- in the name of Allah -
I asked for truth and knowledge and wisdom, being quite unprepared for the answer. what I found were the shackles of humanity's existence, the depths of everything permeated by injustice, inequity, corruption. we chose not when we would be born, how we will die, whether fortune or famine finds us. we chose neither parents nor childhood. every system that exists here, does so for our subjugation and enslavement, wearing whatever guise of good or ill it fancies. our history is littered with example: once mortal beings achieve power they seek only to ensure they keep it, that wealth becomes theirs, that those of lower status serve them to run their engine of industry. our laws and governments find most of their architects and puppeteers from amongst those who run the engines. institutions and purposes such as philosophy and sciences and arts all now kneel to the forces of economics, if it exists to further those ambitions then it is allowed to remain, else it is discarded in favor of something termed pragmatic or practical. economics, better described as the engine itself, only serves to keep itself going, that those who have wealth may accumulate more and more. if it did not serve this function the greed of men would do away with it until another more suitable system was found to fill the role. brilliant though it is, it appears only as a black hole to the ones who see the chains and aligned with ideals. the gravity from such a thing is so immense, so consuming, it tears apart most anything that ventures close, so long as that object has been torn from its illusion. for the ones who carry still their imaginary dreams and goals, the well never appears so dry or bleak.
on the one hand you find the deceivers consumed in hedonism, promising any lie that could possibly be imagined if only to become one of their company. a vast number of these lies are so blatant, so preposterous, they become known as lies soon as their utterance passes the lips. but for most people, it becomes easier to live with lies as they can be fashioned as comfortably and safely and seemingly benignly as possible. why focus on the ridiculously difficult truths when a million different distractions exist coupled with the ever-prominent consumption of intoxicants, allowing quick and easy dissociation from those truths? for their only virtue, I would count it being that these deceivers are so apparent. whatever means tried to disguise the truth it remains the truth if one removes all notion of fear or intrinsic bias. that is to say, if one has nothing to gain or nothing to lose from observing the most basic, unencumbered nature of this truth, it should be possible to keep seeing it, regardless of what coverings may drape it.
on the other hand is found the inexorable pill of faith, loaded with caveats about unknowable things such as the future and the penultimate wisdom that invariably surrounds all events. it promises equity in a future time, that all wishes will be granted, that all bridges sought earnestly will be built, in return for passing through a mortal existence fraught with peril and no control. what is missing here is certainty. one can walk the best of paths and find no salvation at their journey's end. many, many promises are made in return for willing submission to the creator's will, but there is no guarantee anywhere that any of those promises will ever reach fruition. the one and only salve offered by all of faith is hope, something you find in abundance when dreams can be dreamt but something scarcer than life in a graveyard when dreams have died. what can one who has seen both ends of this spectrum conclude? to have found a thousand promises empty, then what? how can one who hoped with all of hope and lost it all find again those dreams to be nurtured by faith? is the deja vu simply inescapable?
at the very very least, when dealing with deceivers I can accept and understand I am being fed lies, so there is no real issue with whatever consequence arrives. but the travesty of placing hope in faith and finding it barren, to be left wondering what was real or destined or imagined, being left utterly uncertain beyond imagining, what the hell can I find after this? is what faith shows the truth or a lie or whatever it wants to show me so that I follow a long-scripted road? it pulls so, so many strings, from the moment of our conception and creation, humanity was created in weakness and fault and desirous of self-destructive things. the very nature of our existence is corrupt, we corrupt the land, our hearts, the skies, every single thing we touch or even imagine becomes tainted- because that is how we were made. then we are told to climb an Everest's Everest of mountains to attempt to overcome our nature and find purity and light and truth. but the books do not mention the ever-present rockslides and avalanches and pouring mud and lava that will torrent down its slopes. so, not only was humanity created weak and singly incapable, but then the summits we are to climb are rigged to their utmost trying to destroy any who would dare the climb. the ironies here are suffocating, the call to rise while being given a broken and handicapped chess board to start with, entirely slanted with every fiber of the mountain rebelling with every step higher. the rock face quakes with the truth of reality, yet the only thing faith offers is that pill...trying to silence and subdue the pain, but it was the pain that reality and the climb itself created!
as if that aspect of reality was not enough, there is yet more. I would hate to have been born a female. imagine the hundreds upon hundreds of years of marginalization, of historic discrimination immediately attached at birth, long before a single choice of your own was made, to have been pigeonholed by so many civilizations and cultures as baby factories and home-makers, but especially being categorized as mere objects created for the amusement and endearment of men. what could possibly make that any worse? that the female nature appears created so it favors indulging the attention, that it was made to encompass adornment in all facets, almost expressly for sake of trying the hearts of men. when I try to conceive the disillusion a woman must feel over this, what she must face from the very beginning of her creation and being, I cannot fathom it. if I felt caged and helpless to direct my fate in the way of my choosing, then what must a woman feel, she who was caged at birth, who was raised to fit a particular purpose without any prior understanding or choice almost like an animal at a farm waiting for slaughter, before she could develop even an inkling of rational thought? how might she react to the ridiculous roles and burdens and stereotypes society thrusts upon her without any wrong or instigation on her part?
I have no answers to these questions, no answers to any of them. once I had a singular dream that I chose to let go, perhaps because I felt there was no path for me to make at the time where I could bring it into reality. since that era, I have slowly slowly found less and less in life to ground me, less and less I want to call home, less and less I can become attached to and find meaning in. when I was younger, the idealistic part of me decided that ego and ambition were too easily the tools of destruction, so I discarded them. thus, I've never really felt the need to ever prove myself to anyone, to have a serious, inborn competitive ambition to be more than others. I have always and only been me, from the days of ignorance into light into darkness, just me. you might call this depressing. there's no way to argue with that: reality is truly depressing if you open all the shutters and windows and doors. still, there is something I value- my parents and family, the ones who have always stood by me, always (eventually) accepted me regardless of what I was worth or what heights I reached or in what depths ensnared. their love for me has always been unconditional. it is probably the only reason I have not fully caved. the only reason at all.
as for the blog, I've noticed when things are going good and upbeat and positive and uplifting is when people tend to respond to posts more often. alas, this blog has not been that for years. I suppose if I cannot serve as a beacon to light, the least I can do is not be a signal to others into darkness either.
11.24.2014
11.03.2014
- in the name of Allah -
For most of my life, I had taken comfort in the notion that what was meant to be was meant to be, and what wasn't, was just an illusion the soul gravitated toward as a result of its own nature. As of late, this comfort no longer exists.
Humanity is such a fragile species, perhaps the most fragile of all in existence. Changing with the passage of seasons, responding with severe bias to heat or cold, needing to maintain not only a relatively stable ecosystem but also needing to cultivate internally-accepted notions of morality or causality, so that the wheels of the mind do not spin out of perceived control. It is likely, as one philosopher once put it, that religion plays a major part in this construct, in keeping the veneer of the human condition standing, by acting in some ways as an "opiate for the masses". Religion gives people hope when times appear bleak, shows them a path for redemption when guilt overcomes them, makes promises to them when the future seems uncertain. For much of my life I partook of this medicine, not out of fear or need, but because it aligned with my soul. My heart was with my religion, seeking the same things it did and responding as it would have. Then, life threw me a curveball, a pitch I never saw coming, never understood until I swung at it and missed so completely, I was left utterly bewildered. It was after that moment I began to fathom the true frailty of being human, of how completely one's hope can be self-consuming, that if left unfulfilled, it shatters the meaning of every neighboring constellation in a person's galaxy. If religion promised the objective of one's soul as reward for its acceptance, I never quite found it. And if that was never found, then what meaning was there left with religion? Did it wish for me to once again place within it my hope, leaving to chance what may become of whatever remained of myself? Incredible, and likely, impossible. An investment was once made, with basically 100% of available capital. Everything was lost from that investment, the goal and the hopes accompanying it. Some notions of consolation would have me recall some gibberish about things meant to be, or, about some good delayed or ill averted. How useful are these notions when one has nothing left to invest in them? How much meaning can they possibly have? The pain is not erased, the totality of what happened remains vivid, how then can such delusional thoughts be given any credence?
It is distinctly possible that this ordeal may serve as proof against me as I am judged. Ironic, isn't it? The ones who live and the ones who suffer should furnish the court with their own blood and tears the very evidences used in their conviction. If that is not cosmic irony, I don't know what is. To be created only to be destroyed over and over a thousand times till infinity. To be given from fountains of ambition or desire only to be instructed on living as ascetics. When will these ironies end, the cyclic tragedies of being human ever cease?
For most of my life, I had taken comfort in the notion that what was meant to be was meant to be, and what wasn't, was just an illusion the soul gravitated toward as a result of its own nature. As of late, this comfort no longer exists.
Humanity is such a fragile species, perhaps the most fragile of all in existence. Changing with the passage of seasons, responding with severe bias to heat or cold, needing to maintain not only a relatively stable ecosystem but also needing to cultivate internally-accepted notions of morality or causality, so that the wheels of the mind do not spin out of perceived control. It is likely, as one philosopher once put it, that religion plays a major part in this construct, in keeping the veneer of the human condition standing, by acting in some ways as an "opiate for the masses". Religion gives people hope when times appear bleak, shows them a path for redemption when guilt overcomes them, makes promises to them when the future seems uncertain. For much of my life I partook of this medicine, not out of fear or need, but because it aligned with my soul. My heart was with my religion, seeking the same things it did and responding as it would have. Then, life threw me a curveball, a pitch I never saw coming, never understood until I swung at it and missed so completely, I was left utterly bewildered. It was after that moment I began to fathom the true frailty of being human, of how completely one's hope can be self-consuming, that if left unfulfilled, it shatters the meaning of every neighboring constellation in a person's galaxy. If religion promised the objective of one's soul as reward for its acceptance, I never quite found it. And if that was never found, then what meaning was there left with religion? Did it wish for me to once again place within it my hope, leaving to chance what may become of whatever remained of myself? Incredible, and likely, impossible. An investment was once made, with basically 100% of available capital. Everything was lost from that investment, the goal and the hopes accompanying it. Some notions of consolation would have me recall some gibberish about things meant to be, or, about some good delayed or ill averted. How useful are these notions when one has nothing left to invest in them? How much meaning can they possibly have? The pain is not erased, the totality of what happened remains vivid, how then can such delusional thoughts be given any credence?
It is distinctly possible that this ordeal may serve as proof against me as I am judged. Ironic, isn't it? The ones who live and the ones who suffer should furnish the court with their own blood and tears the very evidences used in their conviction. If that is not cosmic irony, I don't know what is. To be created only to be destroyed over and over a thousand times till infinity. To be given from fountains of ambition or desire only to be instructed on living as ascetics. When will these ironies end, the cyclic tragedies of being human ever cease?
11.01.2014
- in the name of Allah -
In life, not every thing is meant for every person in similar measure. There are those who can consume enormous amounts of food and not gain weight, while others gain weight from even the smallest of meals. Then there are those whose experiences can help shape them into role models or reformers of societies, despite those experiences being tragic or horrifying; conversely, there are those who never knew adversity or its meaning, yet became the worst linchpins of industry and politics. The same things for different people can have starkly varying effects.
For one person, to love might mean stepping into a shallow pool with no risk foreseen. For someone else, to love meant diving into an abyssal trench at the very bottom of an ocean, facing constant threat of drowning or blindness or loss. Can any impartial observer say that love is equally fitting for both of them? It wouldn't be possible, would it? Some things, if felt too deeply or taken too far internally, can simply carry too great a risk for one person than most others. There isn't a cure, either medicinal or spiritual, for a matter such as this. It is simply an inherent aspect that an individual has, akin to being born with a specific gene than cannot be spliced away due to its inconvenience or tragedy or stigma. For one such as this, they can only be reached or discovered by others through sonar, as they must live at a different depth than most, a depth far down enough to suffocate the pain and avoid hearing the sound of joys in which they cannot share.
In life, not every thing is meant for every person in similar measure. There are those who can consume enormous amounts of food and not gain weight, while others gain weight from even the smallest of meals. Then there are those whose experiences can help shape them into role models or reformers of societies, despite those experiences being tragic or horrifying; conversely, there are those who never knew adversity or its meaning, yet became the worst linchpins of industry and politics. The same things for different people can have starkly varying effects.
For one person, to love might mean stepping into a shallow pool with no risk foreseen. For someone else, to love meant diving into an abyssal trench at the very bottom of an ocean, facing constant threat of drowning or blindness or loss. Can any impartial observer say that love is equally fitting for both of them? It wouldn't be possible, would it? Some things, if felt too deeply or taken too far internally, can simply carry too great a risk for one person than most others. There isn't a cure, either medicinal or spiritual, for a matter such as this. It is simply an inherent aspect that an individual has, akin to being born with a specific gene than cannot be spliced away due to its inconvenience or tragedy or stigma. For one such as this, they can only be reached or discovered by others through sonar, as they must live at a different depth than most, a depth far down enough to suffocate the pain and avoid hearing the sound of joys in which they cannot share.