Tag: Life

  • 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.

  • Have you ever truly lived?

    Have you ever truly lived?

    Is your definition of success really your definition of success?

    Or did you perhaps borrow it from society without really noticing?

    Our fixation on appearing successful is so toxic, that we readily give up our hopes and dreams in favour of acceptance.

    Most people don’t have a greater purpose in life beyond achieving what secures their place in society, or in their social circles.

    The chase for acceptance or validation is how we die a million deaths in a single lifetime, but rarely live a single wholesome life before death.

    Do we even know what a wholesome life feels like between all the distractions and our efforts to appease others?

    When was the last time you reconnected with the idealistic teen in you?

    If you had to meet your teenage self, would you be proud or disappointed in who you are now?

    Or were you already wasted to the peer pressure back then that you’ve never known a life beyond that?

    Today is a good day to reconnect with you.

    death

  • Raging into oblivion

    Raging into oblivion

    The rage that we hold within us feels like a justified protest or demand for justice or fairness from those around us.

    But rage is a master of distraction.

    It is born in moments of legitimate duress, but continues long after.

    The rage of being unheard in one moment leads to harshness when we feel misunderstood in a totally different moment.

    Rage is the intensity of our demand to be treated with significance or respect, while not realising that rage undermines both, our significance and the respect we need from others.

    Rage only ever achieves compliance from others while they may fear us in our moments of rage.

    The moment those around us no longer fear us, rage becomes a tool that destroys what we’re trying to achieve, and isolates us from the ones who we wish would see us more clearly.

    But we only rage because we don’t see ourselves clearly.

    And that’s the greatest distraction that rage offers us.

    It convinces us that we’re right and that everything that we see is wrong with others is good reason for us to rage.

    And in those moments, we lose our connection with reality and replace it with a focus on who is taking our pain seriously while not realising that we’re causing pain, leaving them to see nothing more than a brute rather than a hurt soul.

    Beyond the release of the anguish we hold within, rage offers no value at all in securing the peace or harmony that we want with those who matter to us.

    Don’t only try to restrain your rage.

    Instead, seek to understand why you feel that rage at all.

    Otherwise your rage will grow to define you while you may think it’s defining your battle cry to the world.

  • Find your peace

    Find your peace

    Gratitude lays the foundation of the home.
    Respect builds its walls.
    Love and compassion provides the roof that protects you from the storm.
    And passion gives you the windows to allow your soul to breathe.
    As for faith…faith is the door that opens the path to all of it.

    Virtues have limited effect or value if practiced in isolation.

    It sometimes has a detrimental effect when one is practiced in excess compared to the others. Balance, as always, is what leads to harmony.

    Harmony is the throne on which peace resides.

    Find your balance.

    Find your peace.

    Your peace.

    Not what works for someone else.

    What works for you. For those who have rights over you.

    That’s the harmony you need to find.

    A balance between their rights, your responsibilities, your dreams, and your practicalities.

    Don’t wish away the not-so-good parts of your life. That will only create stress over things that are out of your control.

    Instead, find a way to incorporate it into the life that you have, so that you can consciously and deliberately mitigate the impact that it has on all the good that you have in your life.

    Live purposefully, not fearfully.

    The rest will take care of itself.

  • The Illusion of Control: Unraveling the Quest for Peace

    The Illusion of Control: Unraveling the Quest for Peace

    Peace is not the absence of drama, nor is it the avoidance of life. Yet, I find myself bemused by so many who believe that avoidance is a sustainable way to find peace, or happiness. It isn’t. Avoidance is merely a delay of the inevitable.

    Inevitability has always been such a complicated subject. Otherwise seen as fate, destiny, karma, or even manifestation, we convince ourselves that our failings and sometimes even our successes are a result of such larger-than-life forces at play in our lives. I think that’s how we satisfy our ego when we find it difficult to accept that we’re out of control.

    The myth of control offers a temporary comfort. Predictability assures those who have grown weary of change. That weariness is the threat that I have been fending off for some time now. Sometimes I embrace it deliberately hoping that it will find space within me, but it never does. If anything, it leaves me restless. As restless as I once was when I realised that there was no gentle hand to show me the ropes of life. Of course, that realisation came long after I had already sunk my teeth into creating a life out of the dreary reality that surrounded me.

    Why I felt a need to create something better than what I had rather than finding peace within those circumstances is what occupies my mind on most days when I have space to reflect. It’s the same struggle that brings so many to my door looking for answers about the ravages of the obliviousness of others, the worst being our obliviousness to the impact that we have well beyond our range of visibility.

    Peace is lost in those moments when we peer ahead instead of glancing around at our immediate vicinity. What lies ahead in the distance is hope and aspiration. What confronts us immediately is the probability of achieving any of it. Most wish away what they see around them because they’re so desperate for that mirage that they behold in their mind’s eye. Some find a meaningful pursuit between where they’re at and what they wish to reach, and they appear purposeful and resolute as a result. But there is a group who see a little more than that. They see what surrounds them, they see what is in the distance, they see the path between the two, but they also see the impact that they have on those who have rights over them. Choosing how to expend themselves between those demands then becomes the source of what robs them of their peace.

    I resonate most with the latter group. The group that feels responsible when others feel free of obligation. The group that sees but is not seen. That hears but is rarely heard. That understands but is misunderstood. And though that may appear self-indulgent, if not smacking with self-pity, it isn’t. It simply is the reality presented by the evidence of a life of resolve to figure out how it all works. Sometimes I consider if perhaps that is the purpose of life, but then I also realise that if it were, what would be the point of advancement if the only endeavour is to understand the here and now?

    That there is more to life than figuring it out is clear. What more there is to life, however, remains a slowly unravelling secret that will hopefully avail itself before I have exhausted my breaths in the pursuit of everything intended to unlock that greater purpose. Nonetheless, in its pursuit I have found joys and depths that have enamoured me in my journey that most view with confusion at best, or disdain at worst, neither of which has given me cause to alter my trajectory.

    In that has been my greatest liberation and my greatest test, the combination of which leaves me eternally perplexed. Peace is still a distance away.

  • 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.

  • No Thanks!

    No Thanks!

    When you get bad service from a restaurant, you won’t go back there if they show no remorse or accountability for how they treated you. That’s boycotting.

    Boycotting products or people who enable harm on others is no different.

    It’s a choice that reflects who we claim to be and what we want to be associated with.

    The lower our self-worth, the less attention we pay to what we stand for and the more we focus on what others think of us.

    That’s when image and tokens of success become more important than values or principles.

    It’s never a decision that affects only you.

    It influences everyone who may look to you as a role model, or a leader, a parent, or an inspiration.

    More than this, it shapes what you contribute towards the peace and dignity that the world offers us, versus being part of the degradation of the human condition.

    Boycotting is about what you are comfortable being associated with as a moral, ethical, religious, spiritual, and humanitarian standpoint.

    It’s not about politics or privilege.

    It’s about self-worth.

    You are part of a village, whether you accept it or not.

    Your actions and your choices affect others in the same way that you may be bitter or unhappy about the choices of others that have negatively affected you.

    If you are unaware of the impact that you have, there is a very high probability that you are harming others without realising it, or intending to do so.

    Who are you?

    What do you stand for?

    Before you answer, look to an innocent being that may depend on you to show up for them, and then consider how your answer will affect them.

    #free #nothanks

  • The magic of accountability

    The magic of accountability

    Many people struggle with authenticity and finding a healthy balance in relationships because they are unaware of the impact of how they show up for themselves and for others. That lack of self-awareness is in a very huge way impacted by how we hold ourselves accountable for who we are.

    In this interview with Haafidha Rayhaanah, I unpack the little known dynamics of the far reaching consequences of accountability in our relationship with ourselves, and with those around us.

    Remember, without accountability, you have absolutely nothing of substance in your relationship with anyone, including with life itself. Give yourself a fair chance to unlearn what has been holding you back for so long.