Category: Appreciation

  • Composed Insanity

    It’s been a long time since I’ve felt any sense of composure about me. I constantly feel as if I’m on the edge of finding that elusive balance, but each time I flirt with that notion I find myself immersed in yet another challenge or another initiative that is almost always self-imposed. Despite this, I’m not at odds with myself or my life even though it sounds or feels like I am at times. There appears to be a subtle but important difference that has emerged in the way I deal with adversity these days. On many previous occasions I resolved to be principled before being strategic, always assuming that the one negated the other, and as a result I found myself jobless on two occasions, and divorced on three.

    But I now seem to have an awkward balance between principles and strategy. Awkward because it doesn’t feel like something I’m ready to embrace just yet, even though I know that it’s better than the absolutist approach I adopted before. There’s a tinge of insanity that always lurks just beneath the surface spawned by the absence of fatherly guidance in my life. My life has never been garnished with a healthy dose of mentors, coaches, or the wisdom of an older generation directly passed down to me. At every major intersection I found myself standing alone and trying to decipher the road signs without the help of a guide or manual, with only an innate sense of spirituality and resilience that has been my companion throughout my life, and a keen sense of observation that helped me to glean some wisdom from the actions of the elders that I was sometimes exposed to.

    It’s difficult to explain, but the reality is that I’ve never had the benefit of a father, or a fatherly figure to refer to in times of growth or opportunity that threatened to launch me into a new phase of my life, even though I had a father until well into my adult years. My emergence from teenage naivety into my early adult years was driven by passion and purpose, with a burdensome sense of responsibility guiding my choices, always using the rights that others had over me as my guiding lights. Doing right by them always enjoyed a priority higher than satisfying my own needs, but in that I’ve found much fulfilment and resolve, as well as inspiration.

    It still didn’t make the difficult decisions any easier, or the mistakes any less grave. I wrought destruction at times when I thought I was acting selflessly, but in fact my idealism misguided me to the point of stupidity, resulting in much regret. The regret always set me back a couple of years at a time whenever the consequences of my idealism overwhelmed my sense of purpose which always extinguished any sense of passion that may have been left in me. It’s these same feelings of anxiousness and restlessness that inspired the never-to-be-delivered letter that I once wrote to my daughters.

    I pray that you never will understand some of what I’m going through, some of what I feel, or some of what I think…because to understand you would need to experience what I’ve experienced. And I wouldn’t want you to feel the pain and the anguish that I’ve felt that made me feel, see and think the way I do. Although it’s the same pain and anguish that has given me this appreciation for life, for a smile on a stranger’s face, or for the chirping of the birds. My wish is for you to learn from my experiences and the experiences of others because there’s so much more to life than the opportunity to make your own mistakes.

    The only way you can cheat time is to learn from the accumulated wisdom of generations past. But if you insist on learning it all yourself, know that you’ll never learn more than anyone who has lived only a single lifetime without any wisdom to draw on. Know that your pain and your anguish will be unnecessary, and know that your life would only ever be half-lived, if even that. So instead I pray that you are able to cheat time, acquire a wisdom beyond what you may inherit, and give your children more than what you had to cheat time with. And if you do this, know that you have achieved more than any human being can be expected to achieve in a single lifetime. This is the only path to immortality that I know.

    I wonder if they’ll ever appreciate the sentiments and sincerity in that should they ever come across it at an age when it may hold some relevance in their lives. But this is not a post about them, or what I yearn for them. It’s a post about the insanity that, being a constant in my life, allows me a sense of composure that robs me of rest, or ease. I find myself unable to remain still for long enough to appreciate the peace that exists at the tips of my fingers. That peace, that composure, is out of reach. The soul that guides the outstretched fingers remains distracted by the noise and the clutter of trying to live a life well lived, finding only turbulence and upheaval in a world full of people desperate to find silence. I’m not so unique in my desire to acquire what everyone else wants, but the path that each of us travel to arrive at this restless point is so vastly different that comparing notes would always be a futile exercise.

     

  • Mother’s Day – An Awkward Moment

    I’ve been tempted to ask a few people the kind of question that is often dismissed as being ridiculous or unrealistic. But it’s really a simple question that goes something like this. Apart from Anniversaries, Birthdays, and days like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, do you believe that you acknowledge or celebrate the contribution of your parents, or other loved ones, sufficiently in your life? If yes, you don’t need to commemorate Mother’s Day, or any of those other occasions. If no, then those occasions are desperately needed reminders for you, and you’re probably a contributor towards the reasons for having a need to set aside a specific day to acknowledge these people in our lives.

    I still maintain that living life by predetermined occasions intended to celebrate the contribution of individuals, or even just to acknowledge them is a waste of life and a lie to pacify our own inefficiencies. We can speak idealistically of acknowledging and affirming significant others, but when we wait for the occasion of a birthday or similar event to express such appreciation, then we easily fall prey to the act becoming a ritual rather than a sincere effort. Worse than this, we assume that the person will live long enough for us to acknowledge them when that occasion arrives, because acknowledging them as and when we feel inclined to do so naturally seems to be too burdensome.

    I’ve previously expressed my distaste for celebrating birthdays, and similarly, I also spurn the celebration of such token occasions because it encourages the mindset of ‘take for granted now because we can always make up for it later’. Mothers, fathers, and significant others, including our children, must not be conditioned to only expect to receive affirmation or gratitude from us on specific occasions. Nor should they be conditioned to believe that it’s only expected of them to reciprocate in the same way either. Talking about the celebration of life must not just be a romantic notion or an ideal, but instead it should be something that we practice with conviction.

    There’s enough tokenism in this world which feeds the cycle of insincerity that plagues almost every human interaction these days. Find a reason to celebrate the people in your life at times when they least expect it. Don’t wait for special occasions. Life is too fragile to take it for granted by assuming that tomorrow will be another day for us to do what we should have done today. But this is not about procrastination. It’s about gratitude. True gratitude is not guided by superficial occasions that celebrate milestones that are meaningless. We’ve placed so much emphasis on the occasions, that we’ve forgotten what the true celebration is about.

    Occasions like these have only ever served to appease the conscience of those that fail to celebrate the significant others in their lives the rest of the year. This becomes ever more evident when our parents grow old, which usually coincides with the prime of our lives, at which point the sick mindset sets in that suggests that they had their turn, so now it’s ours, and they should be able to understand that.

    The lethargy of society in giving back is a constant source of disillusionment. We’ve taken consumerism and made it an inherent part of our personal relationships as well. I pray that it changes. More than this, I pray that the majority of people that read this post will disagree with me about showing affection, appreciation, or affirmation to their loved ones on predetermined occasions only.

  • When Prayer Becomes Worship

    Quite inadvertently I realised this week that we only apply our minds and our hearts to those things from which we hope to acquire good. At first I thought it was just another superfluous thought, but it seemed to resonate in most things I did that day, especially prayer. Being a Muslim, there is never a shortage of emphasis by others on my need to comply with religious injunctions, especially those related to prayer.

    I’ve always taken exception to people who do things for the sake of compliance, because that is rarely sustainable and almost never fulfilling, with prayer being at the top of that list. Compliance and its promised rewards cannot be the only good that can be obtained through such submission, and this is not limited to religious submission only. In everything that we do in our lives, those things that have little or no identifiable reward often results in half-hearted attempts to do something with the intention of pleasing others, or to avoid ridicule or reprimand or worse, to avoid punishment. That just seems like such a waste of life.

    When I observe others, I find that the ones that do things with the most conviction are those that realise the benefits or the impact of what it is that they’re doing. For the same reason, you would find a janitor that would take more pride in their work than a qualified surgeon. It’s not the prestige of the job that drives that passion for detail and excellence, it’s the realisation of the contribution of what you’re doing relative to the greater good that drives us to want to do more than the bare minimum to accomplish the task at hand. For this reason you will find that two identically skilled and qualified individuals will produce a very different quality of result simply because of the personal perspectives and convictions that drive their actions.

    Complacency is only subscribed to when we lose sight of the true purpose of our servitude. In everything that we do, be it spiritual or physical, there must be a benefit for ourselves first before there can be a benefit for others in order for us to apply ourselves sufficiently to the task at hand. That personal benefit is often not material in nature and could take the form of fulfilling deeply held needs that we’re rarely consciously aware of. However, in serving others, we fulfil our need to be significant and to matter in a reality beyond just our own. In the spiritual realm this translates into finding personal benefit in our submission to the object of our worship.

    When prayer becomes a grounding point, a point of reflection, and a means towards attaining a clarity of thought and purpose let alone appreciation for what we have, that is when prayer becomes more than just a ritual. Understanding how that moment of submission balances the clutter with the sublime that leads to a more wholesome life is what turns it into an act of worship, rather than an act of obedience, or need. When all these realisations come together in our minds when we set ourselves down to pray, that moment becomes a cherished moment that cannot be rushed or compromised, but instead it will demand a level of mindfulness and conviction that will reflect in everything else that we do. It’s no wonder then that we are taught that if the prayer is sound, then everything else will be sound as well.

    Even if a ritualised form of prayer is not something that you subscribe to, the reality of being human will drive you to points of deep reflection on the purpose of life, creation, and what lies beyond. Perhaps that is the moments of true prayer on your part, regardless of your religious persuasion, and perhaps the conviction with which we meet those moments has a far greater bearing on the rest of our lives than we could ever imagine.

  • Who do you love?

    I so often hear people giving others advice about how they should overcome negative sentiments about themselves, and I keep wondering if it’s realistic? The advice most often rendered is ‘love yourself’. Isn’t that the same like telling someone that is depressed to be happy?

    I think if we dislike ourselves, it’s not because we simply dislike ourselves, but in fact it’s because there is little that we’re doing or achieving that we find reason to be proud about. Either that, or we’re seeking affirmation from quarters that are uninterested or oblivious to how important they are in our lives. So when someone seems not to like themselves, when they’re self-harming, being reckless with their health or well-being, or just being morbid about life, I somehow doubt that telling them to love themselves is going to change all that.

    I really believe that happiness is not a choice, but is in fact a state that is achieved as a result of other conditions or achievements in our lives. Similarly I would argue that dislike for oneself is a result of inactivity or lack of achievement in things that would bring one joy. I guess, at the risk of over-simplifying it, I think it all comes down to what we use as points of reference in our lives. Those points of reference can sometimes be role models, or at other times it could simply be peer pressure. But identifying what about those role models or peers it is that influences us to want to aspire to fit their expectations is key to realising whether or not the reasons for such self-dislike is in fact warranted to begin with.

    But even that doesn’t quite answer the question, or resolve the issue. I think the low self esteem finds its roots first in trying to please others, which is easy enough to set in during childhood when we least realise the impact of such a disappointment. This later serves as a distraction that leads us to believe that just because we didn’t measure up to our chosen points of reference, we’re incapable of achieving anything meaningful in our lives. I can barely recall the number of times that I assumed the best of someone, immersed myself into the relationship relative to what prestige they enjoyed in my mind, only to meet a rude awakening when they behaved far short of what I believed their true nature to be.

    Sometimes I think we just expect too little from ourselves, and too much from others. Or perhaps that’s just a vicious cycle as well. Our expectations of others are equally as high as their expectations of us, but their expectations of themselves is just as low as our expectations of ourselves. So while we’re beating ourselves up and restraining ourselves from realising our true potential, we’re betraying the expectations of someone else, while they’re doing the same to us. Such is the cycle of stupidity when we measure our self-worth by the veneer of society.

    I guess the point is that if we are going to choose a role model, or an ideal to aspire to, we need to be sure that what we’re setting as an objective is in fact the reality of what we really want.

  • A Brain Dump

    We buried my aunt last night. We weren’t very close, but she was a nice lady. She passed on in the afternoon, and we buried her by 22h00 the same evening in line with Muslim rites and customs. But like every funeral, I embraced the scent of camphor, probably more so than most would. We use camphor as an embalming agent to prepare the corpse for burial. So it’s always been a sobering reminder of the inevitable outcome of everything.

    Sobering! That was the lingering feeling that stayed with me throughout last night, and today. And it lingers still. At times in my life I often visited the cemetery alone on cold nights. Sometimes, if not always, I felt a sense of belonging, probably from the knowledge that that will be the final abode despite our best efforts to prolong our avoidance of it. Last night was different.

    Last night I made a feeble attempt to reflect on the sight of thousands of graves with their flaking lime-washed surrounds and the lives that were distilled into that piece of earth that didn’t care about their riches, their comforts, their legacies or their significance amongst men. It was cold to the touch, and lifeless. And the sense of belonging, or even yearning, escaped me. I felt dejected, not just in my own life any longer, but last night I felt dejected from the after life. Nothing offered me comfort or certainty, let alone peace. I had always felt some morbid sense of belonging to the dwellers of the graves.

    The above unfinished post has been laying in my drafts since August 2011. I never completed it, and I don’t think I can do so now either. But recent events in my life, mostly at the office, serves as a stark reminder of the purpose of my time on this earth. Betrayal is like pain, no matter how it is experienced, how long it persists, or how familiar it may become, it will never be a joy, nor a welcomed guest. I often have to remind myself of the advice I so readily dispense. Live with hope, not expectations.

    It’s been a while since I indulged myself in a brain dump. One is definitely called for, although the audience that I have solicited for my blog makes me hesitant to be as brutally honest about my thoughts as I used to be. The problem with trying to be yourself irrespective of those around you is that a large part of being yourself is in fact shaped by those around you. Thoughts spilt recklessly under the pretence of spilled ink, or freedom of expression, only adds to the already burdensome load of callousness in this world.

    Despite the incessant betrayals that I experience in my life, which incidentally becomes much easier to rack up if you’re naive like I choose to be, I still find it impossible, or at the least distasteful to treat others with suspicion simply because I was betrayed under similar circumstances before. I believe betrayal is the root to all evil, not money. We first have to betray ourselves, our deepest held convictions, before we can muster up the cowardice to betray others. Money is simply a distraction, like almost everything else that we surround ourselves with in life. Reflection is called for if we hope to know what it is that we stand for. With all the distractions there is little time for reflection, so it stands to reason that we’re more inclined towards acting in a way that contradicts our dreams and aspirations without realising it, while speaking wistfully of missed opportunities and bad decisions, because each time those opportunities visited us, or those decisions were made, we could barely discern the bullshit from the burden of reality.

  • Is that good I see?

    Acknowledging or praising the virtues of others when they’re around seems to carry a self-imposed burden of expectation that most of us resist. It’s easier for me to talk about this as a generalisation than to refer directly to my personal shortcomings, because in this vagueness lies some comfort as well. I’ve lost many people in my life that were significant others with whom I enjoyed a close and intimate personal relationship, or they were extended family, or even friends. Each time, I found myself trying to find comfort in the fact that my sincere inner prayers for their peace and comfort after death including privately acknowledging the good that they had in them is sufficient for not having acknowledged them while they were alive.

    But it’s never that easy. Acknowledging people when they’re alive, or at least present, does carry a burden of accountability that is not always self-imposed. I’ve often found myself on the receiving end of criticism when I acknowledged someone’s good, and they automatically assumed that I lost my right to criticise something else about them. I tend to be guilty of the same response at times as well. I guess we’re all defensive in that way, and I’m not sure if we start that vicious cycle ourselves in each relationship, or is it a perpetual cycle that was started long before we were even conceived.

    We live in a world of extremes. Digital thinking of zeros and ones, leading us to believe that it’s always all or nothing, but rarely any healthy balance in between. Recognising good in something, or someone, is often met with fierce criticism if we suddenly acknowledge something not-so-good in  them, as if it’s not possible for both good and bad to co-exist in a single person. I’ve been accused of being hypocritical before because I may have enjoyed a good relationship with someone while also taking exception to something that they may have been doing. Perhaps it’s not a vicious cycle, but instead an impossible standard that we hold others to, always forgetting that we’re also that ‘other’ to someone else that applies that same standard to us.

    We look at others and demand consistency and predictability, but we crumble under the pressure of the same consistency and predictability being demanded of us. It’s easy to expect, but not always easy to deliver. However, most often our attention is drawn to the rights that we have over others, rather than the rights that they have over us. No wonder then that we have such dysfunction in society. We tend to wait to have our rights and expectations fulfilled before we’re willing to return the favour. Everyone is waiting for that change that we all wish to see in the world, but no one is willing to offer it without an expectation of reciprocation.

    I doubt this will change my inclination to openly acknowledge all the good that people do for me when they’re doing it for me. But I also don’t think that this is entirely a bad thing, because the acknowledgement I offer may not always be verbal, but is almost always demonstrated in my sacrifices of personal comforts and time which is much more meaningful than a few spoken words, the sincerity of which can never be known. When someone does something good for us, we’re faced with a few possible reasons why they’re doing it. Either they want something in return, they have a vested interest, or perhaps they’re doing it to subtly acknowledge our worth in their life. I suspect that we rarely consider the third option, quite possibly because the superficial nature of this world has most of us inclined towards the first two as motivators for action.

  • Similarity Between Light and Prayer

    I’ve often tried to explain my views about destiny, or fate as many like to call it. In a recent conversation with a friend, we touched on the subject of prayer and it led me to again consider my views about the purpose of prayer if destiny is supposedly pre-written in line with the mainstream views of destiny. In other words, is my fate sealed because the outcomes have been decided regardless of my actions, or are we simply missing the point? That’s when the similarities between prayer and a typical beam of light occurred to me.

    A normal beam of light will simply light up an object, whereas a slightly more intense beam of light will possibly heat it up. Yet an even more intense beam of light could change the shape of the object, or even cut through the object, if not entirely incinerate the object. So it stands to reason that just existence of something is not necessarily a finite definition of its purpose or impact.

    I think the same is true with prayer. If said lightly and without conviction, it serves a limited purpose, if any at all, like those solar powered garden lights that light up nothing more than the casing in which they exist. For the same reason, I believe the prayer of the oppressed person is so much more powerful, because the oppressed person usually turns to Allah at a point when they’ve given up reliance on anything and anyone else. So the intensity, sincerity and conviction with which they pray results in it triggering those effects that Allah has already ‘configured’ in this universal law that governs our existence, often referred to as fate, or destiny, or taqdeer. Hence there being no need for Allah to directly intervene, because these laws that Allah has established already intervenes simply because Allah said ‘Be’, and it is. So trust that handhold that you have with Allah, and stop doubting it. The doubts weaken our prayer while the trust strengthens it.

  • Cyclic Sanity

    I’ve often contemplated, like many others, the reasons for time going so much faster as I get older. Many of my conclusions are no different to those considered by most others as well, yet I feel compelled to write them down after a few weeks of being particularly preoccupied with these thoughts. The obvious conclusion is that I have more that I’m responsible for doing now than I did when I was younger, so it stands to reason that I have less time available in between all the things I have to do. But that seems to only answer part of the question.

    It seems that life has become a ritual that operates in cycles. I often find myself fixated on observing, measuring, reminiscing, contemplating and doing everything within the context of new years, another month, the next week, or tomorrow to the point where I find that I convince myself that the cycles of these years, let alone the days, or even the hours, is what determines the activities that I should be planning for. Most of us, well at least the 99%, work from pay cheque to pay cheque. If we have disposable income after redistribution day, we consider ourselves fortunate, if not entirely blessed. The more disposable income we have, the more blessed we feel, the more we indulge, the more we need to focus on getting that next pay cheque to feel blessed again. This might sound like a cynic’s view of life, but there’s much truth in it.

    I forget so easily how to fill the gaps in between all the responsibilities that I have. Worse yet, I forget that many of those responsibilities can be fulfilling and rewarding rather than a duty, but the ever present demon of expectations dissuades me from raising too many expectations beyond what my duty is. And so the cycles of sanity are spawned and nurtured all at once. There is much merit in being spontaneous as opposed to measured and deliberate. I used to embrace spontaneity, but due to the prejudices of society, I feel like I’m sub-consciously suppressing my spontaneity from fear of being seen as one having a mid-life crisis.

    The staid, predictable, frightfully responsible, and entirely dependable family man is what is expected of me. It’s what a dysfunctional and disillusioned society expects of me. It’s what I demand of myself, despite it going against my own nature. I embrace responsibility willingly, because there is too much recklessness around me. But the cycles drive me insane. The painful predictability of life, of each month, of each day. It all stifles me. It smothers me. So I rebel. I say the things that are improper, and I challenge those views held sacred, not because I want to, but because I feel extremely restless and uncomfortable when I see others behave out of ritual or habit without appreciating the gaps they have at their disposal.

    I would rather have responsibilities between the gaps, rather than gaps between the responsibilities. The proverbial glass is half empty for me not because I don’t see it as half full, but simply because I know I’ve drunk more than most from it. I don’t want my glass to be half full. In fact, I don’t want a glass. I don’t want convention. Nor do I want routine or safe choices. I want to know that I am living and not just going through the motions pretending that doing something better today than I did it yesterday, which was better than I did it the day before, is sufficient fulfilment for my life. I need more than that. I need to look in someone’s eyes and see it confused and restless because I challenged them to think. Because I challenged them to work those gaps and move beyond the routine.

    Those gaps. They’re so damn elusive because when I get them, I’m usually taking a breather to recover from the demands of the routine. I must break the cycle. This cycle of seeming sanity has robbed me of the essence of what it pretends to be. Sanity is not the prevalence of order, nor is it the prevalence of function. It’s simply, by society’s standards, the presence of conformance. Conformance has killed many a creative soul, and destroyed many a great idea. More than this, conformance has destroyed the me I used to smile at. It’s time to break the cycle of sanity. For verily, as has been said already, a sane man, when compared to an insane society, must appear insane. But I think JG Ballard said it best when he said, “In a totally sane society, madness is the only freedom.”