face.
Her imperfect features, her dull eyes,
Which beauty magazines don't seem to embrace.
She tries to be someone everybody adores,
And in the event losing her own identity.
Look inside you, not the mirror,
You might find the person you were meant to be...

I do not regret the painful times; I bear my scars as if they were medals. I know that freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that smile is dimmed by tears.

Freedom. The freedom to be wretchedly alone.