I wont get into the so-called “democracy” present in Iran, where regardless of who is elected ‘president’, most of the power lies with the unelected Supreme Leader. Instead I want to focus on the phenomena that is happening post-election and the critical role twitter has played in organizing the proceeding events. We first got a whiff of twitters unrivaled ability to deliver real-time news during the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai. Witnesses posted fresh reports from on the scene making the coverage of network news agencies seem stale and repetitive. Now in 2009, we’re seeing twitter playing an even larger role.

Over the last couple of days, twitter has become the central destination, on the web or otherwise, for minute to minute updates on events happening in Tehran. The Iranian government’s attempts of dealing with the unrest, blocking cell phone reception and providing absolutely zero media coverage, has further driven people to websites like twitter. Iran, with 70% of its population under the age of 30, has always been a very technical nation. Despite the international sanctions imposed on the country, the bright minds of Iran are a force to be reckoned with in many worldwide scientific competitions. Iran is also one of the top blogging nations in the world, so perhaps it’s no surprise that at it’s peak there were 7000+ tweet’s posted with the hashtag #iranelection every single hour.

I find it absolutely incredible how the people of Iran have found an unlikely channel to spread their message.

I first experienced this ‘paranoia’ at the gym, since more often than not, no thanks to my lazy friends, I exercise alone. I noticed the first time you use any non-straightforward equipment is a tricky task. There is a time limit associated with your learning ability – let that drain and you must abandon the mission.

There is nothing worse than not being able to figure out how to operate something that hundreds of regular people use with such ease. You stand there, quickly reading the instructions, if there are any, and begin to think that EVERYONE has just stopped doing what they were doing and are waiting to see how long it’ll take before you give up. But I’m not the only one. There are times that I see others looking at me, memorizing my position and movements and then futilely mimicking it before, pretending they didn’t want to use that machine anyway, moving on. Now what is interesting to me is that given two people in this same exact situation, there are absolutely no worries. You can take a full hour trying to figure something out without a care in the world. As if to say their stupidity justifies yours. “We’re just a couple of dumb people… nothing to see here – move along.”

Same philosophy can be applied to many other situations. You’re walking down a semi crowded street and you realize you’re going in the wrong direction, but you can’t quickly turn around. Everyone has seen you walking in THIS direction. Surely they all noticed you had something to do in THIS direction, you turning around at this point would only confirm their suspicion that you are lost. You simply cannot have your reputation ruined in front of all these complete strangers. So you continue taking a few more steps and then, as if you just realized you had left the oven on, you give off a fake “ohh!” and angrily make your u-turn. Now you’ve justified yourself and have proven to your critics that you were indeed on the right path had it not been for this minor yet inconvenient annoyance. Bravo, no one suspected a thing – someone should give you an Oscar for your magnificent performance.

Now take that above situation and add a second person. “Dude, we’re totally going the wrong way.” Problem solved. No acting, no awareness, nothing. Pure bliss.

Thankfully everyone carries a cellphone these days and you can get away with murder while using one. So dial away the next time you’re out alone, whether its shopping at the mall, or while in the waiting room at the dentist. Pretend you’re an important, busy person and no one will bother to analyze your existence.

If this were at all possible, what would I do, with ‘myselves’? I figure the 6 and 8 year old would just be playing with matchbox cars, occasionally the 22 year old would join in. The 18 year old would be too worried about his appearance and the females. The 14 year old would try to fit in with the older crowd, but he’d probably be made fun of by the 18 and 22 year old for his cockiness (what was I thinking?). Other than that I think I’d get a long with myself. My taste has stayed the same for the most part, except probably in music – having gone from pop to rap to techno to rock. Maybe if there was a 32 year old farid present, he could talk of my latest muse and speak of the horrific burdens my future holds. Grandpa farid would also be amusing, finally at peace and probably bitching about the noise level and bragging about his glorious past. Of course I’m not thinking of the repercussions on the space-time continuum. With this kind of power I could alter the universe – butterfly, flap your wings.

Eitherway, you’re finally at the counter waiting to pay for your items and get on with your life. Your eyes wander around the area, you look at what others infront/behind you have picked up and think to yourself what meaningless lives they must lead – box of napkins and ice cream, someone’s been dumped. You look at the tabloids mentioning yet another sighting of the three-eyed baby, look back at what you’re buying, basically doing everything possible to avoid the inevitable. Oh but its futile, in the back of your mind you cannot help yourself. So you think, maybe if I play it very cool and casual I can get away with it. You finally muster the courage to look in its direction, the chocolate counter, oh what a sight.

You try and pick up something quick hoping you’re not spotted. No time to decide, these decisions must’ve been finalized much earlier. Little do you know the cashier at this time is thinking “gotcha bitch”. You casually drop it in the middle of all your other items hoping that it will go by unnoticed, but sadly you’re wrong again. As the cashier scans the item, he gives you this look which pretty much says “I know what you’re thinking you fat ass, go on, feed, but know I’ll be judging you” and then he goes on to place the item in the little counter infront of you as to say “I know you cannot wait to have your mouth around this and therefore I’ll save you some bag ripping time later by giving this to you right now”.

There are a lot of fattening foods at the supermarket yet, for some reason, that snickers bar from the chocolate counter is the hardest to justify. Everything else has a legitimate reason, but that chocolate is only feeding your desire for calories. Sometimes you think of all these excuses in case you get caught in the act – “its for my nephew” or “i need it for research purposes”, but nothing flies, they all know.

I guess that is one benefit of being a parent, no one to accuse you of being a sloth. Luckily though most places have self-service counters for those of us with this kind of… eh .. problem.