1.20.2009

- in the name of Allah -


At times, the greatest obstacle to progress is one's own self. The hardest fight to overcome is a wall that is self-created, a barrier to fresh ideas, action, and acceptance that change is sometimes necessary.

In the course of life, the most important thing one can do to overcome these obstacles is to reflect on everything, upon life, upon death, upon the course of one's life from the earliest days of recollection. What has my purpose been? For what have I been known? What kind of person do I truly wish to be? At times, voices inside your head (sometimes known as the Shaitaan, the Devil) will remind you of the allure of darkness. How inviting it is to keep only one's ego and id as rulers to dethrone the superego from ever raising its voice, to negate conscience and guilt, to become whatever we want to become whenever we want to become simply to find another source of pleasure or another way to avoid pain. However, life is all about dealing/coping with not enough happiness and being dosed with apparently unbearable pain/sadness. The best of us are those who remember that all of this does serve a purpose, it is not all in vain, and one day, everything will be accounted for, and we will find our recompense in line with our deeds.

1.14.2009

- in the name of Allah -

(written a day earlier, finished a day later)
Paler shades of nameless skies had never quite seen such a setting yellow, a premature fade of gray one would have to see to call himself a witness. meaning always reached, always pleaded for a perch of highest rank, unfortunate it is that life is not automatized, where each and every time may simply fall in line, similar old tunes of ancient songs; alas, their bards are dead, their prayers mute, as they themselves slashed their vocal cords, and thus a lasting peace ensued. what lessons their folly carried, latter generations shall scarcely know much less heed, wisdom of then always forgotten, bygone advice for bygone creeds. so where is my personal piece, my very own wedge of the pie, wherein this tumult of words comes full circle, where material phantoms with dilemmas collide? my eyes have never been closed, as I've always seen the shutters and doors, hiding fallacies of mine and those I've known, but as I catch a glimmer deeper, a glance toward the soul, whether foreign or my own, the truth turns away, a search once again gone cold. rather than 'act', I've pursued the philosophizing, a slight escape, excuse just in case my decision-making might be found lacking. I wonder if it is in deed a fear of loss, that like most, could drive me to a stilling stance, etched in a moment's time...

...though all around the world keeps moving, my self the stillest of them all, drunk upon a potion of want painfully undilute..