Category: Random Thoughts

  • Resisting the norms

    Resisting the norms

    The relentless pace of society towards retiring those who are no longer contemporary is enough reason to settle into the rhythm of preparing for old age. Just writing that out makes me nauseous.

    To regain my sanity, or at least to push back against the approaching insanity, I remind myself that I have a good 20 to 30 years still left in me should I not succumb to the violence that pervades so many social spaces. 20 to 30 years is a lifetime in itself, which makes it difficult for me to grasp why someone would willingly plan to surrender a lifetime in favour of a belief system that has put out to pasture the wisdom of lives lives and struggles overcome.

    Society is only as strong as the most pervasive weakness that it celebrates. At present, we appear to celebrate mediocrity, sensationalism, materialism, and debilitating comfort. Passion and purpose do not feature in the most important discussions around me, both in my personal domain or in the public domains that I frequent.

    My aversion to such norms has seen me increasingly isolating myself from such spaces leading to a dulling of my spirit that threatens to land me in exactly the state the thought of which nauseates me. Thus, if left to my own devices without a grasp on life itself, I will succumb to the very thing about which I judge others. That has proven to be the only truth about the struggles of my life.

    The judgement that I flirted with in my youth visited me in my adulthood and threatens to define my twilight years. However, I refuse to embrace the twilight. I will marvel at it, and perhaps even taunt it, but I have no intention of embracing it. My irreverence at that sight of social norms creates a tension within me each time I even contemplate fitting in or going with the flow of the river of affluence that stenches up the environment around me.

    An art neglected will be lost. Thus, I find my ability to express myself slowly eroding while the mental clutter of everything that I have grown to despise about mediocrity takes its place. The despicable narrative of the contempt that I hold for the lack of conviction that I am bombarded with takes up more head space than it ever should.

    The absence of a sounding board or an understanding gaze leaves me adrift in a sea of tumultuous currents that have exceedingly brought me closer to tipping over and losing myself to the idealism of a mind fraught with angst at the sight of everything that threatens the wholesomeness that I hope to experience before my final calling.

    When the spoken word is not welcomed, the written word is all that remains of my avenue of protest against a world that celebrates vulgarity and self-aggrandisement rather than the substance and wondrous nature of life itself.

    A distracted clown appears deeply philosophical. A whimsical philosopher appears foolish.

    I must avoid both.

  • Home, is a feeling

    Home, is a feeling

    I was never convinced that home is a place. It’s a feeling.

    I say this because I’ve had many places to call my own, but none of them felt like home.

    I’ve had many places that felt homely, most often when visiting the homes of others, but none that felt like my home.

    Home, in my mind, became that larger than life aspirational goal that continues to fuel everything that I do.

    It’s a vision and a dream, a goal and a purpose.

    But never having truly connected with it, it is an idea, the closest to which I’ve come having been the intense belief that I was created for a place other than this.

    Thus, I adopted the pace and purpose of a traveller, never looking for roots but always feeling grounded.

    The same is true for concepts like peace and feeling safe.

    All nice ideas and beautiful imagery but lacking in substance.

    Born restless. Living restlessly. Hopefully to die peacefully.

    Fully spent. Without a single ounce of energy to spare, or regrets to lament.

    Just a peaceful conclusion to the best effort that I was capable of.

    Perhaps in that lies the promise of all three. Safe, peaceful, and homely at the moment of reaching my final destination.

    Exhale.

  • Reclaiming Peace: A Rabbit Hole of Reflection

    Reclaiming Peace: A Rabbit Hole of Reflection

    Reclaiming yourself in a vacuum of support is probably the most challenging part of mindfulness. I say mindfulness because it demands a focus on what is, rather than what should be, or could be, or must be. That, I have found, to be the most deflating distraction of all.

    The thoughts and the lamentations of everything that you have a right to, everything you deserve, and everything that is fair but is absent from your life or your relationships with those you value most denies you the composure or the absence of distraction needed to be mindful. Thus, the struggle for mindfulness is exacerbated by the struggle to quell the distractions. It therefore demands that it not be a struggle but instead, a quieting of the mind. But what quiets the mind?

    The regrets of the past that fuel the angst of the future occupies the mind in the present. Mindfulness is therefore the result of reconciling the past so that it does not prompt fears of the future leaving your mind blissfully unoccupied in the present except with which you choose to busy yourself.

    The test of self-worth is revealed in how you treat yourself when you are being neglected by those around you. Self-deprecation becomes an unhealthy expression of need in the hopes that someone will want to save you from yourself. If that someone is unfamiliar with your journey to that point, approach with caution.

    I’ve found that naivety has exacted the heaviest tolls on my life. Moments of blind trust, maybe optimistic trust, resulted in tears of regret and struggle because of the residual mess left behind after trusting the wrong people. Sometimes, that residual lasts a lifetime, although it doesn’t have to. We choose what we value, including the value that we place on what has been and is no longer true. Understanding why we willingly surrender peace for what is no more further peels away the layers that reveal the source of our self-loathing, or our discontent.

    To prevent a dulling of the spirit in the face of such upheaval, we must sharpen our resolve for what we claim is important in life. Clichés about life being short reveals the hypocrite in us when we use that short life to lament the past, or to exhaust ourselves in trying to demonstrate to others how badly it still affects us. Too many place life on hold while waiting for their struggle to be revered. They are the ingrates. The ones who chant about appreciating the beauty of life while being defined by its bitterness or its losses.

    Poetry is most often written by the broken hearted. The rest of the time it is written by the euphoric victim who never expected goodness after their last torment. I have not seen poetry written by one who is content, because the contented ones have no need for such expression. It is only the forlorn or the euphoric that have such desires to be heard, or seen. This I have found to ring true of my experiences too.

    Mindless meandering leads to pointless prose, akin to romantic poetry that calls out to the life we court, but rarely reflects the life we have. The journey through life is not life itself. Perhaps life is what is created by that journey while we presume to be pursuing life in our struggles during that journey. It’s a conundrum that the meek think to be obviously uncomplicated, but the troubled see it confounded beyond comprehension.

    The philosopher in me has been dulled by the elusive balance of reaching into the hearts of those dear, while accepting that such reach is not mine to have. In that, I believe, is born the struggle that we value long after it no longer holds promise because the values that we live by dictate that such struggles cannot be abandoned. My ramblings isolate me further in the space in which is thrive. It seems that a journey like this holds only the promise of fascination but not companionship, nor an understanding gaze from one who believes themselves to be too simple for such contemplations. If only they saw themselves through my eyes, perhaps they would see beyond the horizon of their despair.

  • Struggles and Triumphs: A Personal Journey to Finding Joy and Fulfillment

    Struggles and Triumphs: A Personal Journey to Finding Joy and Fulfillment

    Life. With each passing moment, I question more than before about ever experiencing true joy. A fulfilling joy. One that is shared, not just fleeting. Joy that isn’t prompted nor courted, but spontaneously spawned in moments that I choose. Not the joy that I choose. The moments that I choose because those moments matter. Such moments must be filled with joy if its gravity is to be liberating rather than oppressive.

    I often find myself convinced that such joy will remain elusive for the entirety of my lifetime. My efforts towards securing it have resulted in a brutal education that I now wish to share with others so that they may be educated in kinder tones than I was.

    Purging the contents of my mental clutter is not as therapeutic as it once was. There is much comfort to be drawn from anonymity. However, there is much suppression of the spirit when living a life of anonymity. At some point, I was foolhardy enough to surrender my anonymity in favour of authenticity. I still mull over the wisdom of that choice.

    After abandoning anonymity probably some ten years ago or so, I had to assume a more responsible posture in my writing. As romantic as it may be to speak from the heart in unbridled musings, there is a line that I never wished to cross. That line is the point at which my musings may expose the flaws or undermine the dignity of others regardless of their treatment of me. If I hope to have my dignity honoured, I must do my best to honour the dignity of those whose paths cross with my own.

    Holding myself true to this principle has tested my resolve near to breaking point. But if I give in, I would lose myself to the same stench of life that I lament in the spaces that skirt my own. The seething entitlement that is born from ingratitude causes my temper to wretch and writhe threatening to release spittle with every word that escapes my spasmed lips. But I cannot lose myself to such vulgarity, there is enough of it within that took safe harbour during moments when I was too young to realise what accommodations I offered for the misery of others.

    Swimming against the stream is tiring, and the only solace it offers is that I am able to swim. Reflecting on my state when I launched my reinvention in 2018, I realise that it was the absolute drudgery of my life in corporate and an unfulfilling relationship that catapulted my exit from that life, embracing with fervour the promise of creating a new one. I’m trying desperately to reconnect with such conviction now without having to slip to the bottom of that slope first before finding it.

    Cryptic thoughts, eyestrain, and caffeine is all I find. Ephemeral joys and encouraging progress is what keeps me from surrendering, although I can’t say with certainty that I would surrender in its absence either. I can barely say anything with certainty these days except for what lacks in joy and fulfilment. The writer’s block that has plagued me for so long is not because I can’t find enough to write about. It is because I can’t find reason to believe that it will be received with tenderness, or appreciation.

    Swimming upstream is inspiring for those who observe the feat, but is soul destroying for those who go the distance alone. If there is one lesson I learnt well but still ignore for the most part, it is the lesson of knowing with certainty that being a voice for the oppressed is the loneliest place in the world because once the message has been received, the oppressed resume the worship of their masters while the lone voice that provoked the change that heralded their relief becomes socially awkward for those who hover in its orbit.

    I don’t think there is such a thing as insanity. I think there is only poor communication and incorrect assumption. Between the two, the crazy halos of hell are visited upon our lives in ways that leave us gasping for air and scratching the walls of horror for relief. Assumption, is therefore the bastard child of hope that aspires to be accepted by the distracted. That’s how a life of torment is created.

    I don’t try very hard to be understood anymore. I don’t try very hard at all.

  • A distracted populace

    A distracted populace

    When popular opinion prevails over the wisdom of the ages, fear greatly for the next generation.

    We live in times when good appears as evil, and evil appears as good.

    When standing up for something on a basis of principle is dismissed as idealism, and the path of least resistance is seen as the only sensible thing to do.

    When respect is confused with good manners, and sincerity is confused with being polite.

    When the worst of us leads, and the best of us are ridiculed for expecting more.

    When we look to the past with rose coloured spectacles, we lose the essence of the effort that created that past, while believing that nostalgia is all that it offers.

    When we surrender to the thinking that times have changed, we lose sight of the fact that we’re changing the times.

    That’s how the feeble-minded gain popularity through stroking the egos of the masses, while the masses are deluded by their social media feeds into believing that they’re being progressive.

    And in the midst of all this ridiculousness, we have a generation that is lost, yet horribly confident about everything that is lacking in substance but full of self-gratification.

    It is going to be a disastrous day when they realise that self-gratification was in fact a coping mechanism for self-loathing, and life grew empty as they lost their connection with their roots, their cultural heritage, and their identity.

    Assimilation has never fed the soul, it only ever destroyed our sense of self.

    A society that demands assimilation is a society that is doomed to failure because it already lacks the substance and the credibility to deal with differences.

    The future cries in anticipation of what we’re producing in the present.

    When will we awaken from being so woke?

  • Patiently persevere

    Life has never been simple, and only threatens to become more complicated with each day that passes.

    Sometimes I flirt with the idea that perhaps I was destined to struggle with so much so that I can learn the lessons that need to be learnt to share them with others.

    But my gut says that is not true.

    “Whatever ill you experience is sent forth by your own hands.”

    A verse from the Qur’an that is always a stark reminder that life is always more difficult when you are unaware of the full breadth of the consequences of your choices and decisions.

    The less wisdom you have about life when you set out to create one from very little at your disposal, the more mistakes you must make to acquire the wisdom that others simply inherited from a wholesome upbringing.

    Comparing notes is forever an indulgence in self-pity. That’s why I never compare notes.

    Whenever I find myself on the wrong end of the life that I thought i was creating, I take a moment to pause.

    To reflect.

    To catch my breath.

    To understand.

    Then I shrug off the self-pity and forge ahead once more.

    If the best efforts of my life will result in nothing more than misery, then I want to be damn certain that it’s a misery that I choose and not one imposed by others.

    And in the process, I’ll laugh heartily and mock cynically at my repeated attempts to figure things out by myself.

    Because when you don’t have a gentle hand guiding you through life, you need to brace yourself for colourful experiences.

    The moment you stop to lament the absence of that gentle hand, you’ll lose yourself to its absence, and become one with the harshness of the world that has no place for innocent mistakes.

    You don’t need others to be kind to you before you learn how to be kind to yourself.

    Nor do you need others to be supportive before you believe, with conviction, in what is important to you.

    Any excuse about not pursuing the life that you want because of the absence of support from others is nothing but an excuse that denies you the value of who you are.

    The trials that we face are the unintended consequences of the decisions that others have made, while the ill that we experience is the unintended consequences of our own poorly informed decisions.

    Strive towards not being a trial for others by being more mindful and diligent about the decisions that you make for yourself.

    And when you get it wrong, allow yourself to be human, own your mistakes, and try again.

    Life was never designed to be mastered on the first attempt.

    Where would be the fun in that?

  • Knowing your place

    Understanding where you fit into the strategy of the lives of your significant others will save you a lot of disappointment and even pain. More than this, understanding where you reside in the totem pole of their priorities is essential if you hope to maintain your sanity. If you are not aware of these two simple points, you’ll assume that the value system by which you embrace them is the value system by which they’ll embrace you. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

    When every ideal of yours is shattered by those in whom you tirelessly invest the moments of your life, you’re left contemplating who you are and what you stand for in the face of an abhorrent rejection. To claim grace and dignity in that moment when the audacity of ingratitude bears down on you without shame, becomes the battle that will determine whether you lose yourself to rage or do you hold on to the remnants of the self-respect that allowed you to invest tirelessly to begin with.

    Creating spaces for a life filled with love always seems like an amazing way to spend your life, until those spaces are neglected by the loves with whom you hoped to share it. The hand that gives is greater than the hand that receives because the hand that receives rarely understands what it takes to be able to give of that which you sacrifice much to earn a little. Receiving bears the threat of entitlement, while giving, the threat of arrogance. Lose sight of yourself in either, and you’ll become one with the ingrates who trade with entitlement and arrogance.

    Of course, this means that you must have first claimed yourself to begin with. Most have not. Most are defined by what they want to be seen as. They want to be seen as glorious, but offer only vainglorious ethics. They want to be seen as generous, but they trade with ingratitude. They want to change the world, but truly, they only mean to claim more from it for themselves. And if you grow up believing that you must take what you need in life, you’ll have no reason to consider the hands that toiled to create what you have available to take. Hence the ingratitude with which you are bound to operate.

    But giving while trusting that you will have what you need when you need it requires a trust that is scarce. When we realise that the values by which we live is not the values by which we are received, that trust in humanity, or even in our circle of endearment becomes a hot coal that we juggle in our hands, burning ourselves out while not having the heart to discard it because we know what it’s like to be discarded by those who don’t have it. For anyone looking on without appreciation for why that hot coal must not be abandoned, we appear as nothing more than a dancing madman persisting in self-harm while everyone else is self-preserving.

    Perhaps that is the place of the insane, whom, by the standards of the society around them, remain the only hope to retain some humanness where there now appears only a desert of isolation. In that desert we reach out to each other with tentacles of materialism while yearning for a warmly touch from living flesh, but incapable of receiving it with gentleness when it is offered, because we feel entitled to its offering because of our assumed place on the totem pole.

    When you step away from the system that depletes your dignity, you need a resolve that holds you steady as you navigate the darkness that remains in the spaces outside of that system. A cryptic life leads to a cryptic mind of cryptic thoughts that deepens the isolation of spirit, and increases the takers who reach out with those tentacles demanding a piece of your soul while reciprocating with a shallow smile and a goodly sentiment. But no warm embrace.

    Know your place.

  • Conveniently judgemental

    Conveniently judgemental

    Judgement is only ever supposed to be the first step in correcting what’s wrong.

    Sadly, it’s most often the only step that we take when faced with unbecoming behaviour from others.

    Worse still, judgement is easy to dish out about issues and incidents that are none of our business because having an opinion on something topical is the easiest way to feel relevant.

    Judgement is easy.

    All it requires is the ability to compare what we see to a rule or a law that we believe is revered by others.

    Such comparison requires zero understanding behind the behaviour, nor does it demand any action on our part to improve the situation.

    All it requires is an opinion without empathy or compassion.

    When passing judgement establishes our relevance in social circles, we grow emboldened by the attention we receive from those who agree with us, eventually assuming ourselves to be a moral authority that can speak on behalf of the Almighty.

    That’s when we find justification to pass judgement about the faith and beliefs of others, and we become argumentative about religion and philosophy, and the personal matters of those we have no intention of assisting.

    Passing judgement without understanding or accountability for the impact of such judgement is an indulgence of the ego and serves no good whatsoever.

    Unless you are duly appointed to judge between two parties, restrain yourself from having an opinion on every person or issue that crosses your timeline.

    Peace is found in leaving alone that which does not concern us.

    And harm is caused by involving ourselves insincerely in that which does not concern us.

    Check yourself before you feel a need to share your opinion on someone else’s life.

    Or else you may be tested with that which you judge others about.