Lebanon Under Perception

"I swear to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth."

Growing up, it was thoroughly emphasized that it was of extreme importance that we relate to others on a basis of common ground. Our parents yelled at us for making information up. God was going to hang people lying; he was going to drop his infinite rope of sins and morose to silence those who fall short from the truth. (Oh mom, you have much to explain). Sometimes, holy punishment was too elusive for youth's perky minds, so chilly would do. Yup. Mom, also known as God's alleged candidate on Earth, would get you to taste some of that hellish red pain melting into your taste buds and squeezing out the salt and waters from your lacrimal glands. We were adhering to a common code of realism. Shocking enough it was to find out that we were only sharing an illusion. It was truly a lie.

You see, what is true is highly overrated. What is considered real is often what we perceive as fact. It is the belief of having a common perception that sets basis for materialism.

Growing up in Lebanon, I was never aware of how socially unaccepted my family's diversity was. It feels eerie acknowledging that midst a commercialism promoting 18 DIFFERENT SECTS sharing only 10,452 km squared of land- a true example for positive heterogeneity. Nonsense! Rising from wreckage the Lebanese parties left behind after the Lebanese Civil War in the late 1900s, it was a taboo to institutionalize a family having its corners from different mindsets. Coupling of different religions, different sects, and different political backgrounds or even from different geographical backgrounds was highly socially prohibited. A big no! Why? Just no. Society said so. (As if it was too complicated to admit that the society is but us, the individuals that make it up. Had we wanted change, then so was what's the society would have underwent.)

Now, it's time to stretch out from between the risky words, so excuse me or don't. Group A still holds the grudge from the unjust that was poured upon them throughout history and can't get over it to fall under order. Group B members still believe that no one knows politics more than they do. Wrong. Group C followers are somehow still convinced that they are the only to know French and wear manicure. D? Well, they just don't give a shit as long as their sect is fine. Talk about alienation. A planet for them to have!

It is quite very definite that corruption has devoured our perception of truth. What we have left is but a common set of man-made system that emphasizes boundaries and limits cohesion. So, by embracing such a system, we may actually establish a new format to share with one another: Lie. Lie! If what we relate to is but an illusion, if what the bonds that knit that fabric of "society" together were once created by a misguided perception, maybe we can create a new one. Maybe, just maybe, we can lie once again to paint over the dying cedars a green fallacy. We can love and live a new illusion. After all, belief was once the foundation for truth. So, lie ahead for only lies shall set you free. 

Oh! And remember that if anyone asks you about the civil war, about interrelationships between sects and religions or about why or how we ended up so divided upon ourselves, just lie.