The 3 in 1 Journey
[Applause]
what color is change
what color is trying
what color is fear
and what color is hope
which color do boundaries have
and which color does death have
i’m not really sure how many answers for
each of these questions will pop
up in this room probably as many answers
as there are people in this room
and if we ask ourselves why
why does each question have so many
answers
the answer would be well
it depends on your imagination
on your own memory connecting previous
events with these colors
or even on your cultural background
but if i asked you what color is peace
then i’m almost sure that the answer
would be white
since peace all over the world is
represented by
the big white dove holding that one
olive branch
we all came to this world once with that
beautiful red paint on our smooth pretty
skins
and at that time red represented
the strong connection to the person who
waited almost a
whole nine months to see us
our mothers but red
red can be harsh as well
it can mean war
red is my birth place aleppo syria
red is the color of flames
the flames of the hundreds of candles
i’ve once lit
to study in times of war when the
electricity was out
can mean fear and worry
the fear of losing the fear of losing
friends and relatives
the fear of losing dreams and hopes
or even the fear of losing oneself
to some it might be the kind of feeling
you get when you are forced to be in a
certain situation
but hate being there or experiencing it
green
green to me represents the place where i
spend my childhood as a little girl
saudi arabia but it also represents
that little girl’s dream of leaving
saudi arabia
and heading back home the red
home aleppo
green is the countries and boundaries
all the countries i’ve once lived in
gree is our garden through the
springtime in
aleppo is that green aleppo so
and one peaceful olive branch
blue
blue is in the hesitation before taking
the next step
hesitating if this choice will lead me
to the right place
it is that feeling of missing so many
people and so many places
but not being able to see them again
blue is the color of the fingertips of
many
syrian children during winter days
blue is that rare blue sky on a sunny
day in
germany or its reflection in dubai
skyscrapers
blue is that kind of feeling i get when
i’m at the sea
staring at the waves coming towards me
and sending me lots of memories from all
the people i’ve met before
and the different places i’ve once
visited
blue try and still try to draw
that blue picture of hope in its perfect
way
although i was born in aleppo syria
my first memory as a child was in saudi
arabia
i was two years old when my family
decided to go to saudi arabia to walk
there
i spent 10 years in saudi arabia
visiting syria just during summer
holidays
my dream as a child was to live where i
was once born
in 2007 we finally headed back home
to aleppo at first
it wasn’t easy to reintegrate into what
should have
been my home
and as i finally started re-adapting to
them
to the new environment of my home
country
the war broke out i spent three years
studying medicine
in both aleppo and latakia
but the situation was just getting
increasingly dangerous
road led me to my sister in dubai
and from there i applied for a student
visa to germany after a short time
of again re-adapting to a new
environment
i’ve been studying medicine here for one
and a half years
so as you see here
i’ve been spending my whole life moving
from one place to another
undergoing so many reboots
by many of these reboots i wasn’t really
sure where
the place where the road was going to
lead me
but what i figured out through my own
journey
is that observing things from one angle
will not give me the whole picture
i started recently practicing meditation
and what meditation tells us is not to
get rid
of these paths in our lives that scare
or weaken us the must
but instead of that to make peace with
them by just letting them pass
and not trying to resist these paths
will stay there they’ll keep us company
but we decide in which way they affect
us
right for example is self-love
and fear newton’s third law of motion
says for every action there is an equal
and opposite reaction
what is true for physical bodies is also
true for us
emotionally in order to give
love to the people and things around you
you need to love yourself first
every last every one of us has a cup
here
inside and once is our own cup filled
with love
it will be able to fur other people’s
cows
fear
evolutionary we need fear
and without this little area the
amygdala
in our brains we wouldn’t be able to be
here tonight
it is our key to survival
it’s our sensor to the outer danger
and while each of us feels fear in
different amounts and different ways
we only need the smallest amount of it
to guide us through life’s journey
i’ve mentioned how green represents
the different countries that i once
lived in
but green is more than the outer
boundaries
more than germany syria
dubai or saudi arabia
green is your own private boundary
keep your own green private atmosphere
try to have a steady habit
for me for example yoga
meditation writing and singing
where and still are the green elements
of my daily life
and different phases of it i try to
practice these things every morning
giving yourself that first hour of the
day
is like learning that kind of
self-defense skill
so you can face the rest of the day with
more courage
and more confidence
apart from representing hope
blue represents as well the ability to
change
it is that kind of change that we need
to create
new versions of ourselves
and why
why we need that
as the great indian philosopher osho
once said
life is flowing life is a river
a constant flux people think of
themselves as static
but only death is unchanging
life is constantly changing
more life and more change
so try to change that firm opinion you
have about things
try to open yourself up to new
activities
new ideas or even new habits
you may wonder why i was telling you
about these three colors and what they
mean to me
well one day when i was 12 years old
my physics teacher switched up the light
in the classroom
it was pitch black until he switched on
the projector displaying three circles
onto the wall
green red and blue
all these three circles by themselves
were just plain red plain blue
and plain green and once they started
intersecting
they mixed and turned into just one
color
white
our lives are not that much different
from this childhood experiment
when these three colors are not
intersecting we are not able to get the
white color
[Music]
when aspects of everyday life that these
three colors represent
self-love and fear hope
and change practicing one’s own private
habit
when these three aspects intersect only
then
will we have the balance that we need to
create
peace in our lives
and by peace i not only mean the outer
peace
but the inner peace as well being at
ease with oneself
in the inside and radiating that
peacefulness to the outside
and that what we need for a big
next step in our lives
that’s what i hope for everyone here in
this room
and of course for my home country syria
i’d like to leave you with a shirt
melody
in arabic by syrian singer mayadab
sillys
the text is about opening your heart
hoping for a reunion in the near future
with a person or place we haven’t seen
in a long
time
[Music]
[Music]
um
honey
[Music]
[Applause]