On Closure #It'sOn

On Individuality #It'sOn

On Sudan #It'sOn How to solve a problem like Sudan? In the same way that Bitcoin incorporates a multitude of disciplines within it that extend beyond just money, the Sudan conflict has a hornet's nest of problems beyond just power struggles. As a "Northern" Sudanese, who also lived in Juba, South Sudan as a child, long before the country split into two states, I am perhaps biased. I used to think the country should have never split and we should have found a way to celebrate our differences, in true American fashion. I believe that to be naive now. The cultural divide is too great and sometimes the gaps cannot be bridged. I think the best way to help Sudan, is the same way Bitcoiners want to help the world. Fix the money. South Sudan, and (north) Sudan like most African countries, is rich in natural resources and can be wealthy nations with the right leadership. If we spent less time and effort forcing "International Development" projects and more time respecting indigenous traditions, the world would be better for it. Having said that, building energy infrastructures like the Gridless team are doing, that bring small-time electric grids to rural areas, supported by bitcoin mining operations can be a good start. I think one of the guys from that company grew up in Sudan! Otherwise, I personally favor a hands-off approach to the other problems such as religion, ethnic wars, middle east politics, Nile politics and infrastructure projects. They all result in rampant corruption and the people we are meant to help always get left behind. I speak from experience, I grew up in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and my Dad worked for the African Development Bank. We were as idealist as they come. To say it was a slow descent into oblivion is putting it mildly. As privileged as we were growing up as ex-pats in the heyday of International Aid and Development, even the kids knew something was wrong with the world. We just did not know what was the problem. It was the money. It was always the money. Thank God for Bitcoin.

On Subsidy #It'sOn

On Discouragement #It'sOn

On Inflation #It'sOn

On Overcharge #It'sOn

On Zero #It'sOn

On Rejection #It'sOn

On Race #It'sOn

On Nodding #It'sOn

On Fear #It'sOn

On Ownership #It'sOn

On Girls #It'sOn Fam/friends, I am forced to create a whole new category of notes to contain these recurring dreams I am having lately with babies and little girls. The latest features both. I am in an Uber or taxi maybe. But instead of heading home, I get dropped off at a cafe. All of a sudden it doubles as a creche (or nursery for the Americans). In comes this woman that is juggling a load of babies so big, it is hard to see how she is not dropping a few to the ground as she walks into the cafe. There's a baby carriage in there somewhere but it is covered by babies. Then, mothers (presumably) rush to get their children and I realize the woman must be their minder. One of the mothers puts her baby down in the baby carriage next to me, but she puts the baby in the under-carriage! I worry so I check on the baby. It is not a baby, it's a stuffed doll! Incidentally, I saw something similar here in the lift the first days in this building. This young Southeast Asian woman, young in appearance, had a bunch of kids, one in a baby carriage, occupying most of the lift. She had this intense, urgent look going in her face as if she was determined to do something. What, I don't know. At this point, I am at the cashier and I am getting food. I think to myself, I should watch my spending because I still have no job (true in real life). There a young girl with two pigtails standing with her mother, smiling at me. She comes over in the manner that kids can be precocious and I tell her she has a beautiful smile. I want to tell her she has nice dimples but I get interrupted. All of a sudden we are playing a typical childhood girl game that I swear is universal the world over. I played it in Sudan and girls in America play it, too. You clap your hands and "high-five" each other in a set sequence. I forgot the sequence of the hand movements. So I ask the little girl to show me how the game is played. Instead, as happens only in dreams, I am painting her nails red. Surprisingly, her mom doesn't object or even come over. I don't know where the nail polish materializes from. In real life, I had an enviable collection of nail polish but that got purged. I finish one hand and start only one nail in the second hand. While the polish is drying we are playing the hand-to-hand clapping game. They are about to leave and I insist on finishing the second hand. It won't look good otherwise. Her hands are strangely adult-like with long fingernails. I don't finish the second hand. She's gone. I start to worry about paying for the return Uber. Maybe I should have gone straight home. I console myself that it is the same price since I "split" the trip when I came to the cafe. It is on the way. I wake up. I am immediately reminded that my first nail polish as a girl, was a gift on my 10th or 11th or 12th birthday. I don't remember which. My mom's friend, Badreia, gave it to me and Mom was upset because I was too young for beauty products. Badreia told my Mom off (kindly) and I kept the polish. Baderia passed away years ago in the Eighties, apparently because of a contaminated blood transfusion at the local hospital in Abidjan which gave her AIDS. Or so the story goes. I spared a thought for her daughter, Roshan, this morning, growing up without a mother. She seemed to have done well in life living in Canada. Maybe her mother is her guardian angel. I am reminded that Susan recently wrote she's attending a creative writing class when I first started sharing these emails with you. That is quite the coincidence since I am writing almost daily now. But it is not "creative", it is non-fiction and straight from the heart. Susan and I had another coincidence when we first met. I baked a marble cake bundt for a special occasion and all of a sudden she became a cake baker overnight, as opposed to her day job as a sub-editor for some medical journal. I even went to Graceland's, our next door cafe, which at the time was newly opened, to lobby on her behalf to sell her cakes. She was too timid to do it. Being an American, I had no qualms about marching up to management and asking if they would consider selling Susan's Babycakes. Like my dream, there were lots of babies at the cafe, and a little corner that was a play pen. Aymen spent a lot of time there. Susan and I were such fixtures, this other woman, Bronwyn, would make fun of us when she walked in. "Oh, you two", she would say as she waltzed in. She also sold cakes at the cafe. Susan looked down on her, calling her a Woman's Institute lackey. Wait, doesn't Woman's Institute double as WI, as in the state of Wisconsin. You can't make this shit up. I'm sharing all this with you so that you are under no illusion of what Maysa is doing to me. Do not turn a blind eye. Ignore Maysa's "sorrys", she doesn't mean them. Please stop Maysa from invading my dreams and my life now. x Noha

On Form #It'sOn

On Loss #It'sOn

On Gardens #It'sOn Last night I had another weird dream but this time Kamal was in it. Funny that, since we are now divorced, without returns, thanks again to Islam. For those that don't know, in Islam you can't remarry if you divorce "in threes." That is to say, you declare before God that you divorce them by saying it out loud three times and presto, it is done! Never again can you "legally" marry that person. Thanks Sharia law. I was looking after a little girl (again) but thankfully I was not feeding her. Instead, we went to the garden (a highly inappropriate reference if you catch my drift) next to our house through the connecting door at the bottom of our garden, instead of going around the house. The garden was owned by Yugoslavians and I was impressed that my little girl knew that by reading the sign. I don't remember a sign but there must have been a sign somewhere showing that the Yugoslavians own the garden. How else would she know? Then we are walking through the garden and the first plant to my right when you open the door is mangos. Kamal's favorite fruit, if you must know. Again, very improper and over my dead body. But we are not in Sudan or India. We are in some western country (not Mexico either.) Kamal is walking ahead of us. The little girl gets dirty from all the garden dirt so I take her back to our house and give her a bath. She is not happy to be in the bath. I also need a bath.  I start to take off my clothes but I am wearing multiple layers, like tights or (stockings if you are American) and strangely enough they are white. I am having a hard time taking them off. It is like they are stuck to my body.  I notice that my white pajama bottom is torn and almost looks like underwear. That's strange because the same ones in real life did tear and I cut off the bottom half. At this point ,I notice I am wearing full pajama pants, also white but are not torn.  I wake up. I remember that my tights in real life are black, of high quality hence expensive, had holes and runs, but I could've still worn them under my clothes. Alas, they are all in the trash because of the purge that happened to me, against my will. I am compelled to ask you this once again. Please stop Maysa from interfering with my life. I hear her and you shouting, crying, screaming and calling for more time again and again. That is theft, immoral, sinful, heinous, torturous and inhumane. Leave me alone and keep Maysa away from me for good. So help me God.

On Humility #It'sOn Susan, You are right. Mental illness/mental health is big these days. Just like diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other types of serious mind and body afflictions. I guess you can call these First World disorders or modernization hazards. Not to poke fun at these. My Dad literally "dropped dead (ok, he was sitting in the back of a Nairobian taxi) because of heart failure (or so we were told. You never know in Africa!) and our life has not been the same since. And I don't mean for the better. Speaking for myself here. So I don't take any of this lightly. If I am "lashing out" or being "hurtful" I invite you all to question yourselves a bit more. I guess what I am saying is, the sure-ed-ness you all display with regards to the "fix" or the "solution" is in and of itself the problem for me. That is what is driving me bananas. You dismiss what I am trying to communicate without consideration and it shows. I wish you would all show some humility, some introspection, some heart (and brain) searching. Maybe Noha is right, maybe she has a point, maybe we missed something, is this situation really about what's wrong with her or what's wrong with me. One of my favorite authors, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, an American, but French, but Lebanese, said something to the effect of "when someone tells you something you fundamentally disagree with, almost to the point of having an involuntary physical reaction upon hearing, as in it cuts so deep to the core of who you are that your body "hears" it and reacts before your ears, you should ask yourself the following." How could that be true?" To me that is the mark of a "civilized man." By the way, he's a nutter. A brilliant nutter, but a nutter nonetheless. And he drives people who love him insane. He even alienates his fans. It's uncanny. Apparently his Dad told him if he is not pissing people off, he doesn't matter. If I had to guess, his motto must be something like...I piss people off therefore I matter. Also, do you have my Florence Lonely Planet guide? I swear you did not return it when I lent it to you in Florence. If yes, it's my book and I want it back. I hate it when people take my things and "forget" to return them. It's a pet peeve of mine. x Noha

On Censorship #It'sOn For the last couple of weeks, I have been posting incessantly. This, after being literally scared to post anything on social media for years now. I even created a family-only feed called Sistagram using text messages, rather posting on Instagram. I thought being on NOSTR is freedom to say whatever I had to say and the flood gates opened. But my posts went missing. They did not show up in the global feed. I was invisible again! I asked Will Damus (like Tim Apple, wink, wink) but no response. No worries, his DMs must be off the charts. I asked Pablo Developer next. He replied double quick. Good man. In the end, The Daniel helped me. He doesn't know that though. I swear his profile used to say Maybe Daniel. Anywho. I used his profile to scrape some data, namely more relays. I was only connected to 4, now I have 13. That worked! There is nothing more satisfying in life than solving a problem that's been vexing you for some time. Nothing. Now, how do I solve a problem like MyFamily? IYKYK. Actually tell me. Because I don't know.

On Math #It'sOn