Chaimaa

“Isolation has carved me in its image and likeness. The presence of another person – of any person whatsoever – instantly slows down my thinking, and while for a normal man contact with others is a stimulus to spoken expression and wit, for me it is a counterstimulus, if this compound word be linguistically permissible. When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Yes, talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial, and in them intelligence gleams like an image in a mirror.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“إننا كلنا، كلنا بلا استثناء، كل الموجودات، نحنُ والقطط والغزلان، والغزلان التي تستحيل إلى هداهد، نقتحم الدوائر نفسها، جميعنا حُجاج في طريق الحياة نفسه، وكلنا بلا استثناء، علينا أن نُضيع أنفسنا قبل أن نجدها مجددًا”
― حمزة كاشغري, الشاعر والقرصان

“When you’re young, you do so many things hoping to be noticed. The way you dress or stand, the music played loud enough to catch the attention of another person who might know a song, too. And then there are things you do as you step out into the world, the real world full of strange adults, testing out what it means to be generous or thoughtful. In that instant, before every memory was placed along some narrative arc, before the act of remembering took on a desperate air, I simply felt lucky enough to witness something so effortlessly kind - to see my friend do something that was good.”
― Hua Hsu, Stay True

“TWO KINDS OF INTELLIGENCE
There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what tne teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.
With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.
There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid,
and it doesn't move from outside to inside
through the conduits of plumbing-learning.
This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi