12.28.2008

- in the name of Allah -


Just a few more days until 2008 comes to a close. What a year it's been, like others before it, telling of great self-revelations, where I learn who I truly am, with a touch more of sarcastic irony coating the magic pill of inevitability. To this day, though I know parts of my potential, parts of my strengths and weaknesses, what I love and do not love, I miss still my purpose in the grand scheme of things. I am a mortal that bleeds upon being cut, that cries (or comes close to it) upon losing what is dear, one who sees a path but does not know what it is nor how to follow it. I can reflect on my past posts and see the emotions of the moment, the rights and wrongs frivolously thrown here and there like they were supposed to 'be' and so they 'were'. Every other minute tells me of what I've missed, of my inadequacy in fulfilling that time with something productive, of being unable to fill the vacuum that is a human mind with something, anything, just so one may think a little less, question a few times fewer. Each year it seems like I have approached and taken the jump off another peak in the sine wave of human growth, but where does the next jump land me? Higher or lower than the wave before it? Is my slope nothing or something, defined or infinite? As I get older, the gap between what I have and what I need to maintain a life(style) befitting of a Muslim, gets only larger. I see mistakes, like I have before, but still I cannot always bring myself to care. Still, a piece is missing, a piece I have thought of as imaan/faith, but that comes and goes. So what is it that I am truly seeking? What is it that I have sought all this time, the sum of everything before that time has/will lead me to?

1 comment:

yumyumna said...

Uber long, Giant Comment of Doom shall now commence:

Sorry, I didn't mean to ignore your last comment, I thought that the question was rhetorical ...>.<
but I see that you are more or less elaborating on that question here and now.

Pretend that I'm a little green man with giant, hairy ears, okay?
"The answer to what you seek lies within you, young Skywalker."
LOL
no, I'm kidding. actually, I think...what you are missing is some instant gratification. It's hard to keep on having faith and not seeing any results, but only more hardship as your faith is tested every single day. But one answer to this is companionship. You need a friend who perseveres through life's trials with you so that they (these trials) have a tangible meaning, a sort of instant gratification. Or if this friend does not traverse with you, at least you can see your companion waiting for you, therefor your companion becomes a tangible goal. I don't know how to really explain it since this is probably different for everybody as it is one of those matters of the heart, changes are not easily observable since they are happening at a minuscule pace.

Another way of putting all this is to say that you can't find your drive. The thing that makes you want to do things. To improve yourself. In moments like this, when one has lost their drive, it's very difficult to continue moving forward.
Once lost, a person might keep falling into a pit of despair and hopelessness (okay, I'm being overly dramatic here) and in order stop they will have to reset their priories and life's goals. It's really hard to do that by yourself if you're not a strong willed person. You tend to need someone else constantly telling you, assuring you, maybe even pressuring you to do what you are doing, to stick to one path.
I think there are very few people who can honestly drive themselves to persevere.


I also have something that could aid you on your journey to achieve a stronger iman. It's a set of notes I compiled during a lecture, would you like me to email you, just this once, to send these notes to you? They're illustrated, too :D

and for your last comment as well: It is 'THE END' in all caps because it's the end of that story. I simply left out the boring details of how the airlines lost one of my mother's suitcases and how the airplane food looked and tasted like garbage, which is the cause for her going to a fast food joint in the first place.