The Daesh Dilemma

The fresh terrorist attack in Paris, which comes less than a year after the Charlie Hebdo and Copenhagen shootings, is a huge rock thrown into the placid pond that is the complacent attitude in the West about terrorism from the Middle East. It is shocking, disorienting, and even though the rock landed in just once place, its splash has rippled out to every last corner of the pond. Although the waters may become placid again, the rock will sit at the bottom, still inside, even if all that will be left of its effects are memories.

In the wake of these kinds of events, we are able to band together and eventually return to our normal everyday lives. On several occasions, we have splashed back, or thrown rocks in return--however you want to extend the metaphor--to exact revenge and to try to ensure that the rock throwers will be rendered as small and ineffective as possible. Unfortunately, rocks continue to occasionally land in our pond and we are forced to have the same conversations about what to do over and over.

The hasty reaction to the terrorism of the September 11th attacks, specifically the initialization of two occupation wars, one of which was started without the approval of the United Nations (and therefore illegally in the minds of many) and neither of which were started with any thought about an exit strategy, has left a lasting sour taste in the mouths of liberals. The awful, drawn-out conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the ongoing drone campaigns in Iraq and Pakistan, initially decimated the numbers of our ideological enemies but have ultimately led to a hatred of America and the West held by entire populations, not just the theocratic factions that once oppressed them. For too many in the region, the enemy of the enemy became a friend, and the number of Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and Haqqani, and other violent radicals in the region increased in response to liberators becoming invaders and occupiers.

As a result, it is now a common cry from liberal minds that the West has created more terrorism than it has ever eliminated through its repeated forays into the Middle East. This is certainly an arguable case, but the false conclusion that liberals reach for is that no further military intervention in the Middle East should be undertaken because, according to history, it is by definition destined to end in failure.

Their conclusion is strengthened in the wake of terrorist attacks like those that have taken place in Paris. As much as people from all sides of the political spectrum call for a war against Daesh (the derogatory term for ISIS), the strongly liberal-minded are furiously trying to warn us that now more than ever we must understand that hate cannot fight hate, ideology can never be erased, and going to war is just what conservative war-mongers and fear-mongers and other mongers want so they can profit in some way. In essence, we should remain solely on defense.

In a perfect world, spreading messages of peace and love would be enough to convince our ideological enemies to drop their weapons and come on over for a big group hug. Very regrettably, this is not a perfect world and, for all the peace and love a radical might see in someone, he would still kill them if he believes it the right thing to do to be holy and fulfill prophecy. That is why Daesh murders so willingly in and around their territories. No doubt so many of their victims are as good, loving, and honest as we believe ourselves to be, but they are being executed or beheaded and will continue to be. What makes anyone in the West believe that our messages of love and understanding will look any different in the eyes of a zealot who has killed people of the exact same mind, just in a different place?

If We Do Nothing

Rejection of any type of military intervention in the Middle East, specifically with the aim of combating Daesh and/or supporting its local opponents, would only lead to a death spiral of stability and security in the West, particularly in the EU. To elaborate, Daesh can win against the West in four steps:

• First, terrorist attacks kill enemy civilians and undermine the homeland security of their targets. 
• Second, refugees flood from combat zones into Europe, overwhelming border security and presenting a humanitarian crisis that divides countries over how to respond.
• Third, the combination of refugees and terror attacks simultaneously bolster the popularity of nationalist parties, as is happening in Central and Eastern Europe as well as in more western and typically leftist countries like France, Germany, Austria, and Denmark. These nationalist parties tend to favor exiting the EU or at least refusing to cooperate with it, contributing to the growing threat of a disassembled and bickering Europe which stands a much smaller threat to Daesh than a united Europe.
• Fourth and finally, rising nationalism espouses intolerance and rejection towards refugees, which if it comes true would push refugees to the outskirts of society, where they will be forced to embrace the outskirts of society. If so, then refugees will have to resort to living poorly and far too often criminally to survive, causing a feedback loop of "they commit crime and do not integrate because nobody hires them and nobody hires them because they commit crime and do not integrate." Being trapped between a hostile society and the war zone of their home, living in homogeneous communities, and dealing with mutual anger and distrust between Europeans and refugees, would serve collectively as the perfect ingredients to foment radicalization and anti-West sentiment.
• As a French former prisoner of Daesh writes, "They will be heartened by every sign of overreaction, of division, of fear, of racism, of xenophobia; they will be drawn to any examples of ugliness on social media. Central to their world view is the belief that communities cannot live together with Muslims, and every day their antennae will be tuned towards finding supporting evidence. The pictures from Germany of people welcoming migrants will have been particularly troubling to them. Cohesion, tolerance – it is not what they want to see." (source)

The first three steps we can already see unfolding before us. The fourth step has not yet happened but history has taught us that it will. Nearly every subjugated or sidelined immigrant group in modern history was contemporaneously associated with crime and poverty. Africans in early America and then Italians and Irish in the early part of the century before Latin Americans since the 1970s, Cold War refugees in the West, Northern Africans in France--all and surely more are examples of how immigrants escaping poor conditions at home become characterized as the bad apples of society, all the more easily if their hosts earn their hate (however, research shows that immigrants are less likely to commit crime than local inhabitants). France especially, with a total population that is 8% Muslim but a prison population that is 70% Muslim, has created in its prisons and ghettos the perfect petri dish in which to grow exactly what plagues it now: Islamic radicalism. In the wake of terror attacks by Islamic fundamentalists, what are the expectations that the French government and its people will try to destroy this inequality and embrace their fellow Frenchman who is a Muslim? No, we can only expect the opposite, much to France's (and our) disadvantage.

In short, it is a nice thought to believe that through patience and understanding, we can defeat ISIS. Unfortunately, refusing to take the fight to Daesh is much, much more likely to result in a completely destabilized, xenophobic Europe overwhelmed by refugees and unable to respond effectively to what would no doubt be an ever-growing, ever-confident mortal threat from the East. The warning signs of this fate are not conjecture at all--they are right in our faces. Instead, we must make the hard choice to go to war.

The Case for War

War should always be a last resort, but against a completely determined enemy already slaughtering, raping, and destroying whole swaths of a continent with the excuse that they are on a mission from God, there is no more room to negotiate. Those who do not just respect the rights of others to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and instead engage in wanton murder and destruction to deny those rights must be stopped by force if persuasion fails. Persuasion has failed and now force must be used.

Still, just as tact and strategy are required in persuasion, now a great level of tact and strategy are required if the West is to engage ISIS in direct combat. A sound plan must be drawn up and clear commitments must be made. All aspects should be covered, room made for contingencies, and expectations set. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan largely failed because of their haphazard, off-the-cuff handling. This war must be fought with clear strategies regarding entry, fulfillment, and exit. Below are my basic suggestions for expectations and commitments that should be set prior to war:

1. The war should be led by a coalition, including Russia if possible. The United States's rush into Afghanistan and then Iraq pulled an unwilling NATO into those conflicts and then caused mutual dissatisfaction with how the wars were being handled. In this war, the responsibilities of each country involved should be outlined and agreed upon, then implemented.
2. The war's length and depth should be planned, but it should not be so strictly planned that a failure or change in one aspect of the war should cause the entire operation to be disrupted. There should be a willingness among countries to hold a certain amount of reserves in the event that not everything goes according to plan and they are needed. Similarly, no member of the coalition should seek to back out from the war if contingencies occur, thus abandoning the rest of the coalition to make up for their absence.
3. The war should not just focus on annihilating Daesh and its similarly-minded counterparts, it should also seek to empower friendly factions in the area. Iraqi, Iranian, and Syrian factions which are anti-Daesh, secular, and strongly motivated should be given direct and indirect military support by coalition forces. They should also be given military responsibilities by coalition forces, building familiarity and trust. 
4. Friendly factions should be given political support in their home countries. While Russia is pro-Assad and the US supports anti-Assad moderates, a deal should be struck for the sake of combating the greater evil. Additionally, the hands-off approach by the US to Karzai's government and ANA/ANP forces, as well as Iraq's forces, has ultimately ended in disappointment. A more forceful stance must be taken to install and support strong friendly factions who can be trusted instead of relying on good faith. Instead of trying to influence from the outside, change should be made from within and the local population should be won over through the efforts of the friendly faction in charge.
• To bolster or even create friendly factions, the West may want to consider the idea of training refugees who are willing and able to return to their homelands and fight. This is a considerably controversial idea, but a volunteer force of willing, able, and motivated displaced persons, which would be heavily vetted and then trained and supplied, could solve a few problems: volunteer forces would be trustworthy, directly commanded, and familiar with the region. They would be highly motivated by fighting for their homes and they would potentially influence other refugees to return home, confident that when their communities are liberated, they will be in the hands of professional and loyal fighters instead of foreign forces which may disappear unpredictably. Additionally, fighters who stand out could be elected or selected to lead in local leadership positions in government and the military.

At home, public security should be increased through police programs aimed at increasing police numbers alongside pushing positive law enforcement culture, strengthening integrity and public trust in police forces troubled by corruption in addition to invoking the image of police as friendly, positive, and professional. Although further security programs might prove useful, their risk of compromising individual liberty and right to privacy is extremely unrecommended given their potential for instigating civil strife and distrust of government. Instead, since these attacks are typically in public spaces and performed openly (as opposed to a hidden bomb detonated discreetly like the Boston marathon bombing), a constantly heavy police presence should minimize if not altogether stop any opportunity to mount an effective attack.

Simultaneously, refugees should be quickly detained in livable conditions and documented as quickly as possible. International communication, ideally handled by one or more special task forces created to handle the crisis, should be able to sort out as fast as possible who is coming to Europe, where they should be placed, and what should be expected of them. All refugees should go through some level of assimilation education like language lessons, basic local law, and basic local customs before being released into society through a tag-and-release or parole-like system which, while arguably inhumane, would allow governments to track integrating refugees and allow refugees to build the trust of their host governments.

Conclusion

The suggestions I have put forth in this post require a lot of hard choices. Some of the suggestions risk moral or humanitarian calamities if not executed with precision and steadfastness. Nonetheless, I believe that these are the ideal choices to make. They are better than the liberal call to inaction, based on a mistrust of war in the Middle East and a focus on defense and a campaign for compassion. They are better than the conservative call for isolationism, xenophobia, and unmitigated, unplanned war. They are, hopefully, a mix of both sides, the best points taken from each, combined to lift us out of the crises that we are facing now and ultimately make the world a better place for all.

Persecution Complex: Europe and the Immigration Crisis

As an American living in Europe, political discussions--particularly those critical of my home country--are fairly commonplace with both friends and strangers. In these conversations, it is rarely possible to draw direct parallels between European and American societies because they are so different both historically and in the present. Occasionally, however, a situation will arise in either society that the other has faced before or currently faces.

In the past few months, the issue of immigration has come to the forefront of European politics. As the brutal Syrian civil war continues on, scores of Syrian civilians are abandoning their country in flames and seeking out a place to rebuild, if not a better life than the one they had prior to the civil war.

It is arguable whether or not these migrants should be classified as migrants or refugees. The argument for classifying them as migrants rests on the fact that most are looking for jobs and a better economic situation abroad. The argument for classifying them as refugees rests on the fact that most of those coming from Syria are not looking for a better life as much as they are fleeing from an awful one--one that comes from a literal warzone in which the combatants have little to no regard for the Geneva Convention or minimizing collateral damage, exemplified by the Syrian military's use of barrel bombs, which can level whole city blocks, and chemical weapons. Others fleeing from Syria as well as Iraq are doing so because of territorial gains by the Islamic State.

A quick trip to any video hosting website that hosts more real, graphic videos (such as LiveLeak or VidMax) can yield a litany of videos demonstrating the terrors and horrors of the life that these migrants are fleeing.

(EDIT: Brandon, the creator of "Humans of New York", spent some time among refugees in Greece and delivered these testimonies from refugees themselves.)

It surprised me very much then when the common European values of inclusion, compassion, cooperation, and empathy have seemingly run away at the same time as these migrants have shown up on the doorstep of Europe. The modern world has been witness to American immigration policy enough to have formed highly critical opinions. It has often been suggested to me that Americans are racist and xenophobic. It has often been suggested to me that the extent to which America has gone to persecute and deter illegal immigrants is selfish and merciless.

And yet, now faced with a similar situation--that is, a significant and sudden influx of poor migrants of a different ethnicity, culture, history, and language--Europe's collective reaction is not just lacking; in some places it's outright hostile. Considering the ability of many European countries to provide for its own people through vast and effective social safety net programs, the reasons for opposition are remarkably similar to the same arguments for which America has been critiqued:

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As far as arguments go, I would like to address Nick's first as I believe it is the most ridiculous but one of the more widely accepted arguments against providing help and care to migrants (Piotr shares a similar sentiment).

The suggestion that "indigenous" culture is under threat by an influx of refugees is a suggestion based on absolutely nothing empirical except for small "enclave" examples like Cubans in Miami, the various ethnic neighborhoods in New York, and other insignificant and isolated examples. Moreover, evoking the image of Europeans as suffering the same onslaught as Native Americans is a distortion of reality so severe that it may as well include the postulation that the European unicorn population is threatened by refugees as well. Let's get to these in detail.

First and foremost, native cultures in Europe are very old, generally very homogenous, and very strong. They endure, and have endured, through hundreds if not thousands of years of highs and lows, war and peace, crisis and renaissance. Some nations and cultures have come and gone, but those remaining today are largely stable and have been for a long time, changing only with fashion and zeitgeist and largely changing from within.

Throughout the history of these cultures, immigration has always been present. To address both the first and second point of the anti-migrant argument, it is prudent to look at Germany, Britain, France, and Sweden today. For each, a slight change in ethnic homogeneity brought on by immigration has occurred within the past century.

In 2011 in Germany, the citizens with a migrant background was declared to be 19% of the total population. An additional 7.7% of the population was defined as foreign nationals. The majority of those percentages are from a Turkish background (about 9% if 2.4% of the German population is ethnically Turkish and 26.7% (19 + 7.7) of the population of Germany is not ethnically German).

In 2011 in Sweden, it was estimated that between 14.3 to 19.6% of its inhabitants are foreign born or not ethincally Swedish. The second, fourth, and fifth most populous nationalities of immigrants to Sweden are from the Middle East.

In the UK, the ethnically non-British population amounts to less than 10%.

In France, the population of inhabitants with neither parent from an EU country is 5.6%.

In all of these countries, as immigration has continued over time, national and cultural identity has continued to persist strongly. Ethnic and racial tensions have occasionally been in the news, but these societies continue to remain peaceful, progressive, and successful.

Even comparing the United States, nearly the entire population of which is composed of immigrants from different time periods, maintains a strong national and cultural identity despite being the most popular country for immigration by percentage and numbers. It is also the most economically successful country in the world, has one of the lowest unemployment rates, and is one of the freest. Clearly, the mixing of cultures foreign and domestic in the United States has not led to its downfall in the slightest.

Presently, there are 503 million inhabitants of the European Union. In 2014, it was measured that 33.5 million of them were born outside the EU. With a collective total of 469.5 million native citizens in the EU and the present refugee/migrant numbers somewhere between a conservative 500,000 to a liberal 2 million, the "attack" on indigenous culture is being undertaken by 0.1% to 0.4% of the native population.

It is undeniable, therefore, that if the high foreign-born populations of some EU member states and the United States have not destabilized those countries, there is no reason to believe that this big-number-small-percentage number of migrants/refugees poses any threat to "indigenous culture" in any of the countries in Europe.


It is additionally foolish to invoke the example of Native Americans as a parallel to what Europe is facing with migrants from the Middle East. First, Europeans coming to the Americas were conquistadors and imperialists from cultures of racial, cultural, and religious superiority. Second, Europeans had superior technology to Native Americans particularly in the realm of military capacity. Third, while numbers were initially small, settlers of the American continent eventually grew to a number rivaling that of Native Americans, using superior technology and a society that favored more rapid population growth than tribal societies.

Conversely, migrants from the Middle East are not traveling to conquer territory for their homeland but to escape its destruction. Migrants from the Middle East bring with them no superior technology to what is available in Europe, military or otherwise--essentially, they have no edge over Europeans. Third, their numbers are incredibly small compared to the European population and there is no reason to believe that they will significantly expand to rival local populations in any given period of time. For all intents and purposes, these refugees are at the complete mercy of Europe and its citizens.


In conclusion, when looking at the numbers, it is embarrassing to hold such a xenophobic and backwards position as the owners of these comments do. It derives solely from selfishness and sentiments of ethno-cultural superiority. In an abstract situation where one person has the ability to help another, the simple-mindedness of allowing nationality, cultural differences, and even religion to upset the obvious conclusion that the person with the ability to help should do so is shameful, particularly for Europe's track record.

Our Places in the Library

At the end of the last post, I used the imagery of talking to an empty room to describe this blog's influence. In my first post, I mentioned why I created this blog: a desire for self-expression. But it's easy to ask what the point of self-expression is if there is nobody to witness it. From the outside, it would seem that the self-expression taking place is more about feeding narcissism than any other goal. The self-expression appears to take place solely for oneself and even if it supposes to take place for others, the message is so buried by anonymity that its presumption to be worthy of attention by anyone (concluded by its existence in the first place, which is wholly voluntary) installs a reflex to view any exhibition of someone's public self-expression as a desperate vie for attention and celebrity. After all, the number of individuals with blogs, Youtube channels, Instagram accounts, and other platforms for individual content creation and sharing, is staggering. Out of all of them, very few are famous or popular in any sense. Meanwhile, the number trying to emulate them is, simply put, very high.

Of those content creators and sharers which become popular to any extent, most have simply gotten lucky at gaining a big enough audience to become renowned. It is why the word "discovered" is sometimes applied to these people; they were discovered like gold in a river of stones and dirt, and we, their perceived-to-be untalented peers, are the stones and dirt. For those who are "discovered" who actually have a sincere talent, that comparison can make some sense, but for those who rely primarily on their personality to sell themselves (such as bloggers and Youtubers), it is much more of a game of roulette when showing that you have something to prove--you have to get your audience to like you more than you need to get them to like what you are doing.

The fickle and luck-of-the-draw nature of that kind of celebrity combined with the easily calculable odds of actually achieving any kind of renown makes the idea of putting effort towards sharing oneself in an anonymous public space seem like a waste of time (as well as narcissistic, as mentioned above).

However, we can see even in the earliest recordings of history that the individuals who made impacts on the world and solidified their legacy were just that: individuals. While some were destined to be remembered, mainly those of born into preceding nobility and prestige, many that we learn about and venerate today came from obscurity. It is easy to come up with a dozen names of people who have followed this path. Just the same, it is easy to recall the names of those predetermined to be written down in the history books but decided to go ahead and exceed the expectations set for them.

All of their stories tell us that every individual can make a difference and the key is to believe that one can. Nowhere is this better summed up than in Irving Goffman's "dangerous giants" theory, which asserts that we all have the capability to become entities much larger than ourselves and influence society. We choose not do it because we believe that that we are too small, that it would be awkward and humiliating to try, or that other people are meant to do that but not us.

But time and time again, history proves that it is normal, common individuals who are often the ones to boost themselves to notoriety and leave a lasting impression on humanity. Always central to their success is their belief in themselves and their dedication to their work.

Therefore, while it is very understandable to view individual attempts at becoming known in the public space (and especially the Internet) as so fruitless as to be delusional, history demonstrates that it is a noble effort. It is why this blog was created--not just because I wanted a space to share my writings, but because I believe that the attempt to share them has meaning.

I would encourage anyone else to do the same--the world requires more people to step forward and try to make a difference. If it does not happen, then only the select few who do try will succeed and their success is not always positive for others. By greater participation from greater numbers can we expect a greater world. And, speaking for the individual, consider how big your book in the library of life stories will be. Consider how big the splash from your rock thrown in the ocean will be. Is it not obviously more admirable to try to make your book as thick and colorful as possible, or to make the splash as big and rippling as it can be?

Greatness may sometimes choose us, but only we can choose obscurity.

The Medium and the Message

I like to think that I am a vociferous person when it comes to debate and discussion. I enjoy the battle of words, ideas, and evidence, which challenges my memory, critical thinking, diction, elocution, and more. Debate and discussion make me feel simultaneously intelligent, in that I am smart enough to engage an opponent, and humble, in that I know there is always more for me to learn and that sometimes I am wrong.

Because I enjoy debate and discussion so much, I often find myself participating in them with many different people through many different mediums--email, Facebook, Youtube, news articles, and in person (of course).

Not so often anymore but occasionally I will encounter someone, usually through some form of social media, who states an opinion that I will counter, and then at some point after my rebuttal they will decide to disengage from our communication with the excuse that "it's just Facebook" or "it's just a Youtube comment," meaning that I took what they said too seriously because of the medium through which it was said.

I hope that anybody who follows that line of reasoning will drop it very quickly because the suggestion that the medium through which a message is delivered alters the seriousness or meaning of the message is an obnoxious cop-out.

Consider cyber-bullying. Whereas previously, bullies had to resort to either physical proximity or perhaps even the phone to intimidate and put down their victims, they now have a wide array of electronic mediums through which they can reach their targets with the exact same messages. As evidenced by the effectiveness of cyber-bullying, the change in medium does not change the significance of the message.

The only caveat is that with bullying and trolling, anonymous bullies or trolls from the internet can largely be ignored because of their absence of standing in the eyes of their attempted victims--just the same as an anonymous person on the street can be ignored if they hurl insults because the receiver of the insults has no reason to take the words of the insulting party seriously. However, if bullies or trolls appear with a noticeable and constant presence, those factors can place self-doubt in the mind of the victim and add significance to their message.

However, cyber-bullying is separate from debate and discussion and so a person's thoughts, feelings, and opinions do not become any more or less legitimate based on the medium through which they express them. Besides a desire for self-expression, this is one of the reasons that this blog is underway. Although it is essentially addressing an empty room, the words spoken in that room have the exact same meaning as they do if the room were filled, or the delivery of those words were changed.

In short, feel free to express yourself openly and in whichever medium you choose. What matters is the motivation behind the message.

Introduction: Creation's Pair

Anyone with a modern education--or at least a connection to modern society--is aware of the concept of yin and yang. The concept of yin and yang itself is predicated upon an almost instinctive tendency to label things as coming in pairs, duos, dichotomies, or other measurements of two potentially contrasting halves. Some examples are light and dark, male and female, East and West, salty and sweet, rich and poor, liberalism and conservatism, and so on. Some are antonymic by definition and others are subject to shades of interpretation. Some are things upon which this site will focus in future posts.

The one pair on which I put focus now is the act of creation and what would be its opposite. If playing a word association game, it would be reasonable to suggest "destruction" as the antonym of creation. While undoubtedly true in an abstract, dictionary sense, I believe that in our daily lives the proper counterpart to creation is not destruction. For us, destruction is not so common and often hardly dramatic: a shirt ruined in the wash, a shattered drinking glass, a knocked over tower of wooden blocks, etc. Most of the destruction we witness occurs far away and is delivered to us by the news or video websites: plane crashes, exploding warzones, Islamic State fighters destroying human heritage sites, natural disasters, and so forth. Real, life-changing, terrifying destruction.

In the past, destruction was the reasonable choice as the opposite to creation, back when wars razed whole continents, disease and poor medicine promised short lifespans and high child mortality, and when life was nasty, brutish, and short for just about everyone. Now, in a time more peaceful than ever, with a greater understanding of our world than ever, and with a standard of living higher than ever, destruction is barely a worry to the First World mind.

Instead, I believe that in this age of prosperity, consumption has replaced destruction as the antonym of creation. Central to this change is the growth and development of tools and communications which allow content of greater breadth and depth to be delivered to the masses instantaneously and often for free or a very low cost. This content is public or easily accessible to the public (either free or available through simple payment) and can be informative (news articles, tutorial sites and educational videos, etc) and/or entertaining (comedy, music and music videos, video blogs and memes, etc).

As a result, the average person has an impossible amount of content they can consume in numerous forms. Conversely, the norms of everyday society have culminated in the common experience of working a 40-hour, five-day week in a position that likely focuses little on creating--particularly creating the content that the individual would actually want to create. At the end of the day, people tend to contribute to something--a work project, a volunteer organization, raising their children--but hardly ever do they manage to create, particularly something from their thoughts and imagination.

Meanwhile, consumption is just that much easier. It demands nothing of the consumer except their time and attention in return for enjoyment. Creation, on the other hand, requires the creator to be active and involved, and depending on what is being created, it can demand more time and money than consuming, thereby making the decision to create more stressful than the one to consume. Why else do we we admire people known for creating--writers, actors, musicians, painters, YouTubers, influencers, and so forth? Their lives are spent creating while ours are largely spent consuming (and consuming what they create, no less).

Speaking personally now, the time I spend consuming is time I spend putting off creating things that I want to create--novels, stories, scripts, videos, and more. Since creation is a large part of self-expression, and self-expression is hardly limited to solely artistic endeavors, this journal is one thing I have set out to tackle as a part of pushing myself more towards creation than consumption by using it as an outlet for articulating in writing my beliefs and opinions, most likely those related to religious, political, and social issues and happenings.

Here we go then.