Image by Elizabeth Tr. Armstrong
HOF — I was born an outsider in an unforgiving place. I’ve spent my whole life searching — for a way out, for a way in, for a people to call my own. But most days, I feel like an orphan.
My father was one too, though he never said it. He and his siblings carried the same wound — foreign blood, foreign manners — but easier times. They found families, careers, and the illusion of belonging.
Continue reading “We, the Orphans of the Signal”
HOF — It’s been five years since I released History from 16 Years to 16mm. A lot has changed since then — and not all for the better. I’ve made many attempts to restart, and each time I asked myself: what’s the point?
Why feed these platforms more data, when they seem to feed on us?
Continue reading “The Weight of What’s Left”
This essay tries to understand, not to excuse. It is not a defense of conquest or cruelty. It is a meditation on how, across millennia, the Middle East has been reshaped by collisions — political, religious, and civilizational — and on what those collisions may yet demand of us. Image by Haley Black
HOF — These days, condemning Israel has become a global ritual. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s politics make it easy. His right-wing populism, his faith in force, and his disregard for international restraint have turned Israel from a fortress into a lightning rod. But the more we fixate on Israel, the more we ignore what its existence exposes in all of us — the ancient machinery of power that keeps the Middle East locked in its endless loop of birth and collapse.
Continue reading “From Theia to Israel — Collisions that Forge the World”
HOF — Last year I hit rock bottom. Depression had been with me for years—maybe decades—but in November 2024 it finally broke me. I couldn’t work anymore. I couldn’t do anything anymore. Life turned gray and meaningless, and all I wanted was a way out.
Continue reading “When Healing Became Another Battle”
Feature image by Ahmed akacha
HOF — After 14 years of war in Syria, here’s the hardest lesson I’ve learned:
The real war isn’t between you and your enemy. It’s inside you—between the part that wants to fight and the part that wants to compromise. Victory only comes when the will to compromise leads even the will to fight. Because only then can you reach the same part in your opponent.
Roumani Line 