وإن فارقت صديقك فلا تحزن على فراقه؛
لأنَّ ما تتعشقه فيه، أكثر من كل شيء سواه، ربما يكون في حين غيابه أوضح في عينَي محبتك منه في حين حضوره.

— جبران خليل جبران، النبي

كل بعيد عن العين قريب من القلب…هكذا يقولون

السخرية ان المرء لا يُشعر صديقه بالمحبة بوجوده ، لكنه يحس بالحزن حين يفقده. فلا يرتاح قريب أو بعيد.

🩷 صباحكم جميل بجمال كلمات جبران.

“Wer bist du, wenn du niemand sein müsst?”

Who are you when you don’t have to be anyone?… I had this German quote as my desktop wallpaper for a long time. Still think about it often..It is grounding, to be constantly reminded of who you are when life pressures you to conform with the rest whenever you have company..real or online.

This is book is about facing the crowds with no mask

An influencer with millions of followers preaching slow, natural living while hiding the comforts of modern day behind the scenes wakes up one day to find herself in the 1800s..living the life she romanticises to the brain-numb masses. No funny mishaps. A scary wake up call.

Very interesting.

I just started it, but it’s an eye opener. Are we brave enough to be the same person alone and in company? Why do some people make a living out of lies? why convince someone their life sucks by selling a life they don’t live themselves? Wasn’t it a lesson we all learned growing up, to stand up for what you believe?

To thine own self be true, right? what happened?

Quick review after reading

I finished the book. Didn’t like it. In a 400 page novel I could not find a single non-obnoxious character except for Maeve; a sick child. In short it’s a book about why women should NOT marry lazy men. Trust me, loneiness sucks but a bad husband is worse. If you don’t believe me..go ahead and and read Natalie’s story.

Who are you, when no one is watching? was originally published in The Doodeh Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I read the night circus about 9 years ago. And when each of the small gestures made itself visible that fateful year I kept remembering the book.

But these weren’t letters. No, traps. But why? payback for what?

“Unusual yet beautiful. Provocative while remaining elegant.”

They were subtle; book choices, a decor theme, a mention here, a gesture there. Always behind a hundred veils. Always absolutely unintended.

“But dreams have ways of turning into nightmares.”

And they did. A terrible, chilling nightmare. It was like walking into heaven, falling asleep and waking up later in the depth of hell. Was obvious though, my fault not to trust my gut. But again, why? what for?

“You think, as you walk away from Le Cirque des Rêves and into the creeping dawn, that you felt more awake within the confines of the circus”.

To stay was torture, but escape was also very painful. It hurt to not understand. Why?

“The sensation reminds him of the first snow of winter, for those first few hours when everything is blanketed in white, soft and quiet.”

And now, it is doing a good show of not being a trap. Of being a letter. And I believed it. I must be insane.

This time it will finish me for sure. So be it. I won’t stop breathing before I understand why?

Why go through the trouble??? niye ula?!

Paradoxical Coincidences was originally published in The Doodeh Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I have been watching the reaction to the increased use of AI tools in speed prototyping. And the problem is that people are not listening.

“My mind had been filled with my own thoughts… just as the minds of many who passed Elsa didn’t hear her songs because they were too busy to listen. That much is true about songs (and many stories) even in my own world. They speak mind to mind, but only if you listen.”

- Stephen King, Fairy Tale

Fearing for their jobs, everyone gets defensive..

PMs & devs fear that the prototypes do not match existing codebase — who said they should? it’s just a smarter figma prototype for heaven’s sake!

We don’t want devs to dig into the generated code. Let them work as usual. We only want stakeholders to experience a flow that is more realistic than a clickthrough prototype. Especially if it is connected to LLMs and requires chat testing. How can a figma prototype do that?

Designers are afraid it makes them redundant — how?? you are the one who directs it.

• first iteration is never good enough, you are the human with empathy and understanding of the humans who will use the app. You fix it.
• you can create a repo for the design system and teach your AI to use it when designing. If you’re a good designer you’re doing that already. We know tokens and variables too, don’t let devs scare you.

I think everyone needs to calm down and take a deep breath. It isn’t a crime to work better. It is a crime though to harm a business just because you’re not listening.

<<Don’t listen to your fears, listen to each other>>

What’s your take on the matter?

Originally published on designismusic.com

Never Tickle A Sleeping Dragon was originally published in A Song of Art & Science on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sunday night was cold and rainy where my parents live and where I came to spend my Ramadan and Eid.

Pouring a cup of tea and moving my eyes from the TV showing the news channel to my book, my mind found the book title very fitting. This war really has exposed the degree of Schadenfreude people can have in those black holes they have in their chests.

“in a prosperous country, in peacetime — notwithstanding those heavy blows of fate to which nobody was immune, and those strokes of unearned luck of which Inigo, the inheritor of wealth, had clearly benefited — character was the most powerful determinant of life’s course.”
― Robert Galbraith, The Ink Black Heart

This war that fake-tanned psycho threw us in exposed both; people with the ink black monster of envy in their hearts showed their true colors by wishing ill on people whose only fault was having the luck to be where they themselves wanted but could not be on one hand, and the grace with which the hate is being handled by the people facing the the trial on the other hand.

I don’t care whether you like a city or not. Those are innocent people living there. And it is downright shameful to act gleeful because another is suffering.

عيب.

Black Hearts on Kitchen Tables was originally published in The Doodeh Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A Song of Art & Science will be migrated to my personal portfolio Blog. While existing stories will still be here, new stories from now on will be published there.

Why move it and keep personal blog (The doodeh life) here?

1. because A Song of Art & Science is not only a blog, it is inbound marketing for me as a independent product designer/developer. And since many readers are leaving Medium because of the ads + paywall, the reach has been decreasing drastically and hurting my business.
2. My personal blog is only a way for me to reflect on books I am reading and share my thoughts as I navigate life. I don’t care if nobody ever reads or sees them. Let them stay.

Will I be leaving medium entirely as a reader?

No. I built a curated website that pulls my favorite publications and topics from Medium as well as a few other sources and filters paywalled content. I will be reading, from afar.

If you have been a reader of this publication, I sincerely thank you.

You’re a star, and you helped my business 🩷

Publication Leaving Medium… was originally published in A Song of Art & Science on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This Ramadan has been heavy.

On these holy nights I should be enjoying the peace of praying with the soft sounds of raindrops hitting my window, but I can’t help but think of loved ones in danger. I know they may be safer than I am. They don’t need or even know about this worry gnawing at my insides... But hearts do not listen to logic. Reminds me of this scene in Villette:

How often, while women and girls sit warm at snug firesides their hearts and imaginations are doomed to divorce from the comfort surrounding their persons, forced out by night to wander through dark ways, to dare stress of weather, to contend with the snow blast, to wait at lovely gates and stiles in wildest storms, watching and listening to see and hear the father, the son, the husband coming home.

— Charlotte Brontë, Villette

Oh, how I wish it were a winter storm! But here we are. Another test for our Iman. Öyle olsun, Rabbım.

Quote: Heavy Secret Worry was originally published in The Doodeh Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When rain comes down in sheets, lightning cracks, thunder roars and splits the heavens… what does a human need?

Comfort.

For me, I unconsciously choose Wuthering Heights, Villette or anything Dostoyevsky.

The familiarity in these books brings comfort. And the passion in them fills me with warmth. It is amazing what written words can do to a human 🩷

Just check this:

He sat down, he took pen and paper, because he loved Lucy and had much to say to her; because he was faithful and thoughtful, because he was tender and true. There was no sham and no cheat, and no hollow unreal in him. Apology never dropped her slippery oil on his lips — never proffered, by his pen, her coward feints and paltry nullities: he would give neither a stone, nor an excuse — neither a scorpion, nor a disappointment; his letters were real food that nourished, living water that refreshed.

— Charlotte Brontë, Viellette

Doesn’t that warm you from the inside out? Aw Lucy, you deserved this!

“And I pray one prayer — I repeat it till my tongue stiffens — Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you — haunt me, then!…Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”

― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff. Enough said.

And of course, Dostoyevsky..

“May you be for ever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart. Isn’t such a moment sufficient for the whole of one’s life?”

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, White Nights

You can practically feel the snowflakes on your cheeks in his words.

How about you? how do you chase away the dreariness of a solo frosty night?

Classics were made for winter nights ❄️ was originally published in The Doodeh Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This is for everyone who thinks that a designer is just someone who draws pretty shapes and fills them with purple gradients all day 🙄

Database design

Having a holistic view of the business side of the product as well as usability best practices; designing the database and it’s relationships is something nobody can do better than a designer who actually implements the design. But since it isn’t a part of the design journey it is often overseen by potential clients.

Endpoint implementation on-the-go

as a designer, my primary and natural role as a developer is frontend development but since some of my products’ backend is on Airtable, Supabase or Xano I frequently need to create endpoints to allow front and backend to talk to each other.

But do people care about that when you’re a designer? no.

Planning product refactors

Especially in products built by large teams; things get pretty messy pretty fast. So a refactor is planned by the designer + developer since changing how a feature is implemented can have an impact on product behavior and so the designer must be included.

Whipping up many actual live POCs for new lead negotiations

not every lead becomes a deal, it can’t be shared in a portfolio and so the effort here gets ignored by everyone. Thank God for Figma make, Google stitch and Claude.

Integrations management

payment gateways, third-party apps and keeping up with AI quotas and API keys. Yet the only way we can show that in an interview or portfolio is through showing the integration in the UI design (if any).

Squashing bugs like nobody’s business

I’m human and I make mistakes, not to mention the joys of global code in big teams so bugs always show their ugly faces in my perfect product 😪 but its ok because solving problems is my favorite sport. I wish it didn’t break any NDAs to make a time-lapse video of how I burn through the bug-board in the morning as if my life depended on it…alas, clients will have to take my word for it 🤷🏻‍♀️

Really, how do you show your identity and work as a designer-developer hybrid? it isn’t easy. We’re much more than mindless people following the same design methods and strategy again and again.

Things designer/developer hybrids do daily but nobody talks about was originally published in A Song of Art & Science on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Feeling sick of big tech’s blatant and careless greed I picked this one solely because I know its publication bothered Zuck. And he — and all of those I am too smart to care who dies because of my business founders— are bothering me.

I defend Sheryl’s position, against my better judgment. Mark is brutal, and will hear none of it.

Sheryl is silent. Later she’ll tell me she missed the exchange because she didn’t have Wi-Fi.

I’ll never know whether she did some of those traveling with her told me that of course the private jet had Wi-Fi-or whether she told me to send the email that morning knowing that she’d have a plausible reason to sit out on the exchange with Mark…

— Sarah Wynn- Williams, Careless People

When I read this, especially “Sheryl is silent”, it immediately took me back to March 2024. Same exact scene. Horrible memory. Ugly humans.…disgusting thing, what greed and fear of someone with volatile temper can make people do.

Turns out that if you actually care about what you do, and you take your standards seriously, the sharks will get to you. And no one can protect you. So make sure you can stand on your own two feet, don’t ever depend on a job. Ever.

I’d sooner sell my kidney than work for another human again.

Reading Careless People Because Zuck Hates It was originally published in The Doodeh Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.