Cairo, the 21st May, 2010

Step by step

Falling in that comfort zone where everything seems settled and, so obviously successful, is something I don't ever want to do. That seems to be the begining of the end.

Whenever I reach to a certain mountain top, I start searching for other mountain tops and I don't even call it ambition.
I call it wanting to be better in my job, in life, inside myself, in the world. I call it hunger for learning and prospering.

One can always do better, always.

Knowing that is a kind of mentality totally alien to most egyptian musicians is something I've been struggling about since I started to work in Cairo.
There is a kind of boredom, loosing feeling about musicians here that tells them that it's not worth to make an effort. It's not worth to do something new. It's not worth to create. Just make the bucks and return home to deliver them to your materialistic wife who is, on her part, waiting for the daily pennies to feed her vanity and the household (usually with many kids to support).

I've been fighting the egyptian system of the dancing field for too long and all by myself.
I fought against the prostitution circles, I fought about the disrespect towards dancers and musicians ( very often to my own harm) and all the things you, as a dancer, are supposed to do in order to prosper in your career.
Never sold my soul to the devil and, thanks God, grew and grew and grew but, sometimes, I just feel exhausted. Going against the flood all the time can get to you. And it does.

I've not been fighting JUST the dancing lobbies and dirty systems, I've been fighting the whole society's prejudices. I've been fighting ignorance, boredom, a clowd that baths all musicians, empresarios and such I encounter and who have given up creating because they quit.

Until now, I've been the body, motor and wheel of the whole train. No supporting hand on any level. Only obstacles.

I guess I have the right to feel tired. And restless.
Because, no matter how bored and weak co-workers might be, I am the one - with God's help - who defines the next mountain to be conquered (and I will).