The Last Thoughts of a Busy Mind

29 is an odd age. It is the last year of a decade of life, that is also often conflated with recklessness and experimentation. When one reaches that odd age of 29, one tends to get introspective. Looking back at everything that one did in the past decade, and planning for the future. Though, living in constant turmoil of life outside of one's grasp, those plans may seem like the follies of a fool. Whether follies of a fool or the steps of a genius, one can't help but reach that precipice of turning 29. Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

2025 was an almost apocalyptic year. It had shown each of the four horsemen of the apocalypse with great vigor. It had shown war, and pestilence, and famine, and death. The year 2026 has started for a while now, and though it seems that the specter of these four horsemen are still looming and their handiworks are still being seen, one needs to look for that little ray of light in the darkness; and that little ray of light may come from planning for 2026.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

2025 was an almost apocalyptic year. It had shown each of the four horsemen of the apocalypse with great vigor. It had shown war, and pestilence, and famine, and death. The year 2026 has started for a while now, and though it seems that the specter of these four horsemen are still looming and their handiworks are still being seen, one needs to look for that little ray of light in the darkness; and that little ray of light may come from planning for 2026.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

Life is an unpredictable mess. Things go awry when you full expect it and when you least expect it. Planning for the future, though an essential part of life, is one's attempt at organizing an untangled mess of webs. That unpredictability becomes much greater when one is part of a world as chaotic, as brutal, as depressive and as oppressive as life in a country like Iran. There are moments in one's life when the reality of living in such conditions of inhumanity makes all future endeavors feel like an exercise in futility. Not just planning, but life itself becomes one.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

In this episode, we go back to the online roots of The Last Thoughts of Two Busy Minds and we're having a long conversation with Arash. We met each other online on a social media platform because we had some mutual friends, and hit it off due to our mutual love of cinema and movies. Arash lives in Italy, and has been there for a few years, and recently got his graduation; so our talks did include cities of Europe and living abroad, but it also included topics such as the use of AI in art, Guillermo Del Toro's "Frankenstein", Food and Travel, and ended with an exhaustive discussion of James Bond and Mission Impossible.

With the current regime of Iran facing more and more scrutiny, there's also a loud voice in the room claiming that the only way to return to any sort of stability is by returning to the olden days of Monarchy. This is the prominent voice behind propagandists and many of the older diaspora. Yet, this is also the voice that carries with itself an uncritical view of all the problems that rise with a monarchy, and a desire to deprive people that they deem unworthy of any political power. This is the Monarchist infestation in Iranian political discourse, and it needs to be examined and ridiculed as swiftly as possible.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

Iranian Culture is old, historied and incredibly complex, which is why it is oftentimes easier for people who are not aware of it to bundle it up with the whole of the Middle East and create an Orientalist view of the region. Though there is need to untangle that mess and look at Iranian Culture as its own thing rather than a monolith, it is as important to look at its shortfalls and problems. By ignoring them, we learn nothing, but by learning and facing them, we can step in the right direction.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

Self-image and what you project onto the world is an important part of politics, and it becomes more important with every passing year. It's such optics that can shape the opinions of public, who in turn can put pressure on their governments. Much like any other country in the Middle East, Iran's optics are oftentimes complex, filled with historical context, and fueled by the desires of a few powerful to shape the world's narratives. Though, in this web of optics, there's a question: How do the Iranian citizen projects their self-image?Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

Usually when discussing the health of Middle East, there's an ugly assumption that once the physical needs are not actively hampered, then the responsibility for betterment of mental needs are completely off the shoulders of people who were doing the physical assault. It's an ugly assumption because much like other things misunderstood about Iran and Middle East as a whole, it doesn't fully grasp everything and shifts the blame for the depression caused by outside forces onto the populace who is depressed. Iran is such a populace. Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

Social media has become a hot button issue since its conception, and since its effect are becoming more and more apparent. Social media tends to bring out the worst in us in certain situations, and for people who are primed for conspiracy through their government, education and media systems, these "worst in us" can come out in horrifying degrees. Iran has a problem with social media. It's a big one, and it has been laden with the worst of humanity.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

Sometimes it's important to tackle ideas and ideals when talking about misunderstandings in one region or another. Sometimes it's just as important to tackle a symbol of those misunderstandings and a throughput of more misunderstandings. Iran International, the """news""" network, is such a throughput. It is a propaganda machine with a singular vision of a perceived enemy, who caters to the most vibe-based views on Iranian history, culture and systems. It is a cesspool of talking heads touting propaganda, and it serves as the worst in a series of already broken systems.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

Much like any country who has had massive social and political upheaval in the 20th century, Iran has a considering number of diaspora living abroad. This has created a schism in the pop culture of Iran, and has separated it into a homegrown and a diaspora-grown branch. Both of these branches though, still have a home in Iranian identity, and have created the dual-personality of Iranian culture.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

Food is such a peculiar subject. It is universally believed to be apolitical, even though our connection to it is increasingly becoming more and more political. It's one of those subjects that can lead to appreciation of a culture, while also quietly dehumanize it. It's a peculiar subject, and when it applies to any one culture as their defining trait, it makes putting aside the people of that culture in favor of their residual aspects much easier. In short, when food is involved, it's easy to diminish people into what they will serve you.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

The specter of Iranian Cinema outside of Iran is an odd and interesting one. It oftentimes frames some of the most unique movies out of this system as the "norm", and creates a stereotype of an Iranian artist as someone in tune with something extraordinary. Truth is a lot more complicated than that. A positive stereotype, is still a stereotype, and with it comes a misunderstanding. Iranian Cinema is not what the best of it represents, and Iranian filmmakers are far more varied than imagined.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

When it comes to the history of Iran, there's so much misinformation and misinformed opinions that it's hard to divide the wheat from the chaff. Even for most Iranians, whether they've been learning history through school or through revisionist texts online, the idea of Iranian history is a complex and contradictory mess. In this mess, some reviled ideals can harbor and fester, creating an identity based on a past that was never there, and try to return to that imaginary past.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

The matter of religion is always more complex than it seems, but it becomes doubly-so when it enters the varied world of Middle East. The outward view of many countries make them seem like purely religious puritans, even though their ultimate goal is control, and religion is just one single lever in their arsenal. Though, religiosity becomes even more complex when the actions of supposed religious governments inflate to reflect on the public, and there's no better example of that than Iran.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

The view on Iran can be categorized in many ways, and one of them is a geographical climate view. As with many other countries in the Middle East, Iran has been depicted time and time as a purely desert climate. Sand dunes, palm trees, oases with shallow water reserves, camels and desert people. This is how the world likes to view Iran, because that way they can diminish the Iranian experience and bring it down to a single monolithic view. But, that's not the truth. Iran is not a desert, and it never has been.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

When it comes to discussing politics in and about Iran, there's usually one or two stereotypes that people fall into. These two often reflect the political intent of the person spreading them, but nonetheless the effect is similar: it reduces a range of ideas, people and political identities into a single force. Iranians in either interpretation of these monolithic parties are zombified husks who will follow a singular leader, whether it's a tyrannical overlord or a disgraced prince.Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

During the war between Iran and Israel, oftentimes Iranians were reduced to a monolith of ideals, ethnicities and even culture. It's a view that is prominent outside of Iran, and sadly it's even prominent inside of Iran. The idea that Iran as a whole is a unified set of beliefs and cultures is one that's pushed even by our government (then and now). It can't be farther from the truth though. Iran, throughout its existence, has always been a tapestry. It's always been complex, and it's always been more than a monolith. Special Chapter #12 - It's the Circle of Noora: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/akhamseh88/episodes/Special-Chapter-12-Its-the-Circle-of-Noora-e36i050Check out my appearance on "Re-Animate THIS!": https://reanimatethis.podbean.com/e/sky-captain-and-the-world-of-tomorrow-2004-the-devil-rides-out-1968-and-the-gorgon-1964-feat-ali-khamseh/Email me at: ContactAKhamseh88@gmail.com

In this episode, we're meeting once again in person to sit down and talk in depth with Noora. We met each other while I was "cosplaying" as Santa, and then later... some other time... we think? Though we have had other connections that have made us to meet each other more and get closer with time. Noora is an artist, and has been from a very early age, so our talks inevitably went into talking about art, artists, our relationship with art and artists, including an in-depth discussion of Leonard Cohen and Mohsen Namjoo, with things inexplicably going to Salvador Dali's peculiar interests in intimacy.Check out my appearance on "Troubled Artists": https://open.spotify.com/episode/0TLIkphzhHlOMgpdUxlWmE?si=8cd011d820544fa9Check out Noora's book on Mahasa Publishing: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCOI5Q4Cmrp/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MW9meTFmM3V6amdrMQ==