Lord, Time, Space and Paul

Goodbye my Damascus.

Trinity

I burnt my favorite painting. I had to. I needed to.

All my other creations, all those random faces of shape, color and shade with a touch of illuded free will on canvas; none satisfied me. I was angry at them.

I started nailing nails for these painted paintings. Over bare surfaces of walls, each pair of eyes on each canvas made my room a witness.

I was out of canvas, paint and brush, but I had this room and these walls. I had my sweat, my blood. I had my nails and my claws.

I scarred the room, and the walls, painted murals of red lines and splatters of shapes and shades. Faces on the walls had to be reborn.

I could see the warmth of the red sun cast the shadow of a dead man on the floor. I smiled as I saw two parallel lines reaching for me from him. I was done. It was the creation of me in the boundary of canvas for the witness to see. Sun, burn me and I give the promise of return.

-Pouria Roshan

My Stay

 I am bound to this voyage through myself. I will grab on the cloak of your moon. I fly towards you with closed eyes, until the drop of the last sand. This dried sea is escaping from the prison of these glass walls without corner. I’m standing on your stars and I see the vortex taking the earth in. I am standing on the ground and I see the clouds ascending. I will make a tower to reach your moon. I will fall towards you with my eyes opened wide. Let me in.

-Pouria Roshan

Media is the Culture vs. Culture is the Media

 Since the dawn of humanity there has been the need of communication. The communication is done through many mediums. Depending on the objective of it, the mediums vary. Sometimes the need of communication between two people can be fulfilled with a simple conversation, but what if one pursues to send the message to a larger group of audience?

 Media is the answer. That is why we developed media, from the very initial form of it, such as cave drawings, to its more modern forms, like newspapers, television, and social media.

 Amplifying one’s ideas through media, may affect the audiences’ mindset. Depending on how right or wrong that idea is, how good or bad it has been conveyed whether on purpose or accidental, the target audience grasps the essence of that message consciously or unconsciously and apply it to their personal life.

 Children from very small age are already consumers of this media. They grow up constantly being fed how to think, how to act, and what to believe. Many people are addicted to this media. Many have shaped their lives based on what they have been told by the media. Many believe in something, because the media has told them to.

 The question arises; is media getting out of hand? The answer depends on who’s “hands” are we talking about. For the regular people who are the consumers of this media, it has been out of their hand for a very long time. But the owners of the media, or to be more precise, those who own the owners of the media know exactly what they are doing.

 Media is dangerously powerful. The concept of having such a powerful source, that is capable of manipulating minds, can never remain clean from the hands of power, or those who seek it. The reason is clear. Controlling people’s mindset is the power itself. Once you control what people read, watch and hear, their thinking will be shaped in the way you design it to be. They will be obeying you without them knowing it.

 It is a sad truth that most of the mass media today is owned by very few but extremely powerful corporations. These corporations are based on making profit.  Companies such as Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal are working for more and more power and dominance. Delivering the truth is not always profitable for them. Instead delivering the message of their clients to their audience regardless of how healthy or unhealthy it might be, is the path these giant corporations have taken.

 The way this mass media affects our societies and cultures, is by giving us the illusion of what is right and what is wrong. For example if you take a Hollywood movie with a lot of sexual content to another country with a much more conservative culture, the people of that country will have difficulty accepting the movie. But if this process happens continuously for few years the same people will finally start to accept that content, because after a while people will get used to that behavior and they will find it normal. We have to bear in mind that this process is constantly happening in our world. Media products from big corporations of powerful countries always find their way into other countries of different culture, and they do leave their effects in those societies.

 To say whether media is culture or culture is media is a very subjective matter. It depends on what media are we talking about, and which culture are we studying. A society’s culture can be reflected in their media, whereas the same media can manipulate culture in another society. Also for two different media in one society, one can be their culture and one can be changing their culture. Even sometime within one media in a society both of the properties can be found.

 In a global view, we have very little number of media corporations in a few countries which are feeding the rest of the world. So as a whole it is safe to say that media is culture for most of the world’s population. As most of the money and power is concentrated in the hands of few, the chance of reflecting every culture in the form of an appealing media does not exist. Therefore those rather smaller societies are bound to be affected by the media products of the societies more powerful than them.
 Media being culture and culture being media are both currently happening in the world. Media will not be appealing if it has absolutely no relation with the culture of that society. If you want the media to manipulate the culture, first you must attract the audience, and then imply your message in that media.

A good example can be Korean music industry, and how it is finding its way into affecting Korea’s culture. The so called phenomenon “K-pop” started not so long ago with concepts such as “cute” and “fresh”. The songs were clean and their music videos as well. Their tag was unlike American music industry, K-pop is not about too much revealing of sexuality, but it’s more focused on the quality of the music and the performance. Because of all that and how close that was to the culture of Korea at that time, people started accepting this new trend of Korean pop music. Its fame passed the boundaries of Korea and K-pop became very well known in most parts of the world. That was when the corporations behind the industry changed the path of K-pop. The concepts changed. Despite the decrease in the quality of the music, many songs were published with very unhealthy contents. The music videos became different as well. Sexuality and even very obvious satanic content became a part of K-pop. The fans that have started liking K-pop for its previous values are now following it for absolutely opposite values, and little by little whether they know it or not, they are going to get affected by the changes the corporations made in Korean music industry. And that change will affect the culture of Korea eventually.

Propaganda is another very good example of how media can manipulate societies and their cultures. Making movies, computer games and television shows praising soldiers and then scaring people from an imaginary enemy and inviting them to join the army to invade a country and fight that enemy is what has been going on in the mass media for the past few years. A person from a third party country that has not been exposed to the media of either of the two countries in a war, might have a different opinion about the conflict than the people in those two countries, or he might simply not be interested in that matter at all. But if you show that same person a compilation video of soldiers going back to their families after the war, with some romantic background music, he might as well cry, and consciously or unconsciously pick a side for that war.

 As a conclusion, every culture that has been exposed to media has been affected by it somehow. Some cultures a little, some a lot. There is no escape from it. As marshal McLuhan said, “We shape our tools and they in turn shape us”. Mediated culture is not necessarily a bad thing, depending on from which perspective we are looking at it. Sometimes the little changes made in a culture can help them to open up, or help them to change some traditional habits with more modern and reasonable behaviors. As long as mass media exists and there are people who want power, our cultures will be mediated.

Pouria Roshan

For A Dear Friend..

Relationships start. Then they end and leave scars on their hearts. They may move on, but they know, the heart is not that brave anymore. Love looks more dangerous than before, and they are afraid.

There is one thing that not everybody will tell you my dear. In fact not everybody knows it. Falling in love with someone regardless of how great that love is, does not guarantee an everlasting relationship. A successful relationship is a continuous series of falling in love with each other. To always feel that beauty of love between yourselves, you both need to always make reasons for falling in love over and over again.

The sad truth is, the love with which you start your relationship with, will one day disappear, and it’s out of your hands. It may happen in a month or in a year or two, but if you both are able to make each other fall in love again, then there’s nothing to fear. That ability is the challenge.

The important point that I want to mention to you is be aware of blind love. Make sure you know what your reason is for falling in love with him. Make sure he knows why he fell in love with you at the first place. And make sure you both know how to make reasons to fall in love with each other again. Think deep about it, and if you see it in yourselves then you are ready.

I care about you much more than you think..

With lots of love,

Pouria 

If You Have Never Failed, You Have Never Lived..

If you've never failed, you've never lived..

Don't ever lose your hope..

Have faith..

Keep trying..

With your pure heart..

Prom Nite 2010 (A Night In Paris)..

Prom Nite 2010 was a night that I will never forget.. So I decided to upload some of the pictures we took that night (by the way, the Prom's theme was "A Night In Paris")..

Pictures of the guys gang :) :

Picture of the girls gang :) :

Some other shots:

Me! :

Me and my partner:

Some of my designs for the Prom:

the ticket

booklet cover page (for VIP only)

bunting

program flow booklet

signature board

On the whole it was a real real memorable night.. Planted in my memories.. :)~

The Last Lecture.. Randy Pausch..

In Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture at Carnegie Mellon University in the Fall of 2007, facing pancreatic cancer and the likelihood that he would only live a month or two, Randy summed up his life’s wisdom for his kids (then 1,2, and 5). He gave his lecture to several hundred in a CMU auditorium, but it has now been viewed on YouTube by millions of Americans. It’s enormously inspiring, tear-rendering and well worth your time if you haven’t seen it.

I love his quotes:

• When there’s an elephant in the room introduce him
• Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show how badly we want something.Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want something badly enough. They are there to keep out the other people.
• If there’s anything I want to do so badly, I should have already done it.
• We can’t change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I’m not as depressed as you think I should be, I’m sorry to disappoint you.
• Work and play well together.
  - Tell The Truth. All The Time. No one is pure evil.
  - Be willing to apologize. Proper apologies have three parts: 1) What I did was wrong. 2) I’m sorry that I hurt you. 3) How do I make it better? It’s the third part that people tend to forget…. Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself.
  - Show gratitude. Gratitude is a simple but powerful thing.
  - Find the best in everybody…. Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you. It might even take years, but people will show you theirgood side. Just keep waiting.
  - If you want to achieve your dreams, you better learn to work and play well with others…[you have] to live with integrity.
• Collaboration, treating others with respect.
  - Never found anger a way to make things better.
  - How do you get people to help you? You can’t get there alone. People have to help you and I do believe in karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to help you by telling the truth. Being earnest. I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person any day, because hip is short term. Earnest is long term.
  - Loyalty is a two-way street.
  - Get a feedback loop and listen to it. Your feedback loop can be this dorky spreadsheet thing I did, or it can just be one great man who tells you what you need to hear. The hard part is the listening to it.
• Persistence and hard work.
  - When you are doing something badly and no one’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your critics are the ones still telling you they love you and care.
  - Don’t bail: the best gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap
  - Don’t complain, Just work harder. [showing picture on screen] That’s a picture of Jackie Robinson. It was in his contract not to complain, even when the fans spit on him. You can spend it complaining or playing the game hard. The latter is likely to be more effective.
  - Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted…. I probably got more from that dream [of playing professional football] and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones that I did accomplish.
• Fun, wonder, living your dream.
  - Decide if you’re a Tigger or an Eyeore. I’m a Tigger.
  - It is not about achieving your dreams but living your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you.
  - Never underestimate the importance of having fun. I’m dying and I’m having fun. And I’m going to keep having fun every day, because there’s no other way to play it….Having fun for me is like a fish talking about the importance of water. I don’t know how it is like not to have fun…
  - Never lose the child-like wonder. It’s just too important. It’s what drives us. Help others.
• Risk-taking.
  - You can tell the pioneers by the arrows in their backs. But at the end of the day, a whole lot of people will have a whole lot of fun.
  - Better to fail spectacularly than do something mediocre. [Randy Pausch gave out a First Penguin award each year when he was teaching to the biggest failure in trying something big and new because he thought this should be celebrated. First Penguins are the ones that risk that the water might be too cold.]
• Parenting and kids.
  - The best piece of parenting advice I’ve ever heard is from flight attendants. If things get really tough, grab your own oxygen mask first.
  - About his pancreatic cancer: It’s unlucky, but it not unfair. We all stand on a dartboard and some of us randomly get hit by pancreatic cancer. But my children won’t have me for them and that’s not fair.
  - Someone’s going to push my family off a cliff pretty soon and I won’t be there to catch them and that breaks my heart. But I have some time to sew some nets to cushion the fall so that seems like the best and highest use of my time and I better get to work.
  - I’m sorry I won’t be around to raise my kids. It makes me very sad but I can’t change that fact, so I did everything I could with the time I have and the time I had to help other people.
  - Importance of people instead of things. Told story of buying new convertible that he was so proud of and taking niece and nephew for a ride. Randy’s sister, the kid’s mother was telling them how important it was to keep car pristine and kids were laughing because at the same time he was pouring a can of orange soda on the back seats. His sister asked what are you doing and he said “it’s just a thing.” And nephew Chris wound up being really grateful because he had flu and wound up throwing up on way home. “And I don’t care how much joy you get out of owning a shiny new thing; it’s not as good I felt from making sure that an 8 year old didn’t have to feel guilty for having the flu.”
  - [not a direct quote] but Randy implores parents to always indulge your children’s wild ideas (he talks about how important it was that his parents let him decorate his walls with math formulas, despite the negative impact on their house’s resale value) He says: “If you’re going to have childhood dreams you should have great parents who let you pursue them and express your creativity.”
  - It is Important to have specific childhood dreams. (For example, Randywanted to play football in the NFL, write an article for the World Book Encyclopedia, experience the Weightlessness of Zero Gravity, be Captain Kirk from Star Trek, work for the Disney Company.)
• Be good at something; it makes you valuable…. Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome.
• I’ve never understood pity and self-pity as an emotion. We have a finite amount of time. Whether short or long, it doesn’t matter. Life is to be lived.
• To be cliché, death is a part of life and it’s going to happen to all of us. I have the blessing of getting a little bit of advance notice and I am able to optimize my use of time down the home stretch.

How Much It Hurts..

Have you ever thought about it? How much it hurts when you think about it everyday? How difficult it is for a lonely little fish to find its way in a big big dirty ocean..

I’m having a weird feeling writing this. Maybe it’s because I don’t write that often. But writing is a good thing. It helps you to express your feelings and your thoughts. Just like painting, playing music or any other art. Art is a beautiful miracle.

How much it hurts? How much painful can it be when you want to walk on broken glasses to reach to your destination? My answer is, “It is not painful at all”. Yes, it is not! For me the painful part is only when I see people don’t want to clean up these broken glasses. Why everybody is scared of cleaning them up? Yes, I’m aware that they are dangerous. But look at the end of the story when we can freely take our steps without getting wounded, looking for our goals.

I am taking my part, cleaning my path for the next person, trying my best. I will find my way out of this smokey burning house. And yes, I know it is dangerous. But I don’t think it’s more dangerous than waiting for the fire to come and make me a part of itself. On my way out, I hope I can help others. Wake them up from their nightmare.

Honestly look around yourself. What is happening to humanity? Unfaithfulness and unfairness is sorrounding us. When do we want to start our fight against them?

Lets..

Open our eyes..

Clean our vision..

Then LOVE..

Love, love love… It’s all about love. People have forgotten how to love purely. A love from depth of my heart will tell me how I can share my happiness with you, how I can be a shoulder for you to cry on. There will be no need for you to ask for help. I will always be there for you to help you. I can hear a call from inside which tells me I should hold your hands tight and never let go. I LOVE YOU PURELY.

If we all love each other so purely…… Oh I love imagining that day. This love can start from you.

But there is one more very important thing. When I expect you to love me, I have to make sure I DESERVE it. It’s an art to deserve a pure love.

This will eventually end up with TRUST between me and you. Trust makes UNITY. Unity becomes the KEY. And the key opens the lock.

Do you know how much it hurts when these thoughts come to my mind everyday? Here I will answer it myself, “It doesn’t hurt at all”. Because there are people like you around me. People like you who care about my thoughts, which may be their thoughts as well. People like you care about themelves, our world and our LOVE.

Love, love love.. It’s all around us. I lOVE YOU SO PURE..

With all I have inside this heart,

Yang Jun

A Love Like That..

Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth "You owe me"
Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky.
-Hafiz

Dare, Change..

“In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.”
-Michael Jackson

You Got The Wings..

"You Got The Wings".. In this design I used a lot of Persian calligraphy.. They are all some very old Persian(Iranian) poems.. In any of them you can find whether the word "Angel" or "Wings" :)..

My Ex-Blog-Header..

From now on this is called my "Ex-Blog-Header".. I'll miss you :P..

Forgiveness..

"When deep injurey is done to us,
we never recover until we forgive..
Forgiveness does not change the past..
But it does enlarge the future.."
-Mary Karen Read

The Strenght To Get Up.. An Inspiring Speech By Nick Vujicic..

If you fail, are YOU going to try again?

The human spirit can handle much more than we realize.

It matters HOW you are going to FINISH.

Are YOU going to finish STRONG?

Friends Are Very Rare Jewels, Indeed..

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.
The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all.
He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.
The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.
The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence.. He said, ‘You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. But It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound will still be there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.
Remember that friends are very rare jewels, indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear, they share words of praise and they always want to open their hearts to us.’

Everyday..

Imagine what would happen
if each one of us displayed
this kind of passion
Everyday..

The Most Universal Human Characteristic..

“There are two kinds of sufferers in this world: those who suffer from a lack of life and those who suffer from an overabundance of life. I’ve always found myself in the second category. When you come to think of it, almost all human behavior and activity is not essentially any different from animal behavior. The most advanced technologies and craftsmanship bring us, at best, up to the super-chimpanzee level. Actually, the gap between, say, Plato or Nietzsche and the average human is greater than the gap between that chimpanzee and the average human. The realm of the real spirit, the true artist, the saint, the philosopher, is rarely achieved.
Why so few? Why is world history and evolution not stories of progress but rather this endless and futile addition of zeroes. No greater values have developed. Hell, the Greeks 3,000 years ago were just as advanced as we are. So what are these barriers that keep people from reaching anywhere near their real potential? The answer to that can be found in another question, and that’s this: Which is the most universal human characteristic - fear or laziness?”
From the film Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001)

The Light From Within..

I found this video suitable to go with the quote, so I decided to put them together..


People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

While She Was Dreaming..

Another piece that I finished it's design just now.. Well I guess this one needs a little definition..

Definition:

In the picture you can see a girl in pose of sleeping.. But Because of the the way her hair is you may also think she's falling or going through depth of water..

At the background on top you can see darkness.. That's were the girl seems to be falling from.. And then at the bottom of the background you can see light and brightness.. This is were the girl in the picture will fall..

In conclusion our character is falling to a better place.. And as long as she is asleep and this is happening in her dreams, falling will not hurt her eventough it may seem scary and dangerous..

A Girl, A Photograph, A Homecoming..

About this talk:
Photographer Rick Smolan tells the unforgettable story of a young Amerasian girl, a fateful photograph, and an adoption saga with a twist.
About Rick Smolan:
Rick Smolan is the co-founder of the America 24/7 and Day in the Life photography series -- and a natural storyteller in many media. His latest books are America at Home and Blue Planet Run.

Motivation..

People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.

Zig Ziglar

Change..

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad..

C. S. Lewis

Here I Am..

Please help me with your comments.. How do you find my work?

His Corner..

Ok this is the first example of my design works(Except the blog header).. If you pay attention to the character in the picture you can see that it is made of lots of small parts.. Actually this is my own style.. I call it 'The Flames'.. Hope you like it ;)..

Success..

• To laugh often and much..


• To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children..


• To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends..


• To appreciate beauty..


• To find the best in others..


• To leave the world a bit better, wether by a healthy child, a garden patch or redeemed social condition..


• To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived..

This is to have succeeded

-Ralph Waldo Emerson..