What if the Work isn't Mysterious, or Important?
3 levels removed, and why it's impossible to escape.
I’ve written about ‘Time’ in the post "Time Travel and Dance, Dance Revolution”, which was fun to think through.
Recently I’ve been stuck in the present, or very near future, like being stuck in a context of one or two days:
today
tomorrow
or the day after tomorrow.
Or as we say in Iraqi arabic:
“Hel Yowm”: today
“Bachir”: tomorrow.
“Ugub Bachir”: the day after tomorrow.
“Owat Imbar7a”: the day before yesterday.
These are specific phrases and words for a two day context window. We mix them with cultural epitaphs that everything is in Gods hands, or:
Inshallah: God willing.
Ib eid Allah: in Gods hands.
Maktoob: it’s written.
I always remember this quote from Kingdom of Heaven:
Or originally going back to Lawrence of Arabia, from the late Anthony Quinn:
And in an Orientalist rebuttal:
Okay stop.
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Back to the point:
We use specific phrases and words for a two day window context, mixed with the cultural epitaph that everything is in Gods hands.
As immigrants, like other working class people, I’d say our attitude is to do the best we can to survive right now, this month and next month, while putting the future in Gods hands
Despite this faith, and in reality like a lot of everyone else right now, we’re still always financially worried. And we’re always (usually) working, somewhere.
The spaces we occupy to survive, and the people we occupy those spaces with to earn a living:
If you’re working just 8 hours a day, accounting for commutes and transition times, you’re spending 49.5% of your waking hours in your work-life.
Because your Outtie needs your Innie to work in order to survive, even if the work isn’t mysterious, or important.
How would your innie feel at work if the work environment was toxic? Or if they didn’t like their manager or boss?
Or if they didn’t really believe that the work was mysterious and important?
Or, for example, would they be okay if they scrolled their newsfeed to see kids starved in Palestine? And our governments standing by?
Are they able to work and ignore all of the other Palestines out there?
Or would they make a run for it?
The Numbers are Scary
How does your innie work, seeing America right now turning into what it’s turned into, or showing us what’s it’s always been all along?
Could you have imagined?
I sure obnoxiously did.
We’ve seen this one before, and that makes the numbers even scarier.
Numbers are scary.
And they carry a big meaning for us.
9/11. January 6th. October 7th.
What images come to mind thinking of each of those dates for you? Dates constantly replayed to us and used as a precedent to shape our way of life?
When the news of October 7th’s conflict broke out, my heart dropped to the bottom of my entire body.
That feeling of immense fear, of knowing of all the upcoming death, dropping right from your heart and into your stomach, swishing and swirling around your tense muscles, stiff bones and fear.
If feels terrifying. And I’m at home.
As free as a Palestine we all want, it might be a collective terror felt, that we all knew what October 7th meant for Gaza.
And then we have to go to sleep and wake up for work on Monday.
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Don’t Bring Politics to Work
Keep politics out of work. Do you remember that? Keep religion out of work. Work is for work. I wrote about Being Political In Your Work a while ago:
Summarized as: how can you not be political in your work?
Personally, I’ve had a tough time in work environments or with people that compromise ethics, values, principles, or truth, and often compromise doing the right thing.
I have an even harder time when those things go out the window in favour of saving face and egos. Or just for the money.
Lately we’ve seen a shift of politics coming directly into the workplace by leadership, and especially by government.
When I was a kid, the term was ‘Affirmative Action’.
RIP DEI: 2020 - 2025
On one hand, things like affirmative action and DEI are created for the reasons quoted in the wiki image above.’
Where governments in America & Canada enforced DEI as a core policy, Corporations enriched themselves through the commoditization of diversity, and minorities scraped the bottom of the barrel if they played along for the grants, funding, and jobs created.
In 2016, I wrote about the Commodification of Diversity if you want to read about it. I’ve been far removed from the Canadian tech industry for some time since.
I still hate the complicity of everyone in the process, and the lack of desire of folks to break out of these systems and stop working for these companies.
But a girls gotta eat.
On the other hand, how quickly DEI initiatives have been reversed & erased in 2025 by companies around the world, in America, and particularly amongst the Canadian or pseudo-Canadian Tech Bros.
A global call to re-align politics in the workplace towards the correct “neutrality”, in a pull to right-wing conservative politics, and another step towards the normalization and enablement of fascism.
I had breakfast at the Drake hotel with a friend? or acquaintance? a little while ago and two funny things happened – you can skip this part, but it’s good tea ☕️🫖 :
While waiting, I ran into Max, Andrew, and their friend.
I roasted them since after working in their circle for a while, they mostly ignore and don’t communicate, while still gossiping and then being kind of nice when they see me.
It’s weird.
I reminded them my biggest memory is a debate with Max, Laura and Sam in 2010 where I was arguing Facebook would be used for Fascism in America, and that’s why I don’t use it.
They were pretty critical of that viewpoint.
Max swears he doesn’t remember. He’s still on Twitter though, or X, which is few ticks away from a swastika.
Max’s friend mentioned her and Max started a co-working space locally. I’m like, no way, we did that for 7 years here, etc.
She asked “Max, how come you never mentioned it, it would have been great to talk to them!” — I replied to her roast-fully 🙃 “well, that’s max. 🤷🏼♀️”.
She invited me to visit, and while I’d love to, you can imagine how I also wouldn’t. I would have really loved to, though, in another lifetime.
Then my buddy arrived and we sat at our own table for breakfast. He’s American, and I’m Iraqi, so like it’s a bit weird for me always.
I asked him what he thinks of the 🌎 🔥 around us and in America, and if it’s all for real.
He replied it is, unfortunately, and that his takeaway was that something’s gotta change because the system isn’t working.
Especially in Canada, with Mark Carney as an international banker, and more of the liberal party.
We need change, he said. For innovation and growth, Canada doesn’t do business like America.
It’s true.
I asked him what he thinks of the Canadian Build Canada Tech Bro manifesto.
Like a lot of others, he agrees that some things should change and that they have some good ideas.
I asked him if he’s concerned that those ideas and the writing comes from folks who align themselves with the far-right.
Or who support the platforming far-right content.
He asked me “yeah, but where do you draw the line?”
Swastika’s, I replied.
We draw the line at literal swastikas and nazis.
Or do we?
I’ve been thinking a lot about folks who can disassociate the socialist conservatism in favour of fiscal conservatism.
Especially if the social conservatism doesn’t impact them directly.
Like all the other young white and mid-aged men in our communities who have that year-round Movember moustache lately.
Who would vote for Pierre.
And how close they bring us to the brink, while working for corporations who really don’t care about them or us.
Where do we go post DEI?
When our Governments erode human rights overseas for decades, either through the manufacturing, sale or use of weapons of war, we open the door to the possibility of the erosion of human rights domestically, here at home.
America in scary mode.
This, after George Floyd.
After January 6th.
ICE nabbing people in the streets.
Built on the shoulders of wars past, and most recently the War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan… the IraqiBodyCount.org does not stop.
Now with daily reminders in the most brutal forms in Gaza, as an international example and showcase of the world’s brutality and complicity.
While our governments sell arms to the oppressors of Palestine, and simultaneously condemn the use of those arms.
While protesters protest with futility, and allies wear khafiyas in solidarity, we watch our people die, and move a step closer to “and then they came for you”.
For my part, I’m frozen in endless today’s.
While I’m not a victim, in the past 5 years, I’ve had:
1 Go back to Allah
1 Go back to Syria
1 Go back to Islam
1 terrorist name-calling
We’ve collectively had:
1 x death threat
2 x stalking threats
3 x harassment emails
and 2 x online attacks
And I hardly even get out.
Our local Parkdale politicians, even the Muslim ones, ignore it, do not condemn it, and do not stand up for us — and that’s the least of it.
Sometimes, they’re complicit.
That’s really why the work paused, yo.
Even when it’s the Canadian Prime Minister painting his face black and dressing up like Aladdin — the country still voted for him.
Where DO we draw the line?
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Recently, America gifted Canada 🇨🇦 this guy:
Canada was otherwise looking at a 25 point conservative lead to elect Pierre.
Maybe without threats to sovereignty, Justin would still have stepped down, Carney would still have stepped up and the liberals would have won anyways.
We’ll never know.
We do draw the line at Fascism though, right?
Two steps from fascism, and a world away from war, while we refine the data.
While everyone was focused on international politics and conflicts, local affordability, and inflation, Canada suddenly came under attack, bringing the country together to form its own post-Trudeau identity.
America was suddenly our problem too — it took literal sovereign-threatening-fascists to wake up our electorate.
Now the focus is on “what matters” — and while I don’t want to keep finding out where we draw the line, it’s not us, my G.
Where injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere, and where every land is Karbala, and every day is Ashura, there’s very little space to breathe.
Then we go back to work on Monday.
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— I’m tired to clean up the writing, though I hope I’ve covered the feeling.