Author: W

Wissam, Wesley, or simply W, is an educator, writer, entrepreneur, engineer, activist, ex-Imam, humanist, liberal thinker with interest and mediocre attempt at many takes of life. A modern confused Renaissance man, who uses doubt as a path for emancipation and science as a road towards enlightenment.

In Preparation for London Trip

W1 Comment

The London trip I am planning to take on April 1, 2017 is my first official trip to Europe. Ā I remember years ago I took a quiz about what is the city that is best for me, and the result was London. Ā I don’t know much of this city, except from the game Monopoly, and the few movies shot there, but my love to it has been growing over the years for many reasons.

I am going to start this journal about my trip, from preparation till returning, and I hope you will enjoy it with me.51qqsljk15l-_sy344_bo1204203200_

In preparation, I started reading the Biography of London, by Peter Ackroyd. I am also getting the map of london today from AAA to draw my general plan for visiting the city.

I also am going to watch a couple of movies shot in London, and a couple of documentaries to get me in the mode.

In London, I am meeting my dear friend, Walid Marmar, and a group of other friends and acquaintances.

I am excited about this trip that will be the first of many to Europe, and to a city from which everything I love in Art, music, literature, and theater have sprung.

Movies and documentaries I will watch shot in London:

 

February 2017 Personal Productivity Report

WLeave a comment

In the second month of the year, and after the Annual Strategic Meeting Ā at Fort Lauderdale that took place in the first week of February, implementing the W Plan for this month has a significant importance: it is testing the refined and edited plan to make sure it works, and stepping up the game plan based on the results.

So in January, I had 308 steps accomplished and an overall success rate of 55%. Last month of February, I had a 62% success rate and 367 steps accomplished.

Last month of February, I had a 62% success rate and 367 steps accomplished.

There were 12 important accomplishments in the month of February, including the establishment of 4 new businesses, establishment of a new meetup group and secured a great location for it, and some successes at the non-profit level.

The diet plan worked out fine and comfortable, although I followed the diet 76% of the time, and stuck to the menu 90% of the time, and exercised 85% of the time, I am 0.6 lbs away from the month’s goal. Ā This I counted as a failure, and next month it will get more strict.

Four of myĀ goals in business that require coding and deep thinking, were not touched during the month due to lack of that “deep work” time. Ā Also, I had 53% success in doing my daily meditation, although much success in hiking through the woods.Ā 

For that, an important resolution had to be made to tackle these “failures”. Ā The way is to create Deep Work time. Watch this video about Deep Work:

These resolutions were decided based on this:

2017.2.24.a Facebook is deleted as a phone application

2017.3.3.a Wake up at 6. Meditate to 6:15. Deep Work 6:15 to 8am.
2017.3.3.b To read and sleep, I have to be in bed by 10:30PM, otherwise a nap of 1 hour is needed in the afternoon of the next day.
2017.3.3.c Check mail once a week and scan once a month

Memoir Part 3: Idols, Khor Fakkan, and Fujairah

WLeave a comment

We learnt Islam in schools from Kindergarten.  We memorized the short Surahs (chapters of Quran) and recited them like Christmas carols.  We heard short stories of the prophets and day dreamed about them.  And we studied the Seerah (personal history) of the Prophet at a very young age and it was our bed times stories or in some cases, fantasies.

3806
The story of Prophet Ibrahim destroying idols and leaving the ax on the biggest idol was depicted by illustrations such as this in children’s book.

One of these short stories is the story of prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) and how he destroyed the idols of his people during their festival, in which he pretended to be sick to be left behind.  Another story was the Prophet (the prophet here forth will mean Prophet Mohamad) destroying the idols surrounding Kaaba after the ā€œOpening of Mecca” (the word opening – fateh in Arabic – is used for Islamic major conquest).

 

You have to be a son of a United Arab Emirates native male to be considered an Emiraty or to have the UAE citizenship.  An Emirati mother wonā€™t do, nor is being born there.  It is a tribal society with all the pride and prejudice that come with its definition. Only about 11% of the countryā€™s population are Emiratis.  The majority actually (0ver 50%) are a working class South Asian … that is Indian, Pakistani, Bangali, Afghani, and others.   We as foreigner Arabs were called “expatriates”. Most Emaratis and expatriates had servants, and so did we.  We had a servant whose name was Leila, from Sri Lanka.  In my opinion, it was just a modern form of slavery.  The abuse of human rights inscripted in the work contracts for those servants is shocking, although the economic value to them is great. 

 

At any case, Leila was a hindu, and I walked to her room with my brother Moe when in Ajman when I was about 7 years old, and found her kneeling down to one of the african antique wood sculptures my mom bought for our living room. She was practicing her religion, but given my little child indoctrination about idol worshipping infidels, and the influence of all the ā€œidol destroyingā€ heroes of my childhood, add to that a lack of education about tolerance, I found it an opportunity to do what Prophet Ibrahim did, and me and my brother Moe attacked the idols and smashed them across the wall, destroying them, and shouting ā€œALLAHU AKBAAARā€.

 

Leila cried, probably not because of our blasphemous act, but maybe because she thought she will get in trouble. My parents had a confidential talk with her. But then,   we had a good traditional warm from the oven slipper beating (Arabs donā€™t use grounding as punishment)  by our Mom for destroying her living room ornaments.  

050411120501jb3gbfj5eg9m
In 1982-1983,  a new branch of National Bank of Abu Dhabi was opening in a small village called Khorfakkan, and my father was promoted to be a branch president and requested to move to it.  A very important chapter of my childhood started in this small city surrounded and pushed by mountains into the dark blue of the Gulf of Oman.  I was moving to Grade 2, and my brother Moe was entering kindergarten.  There were no private schools in Khorfakkan.  The closest city with a private school (25 minutes drive) was Fujairah.  The tales of two cities unknown to most humans at that time started for me and my brother Moe.

screen-shot-2014-07-07-at-5-38-22-pm

Thought of Today: February 10, 2017 at 10:01PM

WLeave a comment

2% of the brain (two table spoon) is relational brain. That’s what organizes our thoughts coming from the rest of the brain.

98% of the brain functioning alone produces only intuition.

We have lost our intuition power by losing touch with our raw thoughts and feelings, and communicating through text/email.

January 2017 Analysis of Personal Productivity

W2 Comments

January is an important month, and this analysis is very important because it will adjust the plan to what is most probably will have minor changes for the rest of the year.

I tried my new planĀ Ā beginning of 2017 which divided my goals and life into 26 paths.

In the month of January, excluding the last day (which is today), we had 30 days. Ā The 26 paths are divided into 30 steps. That is a total of 780 steps.

Out of the 780 steps, there were 221 cancelled steps. Ā After couple weeks of implementing the plan, I discovered that it will take about 12 hours a day (in addition to work, cook, eat, basic hygiene, spending time with family, open mail, and sleep) to accomplish all these 26 paths simultaneously. Ā So what I did was, I twined some of the paths as to make them alternating. If I accomplish a step in one, I delay the step in the other. Ā So two paths of 30 days each, will be one path of 60 days, taking two months to finish these 60 steps instead of 30.

In doing so, 221 steps were cancelled starting about 9th of January, and it reduced the pressure of the schedule.

The schedule made me super productive, entertained, feeling accomplished, and truly structured my productivity in a meaningful way.

Out of the 559 steps left, 308 were accomplished successfully on time (55%), 52 accomplished successfully but late (9%), and 199 failed or were never accomplished (36%).

Accomplishments of January:

  1. Successful and comfortable Diet plan losing 5 pounds and feeling healthier. (This was under the failed paths since the actual goal was about 10 pounds, but accomplishing 50% of the goal is better than nothing!)
  2. Finished a course on Coursera
  3. Studied one full piece of piano, and half of another.
  4. Established the Advisory Board in one of the Non-profit organizations and recruited a number of volunteers for it. Ā Also started two regular recurring meetups for it.
  5. Established Meetups in about 40 cities for another Non-profit organization and membership skyrocketed. screen-shot-2017-02-01-at-12-27-46-am
  6. Ā Started Facebook Live Series and recorded the first two episodes live.
  7. Bloggins (obviously! 83% successful)
  8. Launching WDD with a full time Chief Designer.
  9. Successful Family Vacation in Florida
  10. Finishing 15 lessons in French (Fluent 2%)
  11. Establishment of a new business group
  12. Other accomplishments in Art, business, and family (confidential)
  13. Accomplishments at work (confidential)

 

Challenges of January:

  1. Workout (60% of planned)
  2. Writing in Arabic (0% of Goal)
  3. Reading two books (67% of Goal)
  4. Daily Meditation (43% of Goal)
  5. Connecting with Extended Family (37% of Goal)
  6. Launching new phase of theĀ W NetworkĀ (17% of Goal)
  7. Working on Autoboard (0%)
  8. Working on consolidating New Personal Site (0%)
  9. Preparation for Publication of book of Poetry (37% and I am happy with that for now)
  10. Getting GeoBuzz.coĀ to work again
  11. Catching up with target weight
  12. Create something artistic in Music or Visual Arts

 

I will be discussing in the next blog how should I tackle the challenges I faced in January in February so I may accomplish more success in them.

Also, I will be discussing some reflections from January and lessons learned, and some resolutions and goals going forward.

The point of all this as far as the reader is concerned is this:

If you don’t control your time, it pours away into the mud, and draws you with it sometimes.