Bøger af Joseph M. Labaki

In this book, I have attempted, phenomenologically, to explore the concept of the human unconscious. However, the unconscious cannot be analysed without a deep understanding of the conscious. The conscious and unconscious are not two entities, but just one. Yet, they survey each other, protect each other, mislead each other and steal from each other. They both have their birth in the sophisticated sponge of human flesh. Dropped and kneaded into the river of life, the sponge collects all sorts of moss. Language can be a torch in the night, but it can also lead to a dungeon and cage itself. Discourse, be it political, religious or even scientific, can cage and be caged. It is the core aim of this book to journey into the unconscious mind and unravel its connection to our very existence and what makes us human.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty is the giant phenomenologist of his time in the entire French-speaking world. He is not an epistemologist nor a moralist. For him, the beginning of the beginning is human flesh; the flesh becomes word, the word becomes flesh, and both die. There is science, and there is experience/perception. The mother is the latter. They aren't contradictory, but complete and depend on each other. With regard to language, for him, there are words, and there is grammar. A word is never empty, but carries its own weight; even a lie is full of meaning. Liberty resides in grammar, an individual function and independent from books. It's in the grammar where singularity lives. Thinking and talking are the same. Wherever there is human life, there is meaning, and that is irrespective of age, culture, religion, education or social position. Merleau-Ponty is not a Marxist nor a communist. According to him, history is blind; it has no mind. He also finds a flaw in Freudianism. Flesh is an infinite universe full of stars and black holes. Following Merleau-Ponty, verity is devoiler, and devoiler is verity, but verity is never absolute. One must take a step back.There is light and there is shadow; they never coincide in human life. The shadow is always first, and no matter how one tries to run, he will never catch his shadow.

In post-colonial Morocco, one shepherd boy has managed to obtain the unthinkable--an education. Now Europe, with the opportunity to continue his learning, beckons Jusef from across the water. His story is a testament to the extraordinary path of life when one dares to hope and follow his dreams.

Deep in the heart of the rural Rif mountains of Morocco, one boy's life is dictated by tribal tradition, superstition and religion. But Jusef dreams of more; it's a dream that will send him far from his shepherding hills to the bustle of the big city in search of education, meaning and, above all, a different way of life.