- in the name of Allah - 


As another Ramadan rolls around and that peculiar time of the year is once again here, my dissonance between the present and my past looms as large as ever. Muslims are truly such curious people. They believe in beautiful, sometimes fantastical ideas, yet when it comes to the integration of such beauty into the world in which they live, there is a sort of disconnect, as if they expect that the image of everything and everyone they see will or somehow should reflect that inherently out-of-place idealism, without actually processing the reality of what happens around them in life. Take for example as divorce, one of the saddest realities facing the modern world. Muslims seem to emanate a belief that it is an impossible, ever-distant concept, something that could never pervade their perfect little castles of world-belief. Yet all too often reality comes along to crush these antiquated and utterly naive notions into dust. Not just this, but there is also an expectation, similar to the American Dream concept of the mid-20th century, whereby the notions of "white picket fence", "2-3 kids", and "9-5" job first gained widespread popularity, an aspiration everyone aimed for and achieved, according to the myth perpetrated unto the children of the baby boomer generation. Everyone thought they could simply follow the protocol of going from Pre-K > Kindergarten > Elementary > Middle/Junior > High > College > Graduate school > house > Marriage > kids > etc, and that there would always be jobs in the economy to support this trend, no matter how many decades it lasted. Alas! All quotas must one day be fulfilled as job sector growth could never keep up with the influx of every succeeding graduating class, and it is unfortunate that the (immigrant) Muslim generation has realized(?) this fact a decade or two too late. One of the biggest dangers of idealism is that it can effortlessly weave itself into delusion at the drop of dime, without anyone becoming the wiser. I would posit that Muslims today are the most susceptible classification of people to this vulnerability. Perhaps it is an ingrained trust in Allah that is taught as to be a bit of an opiate for harder times, when things aren't looking up, that people need not open their eyes to the truth but weakly hope that somehow these problems will solve themselves. I'm not sure most people know how to differentiate between what is truly tawakkul (reliance upon God) and what is actually an opiate in different form being taken to simply dull of the pain of harsh realities. For the record, I do not know how to make the distinction myself, it appears just too eerily familiar that one is the same as the other, so I try to avoid needing either to quell anything I may feel. Consequently, there is the result of me choosing to be who I am today, a highly disillusioned, disenchanted, disenfranchised, utterly cynical Nomad wandering his own desert because this barren world absolutely has no warm pastures for him whatsoever. Part of the frustrations I have with Muslims in today's world is that I see in them foolish and naive idealisms that I held once in myself (somewhat paradoxically, I still love dreams and believe that the child-like innocence with regard to knowledge and the world is the most precious elixir in existence), and I cannot stand to see who I was in the mirror, that ignorant fool who expected so much (in reality, it was maybe 1-2 things in all out of life: the girl, maybe the job and own place to go with it) yet due to timing being a bitch could never could see that dream come to fruition. Life happens, but everyone reacts differently to loss and none can the take the role of judge for someone else's fate. Given my rocky road at the present, how likely is it that I can once again see and believe again in great and fantastical things being within mortal grasp? (the immortal grasp has never been in question, it is this world and this world alone with which I have always had serious beef - so as a relief I can still count myself with those who believe in Allah...anything less than this and truly, the universe may as well implode :O 

Sigh. Ya Rabb, guide me to You, but make this road exceedingly easy, with many pit-stops along the way so I can find my way and get directions when I need to, ameen.