- in the name of Allah -

What does one do when the heart goes absent? For as long as I can remember, the ability to feel and convey that emotion to others has been intrinsic to my being. In the past few months, it seems like I've lost it altogether. 

On the one hand, I see some of the dots that connect the fabric of life, how one type of person influences another, how relationships develop and sustain or degrade, how goals and ambitions can give rise to both arrogance and prosperity. I've noticed the tendency of humans to corrupt and be themselves corrupted quite easily, often by the simplest of whims without the slightest of realization. The Quran speaks truthfully when this life is described as a test. Alas for me that I had no choice when applying for this particular exam. Not only does this fact always grate on my soul, but it is that the very nature of the questions themselves in just about every circumstance are stacked and weighted against the test-taker I find abominable. The irony is overwhelmingly palpable and choking that Islam as such a beautiful religion considers so highly of justice, yet this physical existence so rarely presents it in due proportion. This dichotomy of what is versus what should be has been the bane of my adult life, and probably my youth too had I known of it then. I suppose most Muslims can reconcile the fact that there is so little justice here with the reality of a day of Reckoning, where everything is to be repaid its due. That makes sense. However I cannot escape the sentiment many human beings have in our short lifespans that 'justice delayed is justice denied'. I cannot help but think that in the equation of our lives, human beings are the biggest losers. Caught in the ever-pervasive war between good and evil, humanity seems only to be the pawns on a chessboard in a game only we seem to be ignorant of. Every action we make carries with it consequences of good or ill, most of which escape our notice because our foresight rarely exceeds the scope of our eyes. Yet here we are, humanity as a whole, thrust into a devil's playground (literally, since the moment of our creation), given in a physical sense the barest of means, commanded and expected to survive the taint while at the same time not giving in to the ever-present notions of escape or defeatism or hedonism or narcissism or most any other -ism one could conceive. Our nature so often works against us, yet there is mentioned our 'fitrah' or innate sense of goodness that is supposed to help be a guide for every individual. 

The fact that part of human nature is to be controlled or suppressed while at the same time another part is to be embraced and relished I find absolutely mind-boggling. When we take a piece of the human being's pie, do we get to choose whether to take only the slice on the left, or the slice on the right, or the part in the middle, or only the crust? No, not at all. Human beings are a resultant sum of their natures, nothing more, nothing less. Of myself, I cannot fathom taking only a part of me while not taking another. To respect a nature, it cannot be divided up into pieces like some cardboard, no matter how unseemly in the eyes of creation. Often I have tried to understand my Creator, but often my blindness overwhelms (there's that word again) me. I try to arrive at the most basic truth for all humanity, but at the end of every reduced metaphysical equation, the only side I can see is that humanity is enduring a trial that, for the most part, it will invariably lose. No matter when good wins or evil wins, human beings still persist in this life that tries its very hardest to see us destroyed. And the most insidious part of it is, this destruction doesn't always come in the most obvious form, like say death or loss of family/property/etc. No, the worst kind of destruction often happens in the most imperceptible of ways, such as might precipitate a moral decline while at the same time appearing healthy in every way. We can merrily walk in the footsteps of our own doom while realizing nothing of the true nature of our actions. In a state like this, human beings become lower than animals. 

One might ask, 'is there hope?'. Yes, there is always hope so long as life remains. But it is not the issue of hope (or lack thereof) that eats away at me. It is the nature of the very container we're placed in, a container that continues to suffocate me while still I seek little substance from it. The tools for self-destruction every person has easy access to, while the path to salvation is maybe the most slipperiest and hardest thing to grasp I have ever perceived. Again, it all seems so perfectly woven as a plot against humanity, that not only do our own selves conspire against us, such as when fear or panic leading to previously un-thought results, but the whole of the world around us seems almost to conspire in the same way. The forces of entropy seem always so vast limitless, while the forces of order and sanity always the most scattered.

It is in a world like this that I cannot see for myself a place to truly belong. And so, for the ones who want to see me and talk to me and be close with me, I cannot reach back. Every illusion I might have had about this life is long since shattered, and I have not the gusto in my soul to even try painting another dream from those ashes.