Tag: personal

  • Unfollow if you wish

    As expected, after those last few posts in response to questions I received, the followers have started trickling away. Good riddance if you’re that fickle. Fortunately I wasn’t whoring for your attention, otherwise I would be devastated right now. 

    Frustration and a desperate need to be understood is what influences the tone and focus of what I write. But each time I think I’m one step closer to that goal, something happens that convinces me yet again that being understood is most likely a foolish endeavour in this lifetime. 

    It’s easier to make assumptions than to engage meaningfully. Engaging meaningfully requires effort and sincerity, and it often acquires a sense of responsibility that is too taxing for most. 

  • Well, I've always wondered in which age gap you fall? Your knowledge is rich and you express yourself in a lucid way, it's something which I've admired from day one and I can't help asking from which sources your gather all this information? Are you a reader, and if so then which sort of books do you prefer? And if I may say so I think you will make a good life coach, you certainly possess all the qualities which one should have to pursue that field.

    I guess I can’t avoid this question forever. 🙂 So at the risk of losing 90% of my followers, I’m just over 40. 

    Thanks for the kind words. I’m actually not an avid reader at all. If I do read, it’s usually non-fiction. I started reading Muhammed Asad’s Road to Mecca a few weeks ago, even though I bought it a few months ago, and I only finished about 20 pages so far. 

    All my views are really based on personal experience and very little else. I’ve always been at odds with mainstream views since I was a kid, and I guess it rightfully earned me the ‘titles’ that are not so complimentary because I can understand why people would see me as pompous, arrogant, aloof, condescending, and so much more. I’ve actually been called all that and more directly by family, friends and strangers alike. 

    But trying to be better than others is never what drives me. So I don’t pay much attention to such criticisms unless it’s accompanied by a seemingly sincere attempt to quantify it, in which case I’ll consider it and correct my views/actions if needed. 

  • Who am I?

    Ask me any question you’ve ever wondered about me. I’ll publish all answers (unless specifically requested not to). In my efforts to understand others, I sometimes fail to see myself clearly. It’s only through meaningful engagement with others, especially those that have no vested interest or natural bias in my life, that I am able to get a view of how I appear to others versus how I perceive myself.

    I’ve been contemplating a career change by becoming a life/career coach as an option. But in the back of my mind I’ve also been entertaining the idea of moving into the holistic health industry. Alternate healing methods have always fascinated me, and my research and personal experience in tracing back physical ailments to emotional triggers further cements my views that most modern medicine practitioners focus on symptoms rather than root causes. Worse still is that often enough they use a broad sword approach to remedies where the finesse of the scalpel is called for. 

    So go ahead. Entertain my pathetic attempt at crowd sourcing and tell me what you think of me, or ask me what you may have always wondered about me, my sanity, my dysfunction, or anything else. I’m morbidly curious to know what you think of me. What image does my blog conjure in your mind about its owner?

    P.S. This is honestly not a fishing expedition for compliments. 

  • Living Selflessly

    The more I engage with others, the clearer becomes my view of my own dysfunction. Surviving abuse at so many levels across such a broad spectrum of my life while still maintaining my sanity comes at a cost. Only, the cost is rarely discernible by any around me, and often, not even me. 

    I could write volumes about my coping mechanisms and my insane ability to still believe in people and having hope in humanity, but it will make me vomit. And if that is the response it will elicit from me, I’d hardly want to put anyone else through a similar trial.

    People will disappoint and betray as long as there’s stars in the sky and a sunrise tomorrow morning. We’re designed to collide in our needs versus the expectations of others. The more we need, the greater our disappointment. The more we expect, the greater our pain. 

    A selfless life is impossible, because by design, everything we do is motivated by a selfish desire. While those desires may be honourable, noble, or commendable, they’re nonetheless selfish. Altruism is a lie, and philanthropists are just people that trade wealth for respect and appreciation. So it stands to reason that our value must be judged not by our apparent intent, nor our vested interest, but instead it should be judged by the impact we have on others. Regardless of what my selfish motives may have been, if the outcome is positive, it makes no difference what drove me to achieve it. 

    I’ve often realised that even my conscious efforts at maintaining a specific focus in intent or motivation later revealed a less honourable desire lurking beneath. And so I abandon my self-hate and self-loathing so that I can one day be judged more fairly by the one Who created me. Until then, everyone else is just wasting good oxygen offering their opinions about who I am and why I do what I do. They’ll forever be wrong, even more wrong than I.

  • The Odd One

    One of the problems of assuming familiarity with people too easily, especially online, is that I tend to volunteer my opinion on very personal and sensitive issues without realising that I’m probably still a stranger to them, or at best, an acquaintance. My ability to sometimes grasp the essence of people’s current state, especially emotionally, often leads to me feeling more deeply concerned for their well being than would ever be considered normal. As a result, I tend to freak people out when I formulate an opinion about what they’re experiencing and how they should deal with it, despite them hardly having discussed the details with me. 

    I feel like a weirdo at times. Perhaps I am. But it seems to work for me, most of the time anyway. Perhaps I’ve just grown comfortable with being the odd one out, and as a result, I’ve had enough time and a really good vantage point to see the tediousness of being normal and fitting in. Conformance has rarely appealed to me, and given that conformance most often leads to complacency, I tend to loathe it, quite visibly at times as well. But it’s not just loathing it to be difficult, but because I see how lethargic people become about life when they grow complacent and try so hard to fit in and be accepted. They give up everything that makes them beautifully unique and only hold onto that which is overtly celebrated by others. 

    Ramblings of a madman indeed. 

  • Consolidating my blogs

    cynicallyjaded:

    After some thought, and considering the feedback I received from a whole three followers to my previous post about this, I’ve decided to go with consolidating my two blogs. On the one hand, keeping them separate allowed me to share my views about universal themes without triggering the prejudices of those that will feel repulsed by any Islamic undertones in what I say.

    The truth is, my views about the world have been very strongly influenced by the philosophy that Islam engenders towards leading a balanced life. This is evident in the posts that I have shared on the72sects regarding my disagreement with the way in which Muslims conduct themselves relative to what Islam requires of us. 

    One of the reasons I’ve decided to consolidate the two blogs is because by keeping them separate, it may give the impression that I am suggesting that Islam and universal issues of my daily life belong in two different domains. That’s not true. The two are inextricably interwoven. However, when we approach Islam, or any religion for that matter, as a spiritual guide independent of life itself, it ends up being practised as a set of rituals with the principles being lost in translation.

    The numerous debates that rage between Muslims of differing schools of thought bears testament to this unhealthy separation of the two. Someone once asked me what my view was regarding a specific issue that had religious connotations. I can’t recall the specific issue at hand, but what I said was that being a Muslim, the Islamic view is my view. If I try to divorce the two, then I would be guilty of being selective in what I practised based on personal preferences. This is not as ‘extremist’ as it may sound.

    Too many times we go on the defensive and try to justify our actions when those actions fall short of the prescribed behaviour. However, in accepting that we’re human, and therefore flawed by nature, we need to accept that our actions may not always be in line with what is required. Accepting that we’re wrong, and acknowledging that improvement is required in some spheres of our lives will automatically keep us grounded and sufficiently introspective to dissuade us from focusing on judging the actions of others. 

    With these, and so many other thoughts in mind, I’ll stop publishing new content to the72sects with immediate effect and will share my views on everything in this blog only. I look forward to reading the views of my Muslim and non-Muslims followers alike about any and all the posts I may share in future. 

    Does this mean that I need to change my blog title to ‘Ramblings of a Mad Muslim’ instead? 🙂

  • What to do…?

    My first thought this evening when I had a quiet moment was that I should consolidate my two blogs. But I’m not sure. This blog (Ramblings of a Madman) is intended to be my ventlet about how I see the world, and what I think of people…most of the time it’s focused on people that suck! But seriously, it’s my philosophical musings about life, my experiences and all that morbid stuff, usually with a universal theme, since most of life is like that, isn’t it?

    Then there’s my other blog (The 72 Sects) that I use as a channel to share my views about Islam, and my personal struggles, challenges and frustrations as a Muslim, but often venture into expressing my appreciation for the simplicity that Islam has entrenched in my life. However, that blog is deliberately focused on Islamic matters only. 

    So I’m wondering if there’s merit in combining the two into this blog, or is it more purposeful and effective to keep them separate? 

    Someone help me figure this out please? 🙁

  • Another reason I would un-follow you

    A few of the blogs I follow are starting to tend towards self-promotion recently. If it continues, I’ll probably un-follow them. It’s not personal. I just prefer not to see certain people in such a light. Physical appearances taint our interactions with others in daily life, while on tumblr, I tend to appreciate the sincerity of opinions, albeit annoying ones at times, that are offered without care or concern for how the person would be perceived by others. Once the whole personal promotion thing gets out there, it becomes a blog of facades rather than sincere thoughts or views. That is often easily reflected in the change in tone and quality of the posts and usually ends up appealing to groupies, which I despise. Hence my aversion to such blogs. 

    Just thought I’d share that.