Blog

  • I Don’t Belong Here

    I don’t belong here. I belong in another place from another time. A time when struggles were filled with purpose, and a place where life was lived. My struggles these days seem hinged on survival, existence, garnished with a side portion of indulgence to keep the angst at bay. The fulfilment of purpose escapes me. I don’t see new opportunities any longer, I only see patterns and statistics. Everything has become painfully predictable taunting me with the doubts of what may have been inevitable, or what may have been a self-fulfilled prophecy.

    I look at the future and it appears to be a fractured reflection of the past. I see the faces around me that look to me for support and assurance, but all I can provide is dependability in its place. Optimism is tainted with reality. Hearing of the news of a fellow blogger (potentially) having committed suicide this week further deflated me. Seeing someone struggle with the same questions of purpose and sincerity, action and desire, life and death, suddenly succumbing to the despair of it all emphasises the gravity of what it is that I contemplate even when I’m dreaming.

    Everything is ephemeral, except reality. There is little that can bring comfort to a jaded soul. No, not jaded, tarnished and tainted. A soul that has found itself in the throes of realising that its life’s struggles have amounted to nought, and then some. This world was made for respite. I need to remind myself that this world was made for respite, not justice. I forget that at the times I need to remember it most. Respite, not justice.

    I need to trust in order to find reason to persevere, all the while knowing that such trust harbours nothing but betrayal. The cycles are almost perfectly formed. It’s only the players that keep changing. We embellish the distractions with superficial meaning trying to convince ourselves that it’s not the same routine. It always is.

     

  • Doubting Your Intentions

    The question is often raised about giving up on a good act because we’re afraid that we’re doing it for the wrong intention. I think it’s easy to get caught up in the whole internal debate about whether or not I’m sincere enough, or am I doing this for show, or am I doing it because I enjoy the high opinion others would have of me, etc. But isn’t that exactly the kind of doubt that Shaytaan has vowed to sow in our hearts?

    I think that giving up on an optional act out of fear of having the incorrect intention is one thing, but giving up a compulsory act cannot be as easily dismissed.

    The first thought that came to mind when I read a post earlier about this issue was that sometimes a good thing needs to be legislated for people to be compelled to practice it before they will willingly adopt the practice. After practising it out of compulsion, they realise the value of it and then adopt it willingly as their own choice. Strangely enough, I drew this analogy from apartheid and the steps taken to root out racism in South Africa. But I think the same principle applies here.

    However, like anything new, if we’re constantly reminding ourselves about why we shouldn’t be changing the way we’re doing something, it will be that much more difficult to adopt new ways to get rid of bad ones. Unless we truly believe in the good of the new act that we need to adopt, we’ll keep resisting it and will probably only ever do it if we have no choice in the matter. But when we do something out of compulsion, the force that compels us to do it is usually what we’re trying to appease, right?

    So in my mind, if the compulsion we feel to do something is driven by social pressure, or peer pressure, then our focus will be on conforming to the expectations of society or our peers. But if the compulsion we feel is based on our fear of disappointing Allah, or better still, our desire to please Allah, then the yardstick by which we measure the sincerity of our intentions will be very different.

    The challenge is that our pleasing or disappointing Allah almost never yields an immediate repercussion, whereas disappointing people almost always results in an immediate reprisal of some sort. So the fear of being abandoned or excluded is usually a much stronger motivator to do things, than the reality of the consequences of displeasing Allah. That’s when faith and piety come into play, hence the exponentially greater reward for pleasing Allah compared to pleasing people. When we please people, we will reap rewards in this world. But that will be the end of that reward. When we please Allah, we will often not feel any tangible benefit in this world, but what awaits us in the hereafter extends beyond anything you could possibly imagine.

    So the question really is not about intention, but about instant gratification. We’re either slaves to our desires, which demands instant gratification, or we’re slaves of Allah. And this will hold true in every single moment of our lives, because in a single breath we can go from focusing on this world to focusing on Allah and back again. Hence the need to constantly strive, and hence Allah being the Most Forebearing and the Most Merciful, because Allah is fully aware of these weaknesses that He created in us. Allah loves it when we turn to Him for forgiveness or mercy, that’s why the evil deed that brings us closer to Allah is infinitely greater than the good deed that causes us to focus on winning the praise of others.

  • That Hyper Acidity Demon

    I’ve been struggling with hyper-acidity for a few years now. Like most illnesses, I prefer to take the holistic approach to addressing it rather than the instant gratification approach that calls for pills and reckless abandon in modern medicine. So over the years, I observed various tendencies within myself that seem to trigger the acidity spikes that often feel like a butcher’s hook has been inserted in my abdomen from below and is being pulled downwards with enough force that threatens to disembowel me. So I thought I’d share a few pointers about what has and hasn’t worked for me.

    Early on, I visited the doctor to identify the cause of the pain in my stomach. They immediately suspected an ulcer and promptly placed me on medication for this. So I received a standard dose of Nexium and was given some Gaviscon to go with it. It didn’t work. So I went back to the doctor to see what could be the problem. This time, because of the intensity of the pain and discomfort (tmi warning) and because of the fact that my stool was starting to get a mucose texture to it, I was given a double dose of antibiotics (i.e. two different antibiotics simultaneously) over a two week period, including a double dose of Nexium for a month. It didn’t work. The next step suggested by the doctor was a gastroscopy. The idea of having a tube shoved down my throat didn’t appeal to me, so I politely declined and set out trying to understand this issue more holistically.

    After a chance meeting with an iridologist at a local pharmacy, I discovered a homoeopathic tea that relieved the symptoms within 2 or 3 days, literally! Unfortunately, as fate would have it, that pharmacy closed down and the tea that was made as a family remedy by that lady disappeared along with it. But I recalled seeing that fennel was one of the active ingredients in that tea, so I got myself some fennel tea to try to deal with the discomfort of the acidity. I also came across a book by Louise L. Hay that provides insights into the association between emotional or mental state, and our physical state. This suggested that acidity was caused by an excessive need to please others. It made perfect sense because at the time, I was going through an absolutely troubling time in my marriage, which affected my work performance, which left me desperately trying to appease both my wife, my boss, and my colleagues at the same time. However, I just saw it as stress before that point, but after reading what Louise had to say, I narrowed it down to that effort to appease. Also worth noting is that with the stress, my caffeine intake increased substantially because I was struggling to sleep and needed an energy boost more often than not. So energy drinks and filtered coffee became my staple diet which only made matters worse.

    So I started adjusting my mindset to get more perspective on what was happening. I realised that trying to appease was never sustainable, so I started accepting my limitations in pleasing others or meeting their expectations, and slowly but surely it reduced the intensity of the acidity. But the damage had been done, so I was now predisposed to hyper-acidity because my love for orange juice suddenly became my worst enemy.

    To cut a long story short, after many years of finding ways to deal with hyper-acidity without invasive medical treatment, I’ve found that the following works well for me.

    1. Having peanut butter on toast with tea. For some reason, I’ve found that the caffeine in tea doesn’t affect my acidity, whereas coffee nails it almost immediately. Drinking filter coffee is like committing harakiri.
    2. I’m using a probiotic called Probiflora with 4 strains of bacteria. There’s one with 9 strains as well, but I’m hoping I’ll never need that one. It seems to help neutralise the stomach acids by just taking one each day as needed.
    3. I completely avoid Gaviscon and similar antacids. I do use fruit salts from time to time (a local brand called ENO works exceptionally well) which seems effective at alleviating the acid build up after an overly indulgent meal.
    4. Hyper-acidity usually makes me feel bloated and generally lethargic because of the other symptoms that it invokes, so I’ve found that taking a good (preferably natural) source of digestive enzymes usually helps alleviate the bloatedness as well.
    5. Fennel tea also works well, or rooibos tea, if you have access to that, to alleviate the bloated feeling that acidity causes. It’s particularly effective to maintain the health of your digestive system when under stress.
    6. I avoid sugar completely, and I avoid acidic fruit juices completely. The sugar is simply because after getting used to the taste of natural non-radiarised honey, I can’t stand the artificial sweetness that sugar offers.
    7. When my acid really spikes, I stay away from tomatoes, white flour products and cheeses, including acidic fruits like oranges, naartjies, pineapples and most berries, especially strawberries.
    8. Most importantly, I remind myself that my objective in life is not to please people, but simply to do right by them. If they’re not happy with me, and I’m being true to myself in the process, then I accept that I cannot make them happy and maintain as amicable a relationship as is warranted, or politely part ways if needed.

    I hope that helps, because I see many people suffering with massive discomfort from hyper-acidity these days, and more often than not, they’re either on chronic medication or insane diets which is even more difficult to stick to because hyper-acidity often makes me feel hungry more often than not, which results in horrible weight gain, which nails my self-image, which increases my stress levels and perpetuates that vicious cycle. Hopefully this post will spare someone the torment of that vicious cycle.

  • Perhaps…

    Farting against thunder. That’s often the sum total of my state of mind these days. For a moment today I felt as if sharing my thoughts on this and other blogs of mine was in fact perpetuating the whispers of insignificance that taunt me. It’s an insane cycle. Needing an outlet, not necessarily creative or emotional, but just something to release the noise, make space for the clutter to fall into an open space so that I might be able to look for clues on how to unravel it all.

    I sometimes feel repulsed by what I write. At other times, I’m repulsed by the fact that I write at all. I wonder if all my efforts at unlocking the logic behind the ridiculous labels is in fact me denying that those labels actually apply to me. Perhaps I have a mental disorder but my arrogance and obstinacy prevents me from acknowledging it. Perhaps my views on what is or is not good in this world is in fact tainted with a sense of idealism that is unachievable.

    I shy away from debates that used to impassion me. I look at others and recede believing that my attempts at getting them to understand, or appreciate, or simply entertain an alternate view is futile. I seem prone to taking up lost causes as if doing so may spur on some global reawakening about something simple that seems pivotal to the resurrection of old school values that I cling to so dearly. Perhaps I only cling to them out of fear of not being able to embrace the new? Perhaps I’m not farting at all against the thunder. Perhaps the thunder is in fact the clutter in my head, seeing chaos where only randomness exists, and seeking order where none is possible.

    Perhaps the days of my sanity are numbered. Perhaps the purpose of life that always seemed so poignantly obvious to me was in fact a figment of my own imagination. A conjured ruse of a troubled teenager’s aspirations lacking in substance and form, with a life breathed into it from the seat of desperation that wrestles within my soul. Perhaps I was feigning sanity all along.

  • South Africa, A Nation Under Siege

    We had a security incident at our home tonight. It was literally a minute before midnight when I was prodded out of bed by the sound of the siren for the electric fencing screaming. In typical fashion, I loitered, somewhat from being disorientated because I was in a deep sleep, and partially because it takes me some time to completely snap into crisis mode. I slowly worked through the process of switching on the outside lights, then getting my firearm out of the safe, and then making my way to the security gate that separates our bedrooms from the main living area of the house. In between I vaguely recall going to the bathroom first before finally making my way over to the back of the house to see what was happening.

    When I pushed my curtains back, I saw an owl that could easily have been almost two feet tall standing on the parapet of the outside room. I shone the torch straight at it, and it looked at me as if I was wrong for having electric fence. I suspected that the owl had tried to sit on the top strand of the fence but caused the two strands to short circuit because of its weight, resulting in the screeching siren in the middle of the night. But this is South Africa, so you’re an idiot that’s just asking for it if you don’t make sure that all is relatively safe before you step into your own back yard at that time of the night. So I waited patiently for the security company to send out a response vehicle before venturing outside. Unfortunately, due to a poor installation by a fly-by-night contractor who was an ex-cop, my control unit for the electric fence is located in the outside room with no direct access from inside the house. It’s also not wired up to the main alarm system, which means it gets armed and disarmed independently.

    A long 20 minutes later the security company arrived by which time the alarm had been screeching for almost half an hour. I expected to receive a call from the neighbours, but no such thing happened. Not even a light was switched on. But, this is South Africa, so we’re either immune to the sound of house alarms in the middle of the night, or we’re too afraid to get involved for fear of our lives.

    I did the walkabout around the house with the armed response guy and confirmed that the top strands had shorted. We sorted it out, I reset the electric fence, and it was back to being armed and ready to irritate again. Throughout this ordeal, my mother paced restlessly in her room in the cottage in my back yard, while my wife who is an American ex-pat got her first taste of the anxiety that South Africans have grown accustomed to. If it wasn’t for the two of them, I would not have given a second thought to the incident, but realising how it affected them reminded me of exactly what hell South Africans deal with on a daily basis. However, because there’s a constant threat to our safety, we’ve grown accustomed to living at a heightened level of stress and fear.

    At that moment, when the vulnerability showed on my wife’s face, something inside me cursed deeply. It cursed the corrupt government, the inept officials that lead the police force, and it cursed the arrogance of the likes of Nathi Mthetwa and his fallen comrades who were unceremoniously dismissed from their posts after finally being exposed as the corrupt thieves that they are. The average South African burns a significant portion of their monthly income on security related services and equipment just to feel ok, not safe. High walls, electric fence, armed response, firearms (if you’re fortunate enough to have been granted a license), satellite tracking, anti smash and grab window tinting, security spikes, security gates, and the list goes on. Until recently, even those inept police officers were getting their police stations guarded by private security companies, yet we have an arrogant minister and president that believes that South Africa is safe!

    I don’t quite care about the political correctness of this article, but under apartheid, at least we knew what we were dealing with. There was a sense of community and a sense of real safety in our neighbourhoods. The most drastic measures we ever had to take was to setup neighbourhood watch groups, and then also, it was manned by the teenage boys of the area because the threat was mainly to property and not to persons. The crime associated with property theft has grown increasingly violent and sadistic since 1994, and news reports on a daily basis proves that criminals are not only getting more creative in their efforts to terrorise people, but are also getting more brazen in their attacks on both private individuals and police officers alike. And all the while our incompetent minister continues wreaking of arrogance and incompetence, while proclaiming that the police are winning the fight against crime.

    Too many South Africans have grown complacent, and are still so stuck in the past that they fail to see the country rolling downhill as a dung ball gathering mass until it settles as a heap of manure at the bottom of the hill of progress, with a finely inscribed label made of the most extravagant materials saying ‘Failed State’. I hate what the ANC has done to this country, and every person that heaps unrestrained praise on the ANC-led government for how they’ve pulverised this country into a stink-hole of morbidity needs to have their IQ retested so that we can find a spot for them in a suitable institution. Hopefully for them funding for that institution won’t be cut because of yet another scandal of untold billions of rands having been squandered or simply unaccounted for.

    This is not what we protested for in 1976, nor what we protested for in 1984. This is not what I aspired to have as my quality of life in this country when I got my first job and started paying my taxes. We give idiots a soap box to spew racial filth disguised as affirmative action and then cry when we see senseless crimes being perpetrated. We’re focusing on rewriting history by spending billions on establishing monuments and renaming roads, highways and cities while law and order is having to be upheld by the citizens and private security industries of this country at the expense of the ordinary South African who still gets taxed on those security measures that are needed because government is not doing its job to protect its citizens. It’s ludicrous!

    There are exceptions to every rule, and that is what is shameful about South Africa. The exceptions are all that’s left in the offices of public service while the norm is to deploy overpaid fat cat cadres to do the jobs of real public servants. While I’m fully aware and I acknowledge the presence of some level of competence in the public offices of this country, without which we would have arrived at the bottom of that proverbial hill already, but just because we have a semblance of competence in isolated areas of government in no way provides justification for the continued presence in office of a largely corrupt and incompetent government. We need change and we need it soon, and waiting for people with weak zips and dripping shower heads to provide that change is tantamount to signing your own death warrant. They’re too incompetent to even run their personal affairs with dignity, so how on earth are they ever going to be capable of maintaining the dignity of the ordinary South African?

  • Those Invertebrates Again

    The disjointed thought patterns are back. Just as I was starting to revel in the experience of being able to think in whole sentences again, it all came to an ungraceful stop today. No. It did not come to a stop, I stopped it. I stopped it because I was tired of the same routine, the same cycle, the same deja moo. You know, those moments when you feel like you’ve heard this bullshit before? That was me today, and yesterday. Oh, hold on, it was last week as well, but I wasn’t paying too much attention back then because my natural defences kicked in and I shut out the noise, like  most people do these days.

    The only words that teeter on the tip of my lips right now, threatening to escape through my fingers, are expletives. Joyous, wonderful, and indulgent vulgarities, because that is all that I can muster to describe the contempt with which I view many people right now. A herd of perfectly postured invertebrates pretending to be sincere while desperately creating smokescreens to hide their pathetic incompetence and unethical behaviour. I need to scream a primal scream that causes a mountain to crumble to ashes so that I can finally let go of the frustration that mounts within me while I wait for people to be true to their stated convictions. I fittingly and deliberately plagiarised that imagery from one such invertebrate I had the misfortune of believing in. But that’s a whinge for another lifetime.

    There has to be a point to this post other than just a rant. If I don’t make a meaningful point, it will reduce my self-esteem to nothingness at the realisation that I just succumbed to the same pathetic pointless existence as most of them. Yes, them. Those oxygen thieves that stop at nothing to secure their selfish needs without any consideration for the sequence of events that they set in motion. A sequence of events that always tramples on the disenfranchised (I can’t believe I just used that liberal bullshit term) while pompously patting themselves on their blubbery backs.

    I despise the world tonight. No, I despise the psychopaths that wear masks pretending to be human when in fact they’re simply parasites in expensive suits worn as a superficial skin that presents a notion of dignity, without conscience.

    This is a haphazard rant. I haven’t been this self-indulgent in a long time. I hate that I work with people that make such indulgence necessary to begin with. But my saving grace is the fact that having a need to vent confirms that I have yet to give up my passion for what I believe in and hold dear. So to hell with the spineless swines. I will not become complacent to be party to their despicable agendas. I really sound like an idealistic teenager sometimes. Damn!

  • Abouth those Islamic schools of thought

    Something just occurred to me regarding the argument against choosing at will between the rulings of the various schools of thought (or madhahib). I often hear people saying that it is wrong because we’re picking and choosing what suits us in Islam. E.g. choosing the Shafi view about the time of Asr and then choosing the Hanafi view about what may invalidate my wudhu, etc. is frowned upon and has led to many ‘scholars’ declaring innocent individuals as deviants as a result of this.

    Here’s what I don’t get. If it is accepted that each of the schools of thought have taken their rulings from the Sunnah, and each have also confirmed that their scholars have stated that if you find something in the Sunnah that contradicts their teachings, then follow the Sunnah, then what is the problem in picking and choosing between them? Am I not still picking and choosing between acts within the confines of the Sunnah as practised by Rasulullah (SAW) and the salaf?

    What’s more interesting to me is that most of these differences are minor details relating to how the rituals should be performed, and none of the differences differ with the tenets or principles of Islam such that following it takes one outside the fold of Islam. So why must I pick a madhab and stick to it? Why must I label myself as a Salafi to be considered rightly guided? Why must I choose a specific scholar and not others, if each of them that I choose to take advice or guidance from base their views on the same Sunnah that is in line with the established principles of Islam?

    The sectarian mentality has eroded the unity in the Ummah for many centuries now. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I have yet to come across an extremist that was not aligned to any specific sect. The moment we choose an allegiance towards a specific school of thought, we’re immediately compelled to defend that position as being the most correct position because if we don’t, we’ll be suggesting that we’re following a path that is not exactly straight. Our pride won’t allow us to do so.

    Sectarianism feeds our inherent intellectual laziness, while at the same time it intellectualises Islam and loses sight of the essence and principles of Islam. We’ve created a cesspool of differences that have no bearing on the level of taqwa (piety) that we have because we’re so distracted by rituals and the ritualistic implementation of Islamic teachings. Look around you and see how many people complain that we’ve forgotten to be decent human beings despite our intellectual prowess in advanced sciences and the like. That’s what the sectarians have done to Islam. They’ve reduced it to an academic pursuit that has a hierarchy of titles attached to it (something that is never supported in any hadith or Quranic verse) yet profess to be upholding the Sunnah through those structures.

    We’re missing the point it seems.

  • Incoherent Ramblings

    For the last few days I’ve  been typing out posts and deleting them. I question the value of what I share these days and wonder how much of it really matters, or am I just adding to the clutter? I scroll through my dashboards and feel guilty for not having the presence of mind nor the attention span to read through anything that is longer than just a few lines. So I wonder how many others feel the same way when they see my ramblings appear on their dash.

    Most of life is just drivel anyway. All the distractions that I keep trying to unravel mostly ends up being inconsequential but because I applied so much effort in the process, I feel compelled, if not obliged to give it significance. I’ve been unusually productive, yet somewhat sullen at work recently, but my sarcasm is usually enough to distract anyone from noticing the mind-space I’m in. People have grown to expect nothing less from me, except when they’re in need of advice, at which point I’m expected to assume the role of Yoda.

    My rambles are growing increasingly incoherent. My mind is foggy and words…well, words seem to be just words these days. They no longer give life to thoughts, or conjure images of amazement or beauty. They’re just words that share a thought but fail to connect. Connect.

    The landscape of my mind is somewhat desolate right now. Affirmation lacks any comfort when I feel undeserving of it. The energy required to share my thoughts this morning is more than I can muster right now. This effort is draining me instead of providing release. It only re-emphasises the space where passion once resided.

    Perhaps tomorrow will hold more promise.