Reminder

Currently, I am utterly in love with (or possibly just obsessed with) this song called Riptide. I found a great acapella and I cannot stop listening to it. It's a clean sound, with a soothing voice which does not go out of tune at all and lovely words. The song is open to interpretation, but the way I see it, it's about a boy who had low self esteem and was filled with fears, but falls head over heels in love with a girl and loses his fears. Then, the girl begins to lose herself and he knows things are going down in a hateful direction, but there's nothing he can do.

I heard somewhere, that when a person commits a sin, at that moment, that person stops being a believer. Because you cannot do something wrong while knowing that you are being watched and you will have to answer for it, while you do not have an answer. The beautiful thing is, Allah is Al-Ghafoor, Al-Afu', Ar;-Rahman, Al-Lateef, Ash-Shakoor, Al-Wadud and so much more. He forgives, loves, rewards and works in the most subtle ways.

Sometimes, all we want to do is forget that we have to die and keep doing whatever it is we are doing, because its just easier that way. It's easier to think about the bills we have to pay, or the people we have to please, or the grades we need to get and stay so busy while trying to keep things afloat that its easier to forget that we ever have to die. But one day, we will wake up without waking up and neither our money nor those people will wake up with us.

But Allah is As-Samad.

Train thoughts

When you feel extremely angry and all you want to do is throw your limbs around and break as many things as you can, then somebody really strong hugs you tight, holds you to their chest, wraps their arms around you so that you can no longer move - even though you still feel angry, you know that you are safe from harm, you know that you are protected and loved, and even though on the surface you may feel frustration at your temporary inability to move, deep inside, you secretly know that you are better off, .

This is how I feel about Allah every now and then. He is that best friend that loves and cares for me more than anyone else does, and He knows what is best for me. When I rebel against Him, I feel like a little kid rebelling against things that are futile, like, waking up from an afternoon nap and being angry because its not morning. He knows exactly every detail of myself, and the best way to live is to admit that I have no power except the power that He gives me. So, I don't really have to confine myself to how others define me. And I can't really be arrogant about all the things I can do, because that will be like that delusional child. I can dream about the future, live for today and pray like there's no tomorrow.

Blunders

When I veer away from the path towards my destination, knowingly, that's when my mind is at its lowest point. That's when my heart breaks in two. That's when I tune out of my rationality and turn up my sensations, so that I feel the thud of my shoes on the footpath harder than usual, so that the screech of a bird high above me rings in my ear, so that the tires of the cars driving past seem a little too loud. Because, I know, as soon as I tune back into my thoughts, my mind would curse me. My brain would tell my heart off for being so weak. I have no excuses for being so reckless with myself, except that I am human.

The other reason why I avoid rational thoughts during those times is because the rational side of me will make me feel very guilty for being so selfish. The world is in a turmoil, people are being killed as a result of injustice every single day. And there are several actions that I can take. There are several projects that I have gotten involved in, and several more that I intend to get involved in. These things are things that we should do as lucky citizens of the world, they are nothing extra that we should be congratulated for. In other words, its our duty to do as much as we can as fellow human beings because we are so much luckier than them in terms of worldly resources. So, when my mind is a mess, I avoid the world, and in turn, my mind hates the mess that it is in.

Nothing is the end of the world, until you die. But, one must remember that the last breath can come at any moment. So, the time to pick yourself up is now. The time to replace a bad with a good is now. Move forward, even if you don't want to, the past will fix itself up if the damage is light. The more damage that is done, the more fixing it'll take. So, you need to start fixing at a time when the damage is minimal, or as minimal as can be. The thing to learn from sins is that its a good reminder that you are not above anyone or anything. What you consider to be horrible that is done by someone, you can fall into it too.  It is only by the grace of God that you are saved. So, be thankful for that grace and use it!

In other news, I bought "A Room with a View" today. It's turning out to be a funny novel. I also had a mocha in a huge cup from a new coffee shop and wrote pages after pages in a brand new notebook. Why is that so therapeutic for me? I do not need retail therapy, I need notebook in a cafe therapy. Now that I have had my therapy and self-talk, I feel much better. I shall depart now. :)

Advice to future self

You can't be perfect, but strive for perfection in some things anyway. Strive for perfection in the things that matter, and the only things that matter are the things that will count towards Jannah. With the things that don't matter - don't get too bogged down if you can't get something perfect. Make sure there is at least one well wisher in this world who knows what you are up to. Secrets are dangerous for developing your perception. Try to achieve a balance in your emotions and exercise your intellect. Keep the end goal in sight and know, that everything you do, everywhere you go, every happiness you feel - it is all from Allah. 

With a purpose - 1

So, as you know, a whole bunch of things happened in my life this year. Nothing as dramatic as deaths or marriages, but I have had a serious car accident and have seen the formation of a few couples. I have also been exposed to new ideas and controversies, which I shan't talk about clearly until I am clear myself. But as always, I shall talk about my thought process. The most important thing I learnt from this year is that it is extremely important to know the purpose of your existence. Once you know your purpose, everything else comes under its huge umbrella and it becomes much easier to sort what comes in and leaves your life. The purpose of your existence comes from the way you view the world.

The way I view the world comes from my understanding of the Quran. So, this world, to me, is a test. Each of us are here for a number of years, in which we are required to make several decisions. After death, we will be judged on the decisions we made. We will be judged by God, who is the most merciful, the most loving, but is also fair and is the sole owner of all power. Each of us are individuals and equals in His eyes. He will reward us or punish us according to the choices we make in this world. You can only make a choice about something you know about. So, we need to try our best to learn, then make decisions based on what we know. Following anything blindly does not do justice to our intellect. However, getting caught up with too many options may mean that there is no fruition of your knowledge. So, there needs to be a balance between gaining knowledge and implementing them.

Its hard to get by just upon a smile

The first time I heard Yusuf Islam's songs were from a CD called 'A is for Allah'. I remember a particular song from there - God is the Light. (I only remembered bits and pieces, something about birds, something about buildings, something about men. I spent the past five minutes googling every possible combination to figure out what the actual title was.) This was one of the first songs we listened to when we came to Australia, and my sister and I sang a duet of this in a local halaqah of girls. I was ten and didn't care that I couldn't sing. :P Anyway, I just thought the song sounded nice. It wasn't until much later that I read the lyrics properly and understood them. The lyrics are great, but I like the idea behind them. The fact that we miss little things around us and forget about signs that should lead us to gratitude. Only when we stop for a moment, can we truly feel the specialness.

The next song I remember is 'I Look, I See'. This is also another one of those nasheeds for kids that I loved the sound of. We started listening to them again in the car when little Z rides with us. When A put it on the other day, I listened to the lyrics carefully, and loved it! He differentiates between 'seeing', and merely 'looking'; 'feeling' and merely 'touching' and so on. Its as if, everything you do, must have a deeper connection within yourself, and must have a purpose. Teaching to live life like this to children is amazing. You are teaching them from early on that you are not living to merely fill your senses with meaningless and purposeless activities that last only in the short term.

Then, a year or two later, A bought a CD called something like 'The best of Cat Stevens'. I remember being obsessed with 'Moonshadow', then 'Wild World' for a while. I actually still love those songs. Especially, 'Wild World'. I can relate to that completely every now and then. When I was in year seven, I remember coming home and crying to my mum about something that happened at school. My mum told me something about me trusting people too much, and having an overly positive outlook on life. She still tells me that, every now and then. Over time, I realised she's right. You can never rely completely on another person. But the problem is, this realisation hits me in the head, then leaves me when things become rosy again.

One thing I'm beginning to understand, is that life isn't easy, for anyone. We might look at someone and think they have things so much easier than us, or so much better. But we can never completely understand what is going on in someone else's life, no matter how much we try. Quick fixes are easy way outs, yes, but they last a very short time. Sometimes, we try to convince ourselves that something isn't a quick fix. We rationalise it in our mind and convince ourselves that there is nothing wrong with what we are doing. And there may not be any apparent wrong in it. However, quick fixes are always wrong, because of just their mere nature of being short lived.

It gets frustrating when you cannot get yourself out of a cycle. Certain things literally become addictions. And every time life throws you a lemon, instead of dealing with it as brutally as you can and making a lemonade out of it, you decide to chuck it in the corner and try your hardest to forget that it exists. But eventually, that lemon will rot, then you try harder to make yourself believe that the stench isn't there. I guess what I'm trying to say is - we run away from problems for so long that we think we can keep running forever. But one day, you will wake up as a forty year old, and realise you still haven't dealt with the problems you encountered at twenty. So, essentially, you haven't grown.

So, in order to not do that, what you do is this: identify your problems, come up with a plan to solve them, get some help and get on with it. The problem is, for some 'getting on with it' is the problem. Giving something up and sticking to it, or starting something and sticking to it, (basically, sticking to things) become the problem. And when things aren't stuck to, the cognitive dissonance that comes with it, also, then, becomes the problem.

Hmmmmm.