2+2=4

Here's why I haven't blogged lately:

" . . .  make it clear that I need to write more, to enter spaces that are void of other human connections, and speak out to myself. No amount of 140 characters, witty-sentences, blog posts, or texts, or headlines, have such a cleansing, meditative impact on me. This sincere, solid excursion of thoughts, rationale, and expressions is necessary. It is vital for my sanity, creativity, and logic..."

Chapter I -  The Airport

I’m born again on an airplane / in the airport. I wonder if my mom ever traveled on air while pregnant with me.

Can I ever go back to Iran again? I long to smell the gasoline-filled air, find the rugged men on the street, all sweaty and sleazy, sexy and beautiful…I want to get a taxi, see old friends who have either changed too much or not at all…I miss the landscapes of Tehran and the mountains in the North. I miss it all.

But here’s the thing. They may arrest reformist clerics and former presidents, and opposition leaders…They can jail directors, actors, artists, writers, and professors…They may torture and vanish activists, journalists, and students. And I mean, what’s left in a country like that? Construction workers and government employees?

Whatever it is that they’re trying to build now, is it even worth it?

But even so, you may kill the painter, but not art. You can get rid of writers and journalists, but not literature or truth. Jail students and teachers, but what about knowledge.

2 + 2 = 4. You can’t take that away.