Sakineh's Dictionary of the Modern Odalisque

Don't call me “sweetheart”! I'm not your sweetheart! Because a sweetheart we don't snub, we don't throw through the window, we don't despise. I'm your bad, your poison.

Wise words, Anita. Hello, I am the philosopher that died in the last episode. You may be thinking: but how is it possible for a philosopher that died to be writing something if he's dead and the dead people can't write? Was his death a lie? Is this letter being psychographed by Chico Xavier but, how is it possible if he's dead too? Then I ask you: what's the death? Have you ever died to know how it is? Why don't you die then? So later you can tell us how it is!

Anyway, I'll be here to comment Sakineh's history, just an ordinary odalisque of an ordinary harem of an ordinary country. Pay close attention to her history, her wishes, her needs, her daydreams and try to understand this disturbed soul that disturbed the most undisturbed of the men, the most comprehensive and spiritually closed of the psychologists. Here it starts her letter...

Morocco, January 2012

I would put here the full date but I'm so crazy in Allah that I don't know anymore which day is today, where I am and who I am. Why do the days have to change each morning when midnight starts? Why can't it be always May 31, February 7 or July 14? Why? Why so many whys? Why wasn't I born stupid, insensitive, blind, deaf and mute? Why can't I be just a bitch like the other women in here? Because if this way I was born, perhaps it wouldn't ache so much as it does.

When in Lebanon I still lived, with my Barbies wearing black burqas, I played. And dreamed. Years passed and reality stepped on my dreams and on my happiness conception. Getting married, having children, taking care of the home, teaching my daughter how to dance to hypnotize the men and having a camel on the garage. However, it wasn't just a dream of mine, but of many odalisques.

I don't know what capitalism means. Yes, I'm stupid, hate me for that. Once I've heard of “supply and demand law” and I discovered that, in love, it's similar. In my mother's time, when a man said he would call, he really would call. According to Sakineh's Dictionary of the Modern Odalisque, it means that he won't call, but as you are stupid, you'll wait the life to pass and the telephone to ring. He doesn't call you and you cry.

Today the odalisques themselves are hunting for the men that can have until four women if very rich he is. And we have to humiliate ourselves learning sensual dances, cooking, washing, taking care of the kids, dying our hairs and they don't even notice anything! Odalisques cheat one another, they hate themselves.

Men: I hate them. They should born with a plate on their forehead saying what they want. They lie to gain you and lie one more time do discard you. They are loving and romantic to gain you, and cold and heartless to discard you. I hate when they vanish. I hate when they don't call me back. I hate when they don't answer the phone. I hate when they compare me to other women saying they were better than me. I hate the speech “let's be only friends”. I hate when they look to the odalisques with visible eyes in the public market. I hate when they discover my dreams and vulnerabilities, when they make me happy and special, and later they leave me and I have to rebuild myself all alone once more.

No lies: say what you want! Don't apologize, I won't, I don't want forgive you! Yes, I'm crazy! Yes, I'm not a civilized woman. Because the pain you caused me hurts only on me, not on you. You don't know how it feels, you have no feelings to understand.

The odalisque had fallen in love with the king, with the desire. Not with herself. She consumed cocaine from Bolivia to stop the pain and danced while listening to Coldplay. Dancing was her shelter.

[This post was written with the partnership of Juliamaris de Oliveira].

COLPLAY - Princess Of China (feat. Rihanna) by DJ Erm

Parachutes

The dream was the fulfillment of a desire, not clearly exposed, but recognized and suppressed by your mind.

It is perfectly possible to save some money if you are open minded. Because when your mind is closed, either you go to a specialist in the issue or you rely on common sense believing that you know enough about yourself, and it is mainly a mistake and that fallacy easily noticeable. Dreams are a link between the known and the unknown, the key that opens the doors to the unconscious. If you are really open minded and humble to recognize to yourself your own weaknesses, it will be possible self-analyzing better and understand the reason of your attitudes, fears and desires.

The dream was the fulfillment of a desire, not clearly exposed, but recognized and suppressed by your mind. Some time ago it would be something you could believe as viable, even though it could require too much mental energy. Today it is acceptable its remote state. Chances exist, but it is accepted that it would be wise not to cross the borders. It sounds Greek, but it is just a reflexion, an echo.

The gates were supposed to be closed, but the carelessness was the opportunity the teenager needed to practice the larceny. They imploded the whole place because it is not wanted, it is not desired the rebuilding. It is only desired that the trucks take the mountain of waste to somewhere far away. But it is wished to connect and disconnect for some time and then untie right after.

It is easy to deal with it when character is something one does not have, when a selfish, cold and indifferent behavior are features of one's personality. Let's be sincere and let's admit that the hugeness of the coeur plus the goodness and naivety are a problem, even they are not something disapproving.

It would be preferable to be together for some time, using each other with the consent of both. No promise, no dissimulation, no lie, hypocrisy, cowardice. Let the time to bring the oblivion and converts the energy of a tsunami into a inoffensive and graceful ripple. And if there is the wish, play the tie-break. But is wanted that there will not be falls and the closure comparable to the mysterious Korea DPR.

The obvious non-proved

If I could foresee the outcome of the obvious non-proved, I would get less stressed than the usual.

No dog barking, no child crying, no woman yelling. There is peace at 4am and ideas take shape when the lead pencil slides on the paper without so many interruptions caused by hesitations.

The boy wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. He did grow up and he was not a boy anymore but not yet a man. In an ordinary day, he was noticed about a voyage to the Moon by Twitter. He decided to know more about, to let the organizers know, showing he was interested.

In the begging, his e-mails used to be answered but after some time, he stayed in the vacuum – not in the vacuum of the Space. The inbox remained empty. One month later, when researching about this promotion over Google, he found out that the space shuttle had already gone. He felt two different feelings at the same time: relief of finally knowing the outcome of the promotion, but unhappiness of not being selected.

Since then, his head, that had already been busy with anxiety due to not have any reply during this one month, reserved some space to more doubts enemies of the peace of spirit: where did I go wrong? Have I lost so many time beating around the bush due to my necessity of having the total control of the things? Should I had gone straight to the point? Was not me good enough for the voyage? Was not the voyage good enough for me?

Now he could only theorize. What if...? Perhaps... Ellipsis... Perhaps this was not the time and I should wait for one more opportunity... opportunity that does not appear any time. Perhaps it would have been better and I would have spared myself from something unpleasant. Perhaps I did lose the chance of stepping on the Moon, and check if it is made of cheese. Emmental or gruyère?

Now the space shuttle had already gone and all the man-boy could do was to accept the facts and choose to either chew his doubts or swallow them at all. Perhaps the voyage was one more of his desires, but are a necessity and a desire just frivolous wishes? Perhaps the crew of the shuttle will have a unique, wonderful, unforgettable experience and the man who wished to become an astronaut will never have. Or perhaps they are going to meet the Death by being devoured by the Sun.

If I could foresee the outcome of the obvious non-proved, I would get less stressed than the usual.

Ex-pectations

You do have expectations and your supposed lack of them is nothing but the reflexion of what you wished and failed.

There is no point in pretending you do not have expectations. Lie to the world, but can you lie to yourself even when you do it perfectly? You do have expectations and your supposed lack of them is nothing but the reflexion of what you wished and failed.

Who disputes an Olympic Games final wishing to win the silver medal and refuses the gold one? Who dreams of becoming fatter and fatter? Who wants to have acne or being ugly? Who does not want to be loved? Everyone has expectations, lots of them are suppressed even by us when we are afraid of bad comments from people we love and people we hate. Well, we want to be spoiled and the one who criticizes it is the one who wished to be spoiled and never was.

Expectations of you to know that I like your company and I would like you to stay a little bit more for me. Come here and show and tell me you really like me. Expectation of you noticing that I changed something on my appearance in order to praise you – and this time you noticed it by your own. Expectation of not suffering from Cláudia's Disease.

Expectation of becoming a succeed professional, recognized by my skills. Of being with people who cares about you, not about the things what you have. Of being friends that are not afraid to say to you the things you dislike, but that you have to hear for you well being. Expectations of comments in a blog.

We want to shine through. If our love life sinks like the Titanic, we expect our professional life to be ascending like the Brazilian deputies salaries. Expectations of something best and bigger. Expectations of your expectations not to become ex-pectations.

What about yours? Which are your expectations and ex-pectations?

A hot body but nothing else

And you sought love in the desire and then he said he loves you and wants you to go to the end of the line.

I want to be loved. I want the world to admire all my beauty, my curves. I want to hear the whistles when I pass by a under construction building. I want to become the new desire, a reason of a car crash.

In order to become a desire, you must shut up your mouth and work out. Work out a lot! I must use short and tight clothes to show off your body. I must know how to bend your body in a way your ass and breasts can be properly admired. You must know how to drink through a straw in the sexiest and provocative way. You must know how to drive a man crazy and on fire.

Desire attracted others desire objects, politicians, soccer players, money, dirty sex, naughty looks, low-quality TV shows, sex magazines.

However, the desire did not attract respect, attention, affection, friendship without sexual intentions, admiration and the so sought love. A hot body only aroused the desire of sex on others, leaving a sensation of abandonment, loneliness and emptiness.

Come on desire, do not be a fool waiting for an everlasting love. You demand too much while you have too little to offer besides your own body. You seek for love in the wrong places. How do you expect to be loved if you do not even love yourself?

Watermelon woman and her future...

Beauty and nothing

One day I looked at the desire, but it even looked at me. I was out of the beauty standards.

Good morning, desire. I see you wherever I look, on TV, on the magazines, on the billboards, at the movies, at the mall. It is impossible not falling in love with your beautiful face, perfect smile, your soft skin, your bright hair, your hot body.

One day I looked at the desire, but it even looked at me. I was out of the beauty standards.

It hit me hard my ego and self-confidence. I have never felt so ugly and unattractive. I wish I could be an ostrich and lay my head on the ground.

But I would not want to conform myself being an ugly and unattractive one for all my life. So, I started to build my beauty, ignoring superficial beauty and building my inner beauty.

People around me got surprised due to all my intelligence, but I still was not attractive, I was not a desire. Why nobody could see my inner beauty? The “Beauty and the Beast” tale did not touch anybody? Was it just hypocrisy?

I started to hate much more the desire, being aggressive with those who admire the desire and the desire itself. I learned to be rude and sarcastic when offending it. I would like revenge because you rejected me.

I screamed:
― For me, you are the perfect example that beauty and nothing have the same meaning.

You did not understand. I got frustrated. Shit!

...

But who am I trying to fool? In fact, I still want the desire even though I am not like it. And I am a frustrated one because I am out of the beauty standards. I think if I was frothy, or if I stopped rejecting what was said it is frothy, I would become frothy and happier...

Yes, I enjoy being hit and having my heart dragged through the roasting and dirty roads of Guinea-Bissau.



Full version of the movie above on YouTube.