The Rise and Fall of the Only Zeek.
I love Hitler. I loved studying him to be precise. I don't care about him as a person, or a leader, but I loved studying him back in school. I remember there was a book titled, 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', which embodied his life, and hence, the title of this post, The Rise and Fall of the Only Zeek, because there is no first, second or third Zeek. I am only one.
This past month has been a roller-coaster ride. Actually, the whole year has been very intense really. During the process of the book, I didn't have the time to see a lot of people. I used to see my friends more or less once a week. I was more in an isolated cube. My friends were pissed off the fact that I was always 'busy'. No one knew I was working on the book. Even my family, I only told them when the book was about to hit the publishing house like 2 months ago.
Something major is happening in my life. I don't know what is it. But something major is taking place. I am not talking about the book. I am not talking about love. For all I know, I have been single for a long time now, more than I can remember. I just feel that my life is finally taking the shape it should be in. You know, each one of us is destined for something. Just like a football player who is currently playing for a local club, as a supporter, you know that this player is destined to end somewhere else, playing abroad in Europe's top clubs, or on the contrary, ending in a lower division in his country. I don't know what I am destined to or where will I be, but my life is never going to be the same again. I feel that I am going to enter a new challenge. I don't know if it will be here or abroad, but I do feel it in me. I don't know what type of challenge will it be. Maybe, and probably it will be work related. Maybe it will be life related. I don't know anything really, that's why I might not be making any sense.
I want to get away though. I am not into change, nor do I like it, but I can't see myself fitting here anymore. I love my country. I want to stay here. But nothing is working out, really. I love my job, but I am not getting paid enough. I believe in stability and family love, but how will I ever get married if I can barely go 15 days without finishing up my salary? Let alone, that I am not in love anymore. Speaking of love, I feel that there is a part of me that is lost. No more it is there. Maybe because of the numerous relationships I've been in and the one off's I had throughout my life, I don't know really know, but there is nothing that satisfies me. I don't know what I want. No, I actually know what I want, but I don't know if she exists. I am sure she exists. I am even sure we met, talked and could have even been in a relationship before. Maybe. I am sure that if I see her again I will hold on to her no matter what. I don't want to get in relationships now with people who are just 'good enough'. I am not looking for good enough. I am not looking for perfection either. The girl I will end up with will be perfect in my eyes, and that's enough, but how can I like someone who I don't even have the 'TO DIE FOR' thrill when I see her, just because she is good enough?
I am bitterly disappointed in a lot of things. A lot of people. A lot of places. The bar has been raised. When you're a manager, you don't actually think in the same way you used to as an executive. And when you're a director, it will totally feel different and so on. Well, this is how I feel with life. Every passing day, the bar gets raised, and I am no longer satisfied with things that would have satisfied me the day before, and so on. If you have been reading my blog over the year (and I am sure only a few are), you would relate in a way to my pessimistic tone when it comes to disappointment. I am a very optimistic person. Actually I have never met a more optimistic bubbly person than myself. That's a fact. I love life. I love to smile. I live to smile. I enjoy laughing, and I make the world shine on the people around me. This is not the case anymore. My friends are no longer my friends. My best friends are no longer my best friends. Even the stranger do not feel strange anymore. Throughout all my writings, I've also stressed on the importance of my circle of friends. My love for and to them. I always referred to us as ONE. How the importance of the manhood and the man-pact we have. The decline of that empire started taking place a little bit over 3 years ago. And now, it's crumbling.
I have lots of friends, but there are 15 who are really close to my heart, and they are the ones who I would refer to as 'best friend', each in his own way. I am talking about the guys (males). Not all the 15 sit with each other. Actually not all of them even like one another, and that's why, they are divided into 4 groups. Yes, four different groups! One group in particular, is closer to me than the rest of the other 3, because they more or less play in the same circle of life I am in, share the same interests and hobbies. In the past 2 years, my interests and hobbies changed, yet, I still used to favour that group on the rest. They are the first ones who I contact when I decide to go down. They are the first group of people I check their availability before I check with the other groups, because, as mentioned above, the groups don't like each other. When I used to smoke shisha, I was available all the time. I was always available. I used to connect the four different groups together, because I am the focal point in all. After I quit. I stopped going down every day. I have different interests now, and I have a different vision to life, and that's why the four groups cemented their separation. They actually were happy they no longer have to associate with the others. BUT. They missed me. Each group, wanted to see me, daily, and they had all the right in the world, because they love me; but, this doesn't mean that I have to see them every day, does it? They should understand my priorities, and they should understand what's happening in my life, they should understand the change. No offense, but none of my friends lost one of his parents. None of my friends quit smoking, and smoking here is not an activity, it was a lifestyle form and the only thing that I did for the past 14 years of my life, before even knowing many of them. My friends didn't even welcome that change I was in. They didn't try to understand, and even when they did, they still felt selfish. I will never ask them to be in my shoes, because this is not a movie you are going to enter and come out after three hours and say if you like it or not. I can understand my friends' rage and disappointment had I decided to abandon them and stick with one circle of friends from the four, or even decide to have a new group of friends with new hobbies or interests, but this is not the case, and it never have been. Whenever I decide to go out, my friends are the first people I contact, the first ones I thrive to see, and the only people I actually want to see.
I am disappointed. None of my friends knew I was writing a book. Hell, not even my family knew. I only involved two people from those 15, in order to write me a foreword, and the reasons behind picking those two was not out of anything but the fact that that they fit the criteria I was looking for, as I was trying to get different sorts of people (i.e. current smokers, ex smokers, etc.) - and even those two people found out right before I publish the book, so they were not even involved in anything.
Yet, I sensed that my friends got disappointed when they found out I published a book. I didn't see the joy in their faces, or their happiness when they found out about it after I told them. To me, writing a book was probably the most important thing I ever did in my life, and they know quite well that this is not something I usually do (it's not my 10th book, it's my first!) and they know how important this is for me, and I didn't see the excitement, or in other words, didn't feel it. Some of my friends are dying to get married, and some are dying to get out of the country, and some are dying to find a right job, and if any of them come and tell me that he is going to get married - and I know how important this is to him - then hell yeah I am going to be the happiest man in the world, because, one of my friends aka BROTHER is getting his number wish accomplished.
The book has been out for almost a month, and very few people from the 15 bought the book. I got comments by some of them that the only bookshop selling it is far, and they will wait till it is somewhere near. Can you imagine? If a friend of mine invites me to his wedding on the other side of town, will I go or will I not go? We all ditch weddings of people we are not close to, but we will all go to and even travel to weddings of our close and best friends. And that's why most of the 15 people came to my engagement two years ago when it was held in another city (and the ones who couldn't make it were abroad on business). Some of those people even came from abroad where they live to attend my 5 to 6 hour engagement and return back, paying a huge cost of money. Had I released this book two years ago, all of my friends would have bought it on the day of release. The same exact hour. Because back then, they considered me 'one of them'. But now, they don't. To them now, I am just an extra.
I am not directing my words or thoughts to all my 15 brothers, because very few of them proved to me how much I mean to them. Some might say, 'Are you stupid, do you base a friendship on your book purchase?' - and no, I am not stupid enough to do that, even though if I decide to, no one can blame me, but I took a moment back and looked at the wide picture. Those people who actually bought the book are those people who call me because they love me, not because they want a favour. Those people are the same ones who never attacked me when I decided to have my time alone (more or less), and always defended me, those people are the ones who have been with me through thick and thin, who will call me up whenever there is a new girl they met, and even if they haven't seen me for weeks, they will call me up to tell me about it and take my opinion.
You know what's sad? What's sad is that some of those people are people that lately, in the past five years, I haven't been that 'amazing' friend in return. I used to always favour a certain group of people over them, due to my comfort zone and due to the fact that they share more interests with me than the others. And in spite all that, the people I drifted away from didn't treat me differently even though they had all the right to do so. I feel ashamed. I feel pathetic. Really. Last week I was very busy with one of my closest friends ever due to his father's death. A guy who grew up with me and was one day the closest person to me for quite a long time in my life. That guy is included in the list of 15 because of the longevity not because of closeness, because that guy I have seen him only three times in the past five years (one of them was by coincidence in the street). Throughout the last week only I saw him more than three times. This guy was inseparable in my life from 1993 till 2000. He used to be with me daily, he considered my family as his and vice versa. His father may he RIP was like a father to me. He used to depend on me taking care of his son. My friend decided in 2000 that he wants to live another life, a loud life, a partying life, which didn't fit in with mine, and so from 2000 till 2004 we only used to see one another once every other month. We missed each other, but we understood that our lives are different. In the past six years my friend went through a lot of problems, mentally and medically. He suffered a lot of traumas and been into a car accident, and during this time he's been home, rarely going out, on medications, and he gained tremendous amounts of weight (he was the thinnest guy I ever knew).
Throughout last week, I've been doing a lot of thinking while I've been busy with my friend.
I feel more ashamed and more pathetic. How the hell did I leave my friend alone throughout all those years? I knew his fake friends didn't ask about him, and the blame goes out to his original friends, which are me and a couple of other people who were all together from school. The others are living abroad, and they only come here once or twice a year. How didn't I have time for him? A part of me is in denial because I used to check on him through his sister and his father. Another part of me was in the comfort zone, sitting with my other friends. My other friends who didn't even go buy my first book because they are lazy to drive to Nasr City (put in mind that the book is now everywhere, and they still didn't buy it. Put in mind that we had a week long Eid vacation and the streets were empty and they still didn't buy it. Put in mind that many other people who are not even close to me bought it). One of my very good friends, who is not in the list of 15 brothers is the famous actor, Sherif Ramzy. I remember when his first movie was out. We all went to see it the same day it was out. I remember him being pissed off at the people who didn't go watch it on the first day, and when I used to tell him that they will definitely go tomorrow or the day after, he told me that I will never understand how important this is to him. And guess what, now I know, and now I relate to it, and now I feel it. Especially when people I don't know well bought the book, read it, and even sent me their opinion, yet, my friends, the people I picked out of the rest of the entire world to be my friends, still didn't even buy it. Sherif Ramzy acted in a lot of movies. I was there on the first day of the release of the first four movies at least. After that I used to wait a week and go, and his last movie which was released a few months back, I didn't even see it. That's why I said at the beginning that I would have understood my friends' response had this been my 10th book, or even my 3rd or 4th, but no way in hell I thought about the fact that they won't go buy my first, and probably last book).
I am very sorry. This 'Sorry' goes out to my friend. It goes out to all the people, from the 15, and anyone who I didn't treat right, to anyone who didn't get the same treatment and attitude I shared with others. I am going to make amends, and I am now going to show you who the real Zeek is. The old Zeek. The Zeek who was there for everyone. I am sorry I favoured people over you, and I am sorry I was a bad friend. I hope it's never too late. I know you love me inside of you, and I am sure I will win you back.
I started writing this about two weeks ago, and I stopped midway, due to the fact that I was very busy with my friend. My friend's father passed away on the 13th of November. That's why the date of the post will be 9th of November even though we are now the 21st. Just mentioning that in case the sequence of events and writings not making sense due to the date, so in order for you to understand.
The reason I decided to post this now, is that because the country is in chaos, and I don't know if there will be access to the internet in the coming few days or if we will come to work, no one knows what will happen. I am going to leave work now, go home, have a nice meal, and I am heading to Tahrir, even though I am not the biggest fan of what has been happening by the people throughout the past 6 months, but I feel pathetic that people are dying and being shot and this is a time that all of us should be down there helping, just like we did on the 28th of January.
Excuse me if this post might have been offensive to you (I am sure it shouldn't be anyway) and if there are typos or things that didn't make sense, I just don't have time to revise.
Stay safe.
It's time to go save the world. :)
This past month has been a roller-coaster ride. Actually, the whole year has been very intense really. During the process of the book, I didn't have the time to see a lot of people. I used to see my friends more or less once a week. I was more in an isolated cube. My friends were pissed off the fact that I was always 'busy'. No one knew I was working on the book. Even my family, I only told them when the book was about to hit the publishing house like 2 months ago.
Something major is happening in my life. I don't know what is it. But something major is taking place. I am not talking about the book. I am not talking about love. For all I know, I have been single for a long time now, more than I can remember. I just feel that my life is finally taking the shape it should be in. You know, each one of us is destined for something. Just like a football player who is currently playing for a local club, as a supporter, you know that this player is destined to end somewhere else, playing abroad in Europe's top clubs, or on the contrary, ending in a lower division in his country. I don't know what I am destined to or where will I be, but my life is never going to be the same again. I feel that I am going to enter a new challenge. I don't know if it will be here or abroad, but I do feel it in me. I don't know what type of challenge will it be. Maybe, and probably it will be work related. Maybe it will be life related. I don't know anything really, that's why I might not be making any sense.
I want to get away though. I am not into change, nor do I like it, but I can't see myself fitting here anymore. I love my country. I want to stay here. But nothing is working out, really. I love my job, but I am not getting paid enough. I believe in stability and family love, but how will I ever get married if I can barely go 15 days without finishing up my salary? Let alone, that I am not in love anymore. Speaking of love, I feel that there is a part of me that is lost. No more it is there. Maybe because of the numerous relationships I've been in and the one off's I had throughout my life, I don't know really know, but there is nothing that satisfies me. I don't know what I want. No, I actually know what I want, but I don't know if she exists. I am sure she exists. I am even sure we met, talked and could have even been in a relationship before. Maybe. I am sure that if I see her again I will hold on to her no matter what. I don't want to get in relationships now with people who are just 'good enough'. I am not looking for good enough. I am not looking for perfection either. The girl I will end up with will be perfect in my eyes, and that's enough, but how can I like someone who I don't even have the 'TO DIE FOR' thrill when I see her, just because she is good enough?
I am bitterly disappointed in a lot of things. A lot of people. A lot of places. The bar has been raised. When you're a manager, you don't actually think in the same way you used to as an executive. And when you're a director, it will totally feel different and so on. Well, this is how I feel with life. Every passing day, the bar gets raised, and I am no longer satisfied with things that would have satisfied me the day before, and so on. If you have been reading my blog over the year (and I am sure only a few are), you would relate in a way to my pessimistic tone when it comes to disappointment. I am a very optimistic person. Actually I have never met a more optimistic bubbly person than myself. That's a fact. I love life. I love to smile. I live to smile. I enjoy laughing, and I make the world shine on the people around me. This is not the case anymore. My friends are no longer my friends. My best friends are no longer my best friends. Even the stranger do not feel strange anymore. Throughout all my writings, I've also stressed on the importance of my circle of friends. My love for and to them. I always referred to us as ONE. How the importance of the manhood and the man-pact we have. The decline of that empire started taking place a little bit over 3 years ago. And now, it's crumbling.
I have lots of friends, but there are 15 who are really close to my heart, and they are the ones who I would refer to as 'best friend', each in his own way. I am talking about the guys (males). Not all the 15 sit with each other. Actually not all of them even like one another, and that's why, they are divided into 4 groups. Yes, four different groups! One group in particular, is closer to me than the rest of the other 3, because they more or less play in the same circle of life I am in, share the same interests and hobbies. In the past 2 years, my interests and hobbies changed, yet, I still used to favour that group on the rest. They are the first ones who I contact when I decide to go down. They are the first group of people I check their availability before I check with the other groups, because, as mentioned above, the groups don't like each other. When I used to smoke shisha, I was available all the time. I was always available. I used to connect the four different groups together, because I am the focal point in all. After I quit. I stopped going down every day. I have different interests now, and I have a different vision to life, and that's why the four groups cemented their separation. They actually were happy they no longer have to associate with the others. BUT. They missed me. Each group, wanted to see me, daily, and they had all the right in the world, because they love me; but, this doesn't mean that I have to see them every day, does it? They should understand my priorities, and they should understand what's happening in my life, they should understand the change. No offense, but none of my friends lost one of his parents. None of my friends quit smoking, and smoking here is not an activity, it was a lifestyle form and the only thing that I did for the past 14 years of my life, before even knowing many of them. My friends didn't even welcome that change I was in. They didn't try to understand, and even when they did, they still felt selfish. I will never ask them to be in my shoes, because this is not a movie you are going to enter and come out after three hours and say if you like it or not. I can understand my friends' rage and disappointment had I decided to abandon them and stick with one circle of friends from the four, or even decide to have a new group of friends with new hobbies or interests, but this is not the case, and it never have been. Whenever I decide to go out, my friends are the first people I contact, the first ones I thrive to see, and the only people I actually want to see.
I am disappointed. None of my friends knew I was writing a book. Hell, not even my family knew. I only involved two people from those 15, in order to write me a foreword, and the reasons behind picking those two was not out of anything but the fact that that they fit the criteria I was looking for, as I was trying to get different sorts of people (i.e. current smokers, ex smokers, etc.) - and even those two people found out right before I publish the book, so they were not even involved in anything.
Yet, I sensed that my friends got disappointed when they found out I published a book. I didn't see the joy in their faces, or their happiness when they found out about it after I told them. To me, writing a book was probably the most important thing I ever did in my life, and they know quite well that this is not something I usually do (it's not my 10th book, it's my first!) and they know how important this is for me, and I didn't see the excitement, or in other words, didn't feel it. Some of my friends are dying to get married, and some are dying to get out of the country, and some are dying to find a right job, and if any of them come and tell me that he is going to get married - and I know how important this is to him - then hell yeah I am going to be the happiest man in the world, because, one of my friends aka BROTHER is getting his number wish accomplished.
The book has been out for almost a month, and very few people from the 15 bought the book. I got comments by some of them that the only bookshop selling it is far, and they will wait till it is somewhere near. Can you imagine? If a friend of mine invites me to his wedding on the other side of town, will I go or will I not go? We all ditch weddings of people we are not close to, but we will all go to and even travel to weddings of our close and best friends. And that's why most of the 15 people came to my engagement two years ago when it was held in another city (and the ones who couldn't make it were abroad on business). Some of those people even came from abroad where they live to attend my 5 to 6 hour engagement and return back, paying a huge cost of money. Had I released this book two years ago, all of my friends would have bought it on the day of release. The same exact hour. Because back then, they considered me 'one of them'. But now, they don't. To them now, I am just an extra.
I am not directing my words or thoughts to all my 15 brothers, because very few of them proved to me how much I mean to them. Some might say, 'Are you stupid, do you base a friendship on your book purchase?' - and no, I am not stupid enough to do that, even though if I decide to, no one can blame me, but I took a moment back and looked at the wide picture. Those people who actually bought the book are those people who call me because they love me, not because they want a favour. Those people are the same ones who never attacked me when I decided to have my time alone (more or less), and always defended me, those people are the ones who have been with me through thick and thin, who will call me up whenever there is a new girl they met, and even if they haven't seen me for weeks, they will call me up to tell me about it and take my opinion.
You know what's sad? What's sad is that some of those people are people that lately, in the past five years, I haven't been that 'amazing' friend in return. I used to always favour a certain group of people over them, due to my comfort zone and due to the fact that they share more interests with me than the others. And in spite all that, the people I drifted away from didn't treat me differently even though they had all the right to do so. I feel ashamed. I feel pathetic. Really. Last week I was very busy with one of my closest friends ever due to his father's death. A guy who grew up with me and was one day the closest person to me for quite a long time in my life. That guy is included in the list of 15 because of the longevity not because of closeness, because that guy I have seen him only three times in the past five years (one of them was by coincidence in the street). Throughout the last week only I saw him more than three times. This guy was inseparable in my life from 1993 till 2000. He used to be with me daily, he considered my family as his and vice versa. His father may he RIP was like a father to me. He used to depend on me taking care of his son. My friend decided in 2000 that he wants to live another life, a loud life, a partying life, which didn't fit in with mine, and so from 2000 till 2004 we only used to see one another once every other month. We missed each other, but we understood that our lives are different. In the past six years my friend went through a lot of problems, mentally and medically. He suffered a lot of traumas and been into a car accident, and during this time he's been home, rarely going out, on medications, and he gained tremendous amounts of weight (he was the thinnest guy I ever knew).
Throughout last week, I've been doing a lot of thinking while I've been busy with my friend.
I feel more ashamed and more pathetic. How the hell did I leave my friend alone throughout all those years? I knew his fake friends didn't ask about him, and the blame goes out to his original friends, which are me and a couple of other people who were all together from school. The others are living abroad, and they only come here once or twice a year. How didn't I have time for him? A part of me is in denial because I used to check on him through his sister and his father. Another part of me was in the comfort zone, sitting with my other friends. My other friends who didn't even go buy my first book because they are lazy to drive to Nasr City (put in mind that the book is now everywhere, and they still didn't buy it. Put in mind that we had a week long Eid vacation and the streets were empty and they still didn't buy it. Put in mind that many other people who are not even close to me bought it). One of my very good friends, who is not in the list of 15 brothers is the famous actor, Sherif Ramzy. I remember when his first movie was out. We all went to see it the same day it was out. I remember him being pissed off at the people who didn't go watch it on the first day, and when I used to tell him that they will definitely go tomorrow or the day after, he told me that I will never understand how important this is to him. And guess what, now I know, and now I relate to it, and now I feel it. Especially when people I don't know well bought the book, read it, and even sent me their opinion, yet, my friends, the people I picked out of the rest of the entire world to be my friends, still didn't even buy it. Sherif Ramzy acted in a lot of movies. I was there on the first day of the release of the first four movies at least. After that I used to wait a week and go, and his last movie which was released a few months back, I didn't even see it. That's why I said at the beginning that I would have understood my friends' response had this been my 10th book, or even my 3rd or 4th, but no way in hell I thought about the fact that they won't go buy my first, and probably last book).
I am very sorry. This 'Sorry' goes out to my friend. It goes out to all the people, from the 15, and anyone who I didn't treat right, to anyone who didn't get the same treatment and attitude I shared with others. I am going to make amends, and I am now going to show you who the real Zeek is. The old Zeek. The Zeek who was there for everyone. I am sorry I favoured people over you, and I am sorry I was a bad friend. I hope it's never too late. I know you love me inside of you, and I am sure I will win you back.
I started writing this about two weeks ago, and I stopped midway, due to the fact that I was very busy with my friend. My friend's father passed away on the 13th of November. That's why the date of the post will be 9th of November even though we are now the 21st. Just mentioning that in case the sequence of events and writings not making sense due to the date, so in order for you to understand.
The reason I decided to post this now, is that because the country is in chaos, and I don't know if there will be access to the internet in the coming few days or if we will come to work, no one knows what will happen. I am going to leave work now, go home, have a nice meal, and I am heading to Tahrir, even though I am not the biggest fan of what has been happening by the people throughout the past 6 months, but I feel pathetic that people are dying and being shot and this is a time that all of us should be down there helping, just like we did on the 28th of January.
Excuse me if this post might have been offensive to you (I am sure it shouldn't be anyway) and if there are typos or things that didn't make sense, I just don't have time to revise.
Stay safe.
It's time to go save the world. :)
posted by Zeek at Wednesday, November 09, 2011
3 Comments:
i read ur book sorry i dont smoke .. i like it soo much :)
although i still read it and am in da beginnin' but i feel its a touchable book ..
Memo;
Thank you so much for your kind words. I am glad you like it so far, and I hope you still think that when you're done with it. Please let me know what you think when you're done.
Thank you again.
Sherif
what happened to you lately? no more books?
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