“And If The Devil Were To Ever See You, He’d Kiss Your Eyes And Repent." - Farouq Jwaydeh

What is life?

Dostoevsky: It's Hell

Socrates: It's an infestation

Aristotle: It is the mind

Nietzsche: It is strength

Marx: It is the conviction

Schopenhauer: It's suffering

Einstein: It is knowledge

Stephen Hopkins: It is hope

Kafka: The Endings

And you, what is your definition of life?

First isolated moments

“Nothing is ever as beautiful as the first isolated moments with someone who might be able to love you — with someone you yourself might be able to love. There is nothing as silent as these minutes, nothing so saturated with sweet anticipation. It is for these few minutes that we love, not for the many that follow. Never again, they realize, would anything so beautiful ever happen to them. They might be happier, more impassioned, too, and infinitely satiated with their own bodies and with each other’s. But never again would it be so beautiful.”

Stig Dagerman, A Moth to a Flame (Burnt Child)

One day

We’ll meet again You’ll look at me And while i look at you I won't feel a thing I'll walk past you With a smile on my face And inside you'll be dying because it took you too long to realize It was me

| Unknown

Don't love deeply, till you make sure that the other person loves you with the same depth, because the depth of your love today, is the depth of your wound tomorrow.

Art by : Julia Soboleva

Onu yalnız gördüm,

bir deri bir kemik, gözleri iri, gerçekten yorgun,

"Kimi seviyorsun?" diye sordum.

Kalbini kim yaraladı ve parçaladı?

Geceleri gözlerini kim eritip seni huzursuz etti?

Dedi ki: Onu suçlama.

Kalbimin ona taptığını bilmiyor,

Onu aylarca gizlice sevdim,

Yüreğim hasretten öldü.

The most beautiful sea, hasn't been crossed yet. The most beautiful child, hasn't grown up yet. Our most beautiful days, we haven't seen yet. And the most beautiful words, I wanted to tell you I haven't said yet...

― Nâzım Hikmet

I tell my neighbor: Come and spend the night with me, I have figs, and almonds, and sugar. We sing, because you are lonely, And singing will ease your longing. I have a home, and a small area of land, So I am safe now. The land of my country is land from heaven, And on it sleeps the painful time. I tell our house: If I am alone, And snow and cold blows, My house is as fire to me, And the winter passes, friendly as a field of roses.

-Al Rahbani Brothers

Libya: From Sands of Time to Storms of Change

Beneath the blazing sun of North Africa, bordered by the ancient tides of the Mediterranean and the vast breath of the Sahara, lies a land whose story has danced with gods, kings, conquerors, and revolutionaries. This is Libya: a nation born from the dust of myth, forged in the fires of empire, and reshaped in the hands of her people.

Origins in the Whispering Sands

Long before cities rose and borders were drawn, the land we now call Libya was home to prehistoric peoples who left their mark in the rock art of the Tadrart Acacus, carvings of giraffes and hunters that tell of a greener Sahara, long vanished. By the Bronze Age, Libya was not one land, but many tribes. Chief among them were the Meshwesh and the Libu—nomadic Berber peoples who grazed their herds along the Nile’s western flanks. Egyptian scribes would scrawl their names in hieroglyphs, sometimes as foes, other times as mercenaries or neighbors. Though they lacked pyramids or written chronicles of their own, the Libyans lived rich oral traditions, passed from elder to youth beside desert fires. Their tongues were early Berber, ancestors to the Amazigh languages spoken to this day.

The Libyan Pharaohs of Egypt

In one of history’s great ironies, these wandering tribes—once dismissed as desert raiders—would wear the crowns of Pharaohs. Around 945 BCE, a chieftain of the Meshwesh named Shoshenq I seized power in a divided Egypt. He founded the 22nd Dynasty, becoming the first Libyan Pharaoh. He was no usurper in chains, but a ruler accepted by Egypt’s priests and people, a man who walked the sacred halls of Karnak and marched his armies as far as Jerusalem. For over two centuries, Libyan dynasties ruled parts of Egypt. They wove themselves into Egyptian culture, marrying daughters into temple lineages and honoring the gods of old, while maintaining their tribal roots in the Delta’s tangled marshes.

Under Greek, Roman, and Islamic Rule

Time, ever the patient sculptor, wore down Libya’s independent spirit. By the time of Herodotus in the 5th century BCE, Libya had become a vague term for "all lands west of Egypt." The Greeks founded Cyrene in eastern Libya, a shining jewel of Hellenistic culture. Later came the Romans, who tamed the coast and named it Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. Great cities bloomed, like Leptis Magna, where Emperor Septimius Severus—a Libyan by birth—would rise to rule the Roman world. With the coming of Islam in the 7th century CE, Libya joined the rising tide of Arab civilization. Arabic took root, and Berber tribes embraced the faith, blending it with ancient customs in a uniquely North African tapestry.

From Ottoman Sands to Italian Chains

From the 16th to 19th centuries, Libya was ruled by the Ottomans, often in name more than presence. Local rulers like the Karamanlis in Tripoli built their own dynasties, their corsairs feared across the Mediterranean. But in 1911, the old world shifted once more—Italy invaded, snatching Libya from Ottoman control. The Libyans resisted fiercely under leaders like Omar Mukhtar, the "Lion of the Desert," whose guerilla war against Mussolini’s fascists became legend. Though captured and executed in 1931, Mukhtar’s spirit ignited a flame that would not die.

A Brief Bloom: The Kingdom of Libya

After World War II, Libya was stitched together from three provinces and granted independence in 1951 under King Idris I. For the first time in centuries, Libya was sovereign. But beneath the crown, discontent stirred. Oil wealth enriched a few, while many remained poor. In 1969, a young officer named Muammar Gaddafi led a bloodless coup, ending the monarchy and beginning one of the most controversial reigns in modern Arab history.

Gaddafi's Rule and the Gathering Storm

For 42 years, Gaddafi ruled with a blend of charisma, brutality, and eccentric philosophy. He styled himself as the "Brother Leader", preached his Green Book, and funded revolutions abroad. At times a pariah, at times an ally, he kept Libya's oil flowing and dissent smothered. But the winds of change were rising. When the Arab Spring swept across the region in 2011, Libyans—long repressed—rose in revolt. The uprising turned into a brutal civil war, drawing NATO intervention. In October 2011, Gaddafi was captured and killed. His fall was cheered, but peace did not follow.

My Brother

I will never forgive my twin brother after abandoning me for a whole seven minutes inside my mother’s womb.

He left me there alone, terrified of the dark, floating like an astronaut in that viscous liquid, listening to how on the other side they were kissing and adoring him.

Those were the seven longest minutes of my life, and which destined him to be the first born and my mother’s favorite. After that, I would always make sure to leave places before Pablo; the bedroom, the house, school, the theater… even if it meant missing the end of a movie.

One day I got distracted and my brother left before I did, and while he was watching me with his adorable smile, a car came by and hit him.

When my twin brother died, my mother grabbed his body and yelled my name. I have not corrected her since then...

I died and my brother lived.

My Brother – Rafael Noboa