Karim M.Z.

“Think of cocaine. In its natural form, as coca leaves, it's appealing, but not to an extent that it usually becomes a problem. But refine it, purify it, and you get a compound that hits your pleasure receptors with an unnatural intensity. That's when it becomes addictive.

Beauty has undergone a similar process, thanks to advertisers. Evolution gave us a circuit that responds to good looks - call it the pleasure receptor for our visual cortex - and in our natural environment, it was useful to have. But take a person with one-in-a-million skin and bone structure, add professional makeup and retouching, and you're no longer looking at beauty in its natural form. You've got pharmaceutical-grade beauty, the cocaine of good looks.

Biologists call this "supernormal stimulus" [...] Our beauty receptors receive more stimulation than they were evolved to handle; we're seeing more beauty in one day than our ancestors did in a lifetime. And the result is that beauty is slowly ruining our lives.

How? The way any drug becomes a problem: by interfering with our relationships with other people. We become dissatisfied with the way ordinary people look because they can't compare to supermodels.”
― Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others

“Following the mirage
here I am at the water's edge
without the feeling of thirst.”
― Abbas Kiarostami, Walking with the Wind

“أنا الملك جئت.. ولما المرأة ذهبت، ولما تفرق، الذين اجتمعوا حولي، ولما وجدت نفسي وحيدا، اكتملت في تمامي. ولما كنت أنت إلهي وأنا صفيك، أنت النور وأنا صدى النور، أتملى في ذاتي فأراك، وأتملى فيك فأراني.. فإني بعيد عن الآحاد، جئت لنكون واحدا أنا وأنت. الآن، ولم يبق وقت وبقى الأبد، الآن أناجيك فتعرفني, أدون سري بعيدا عن الأعين، لعينك أنت فتعرفني.. أتطلع إلى قرصك اللامع، الذي يرقب من السماء كل شيء، وأنقش على الصخر سري: إنّي حزين...”
― بهاء طاهر, أنا الملك جئت

“Çok alametler belirdi.
vakit tamamdır.

Haram, helal oldu
helal haramdır.

Kendi kendimizle yarışmaktayız gülüm.

Ya ölü yıldızlara hayatı götüreceğiz,
Ya dünyamıza inecek ölüm."

"Many signs have come to pass,
and the time is near.

Haram became Halal,
Halal is Haram.

We are Racing against ourselves my dear.

And either we bring life to dead stars,
or let death descends, upon the world.”
― Nâzım Hikmet Ran