Tag: ramblings

  • Ramblings of me

    The balance of my life always fluctuates between function and dysfunction, but that there has always been a balance is undeniable. I’m often distracted by the potential outcomes of the dysfunction that presents itself that I exaggerate my responses under the pretence that I’m simply choosing to be decisive, when in fact I’m simply disguising my fear and frustration.

    The longer I live, the more jaded I become because I’m prone to seek to protect myself. I grew up feeling exposed and fragile, so it seems that I may have over compensated for this in the development of my defences. The dysfunction that I experience leads to stress and morbidity, but I’ve mastered the art of presenting a composed disposition under circumstances that would scare the hell out of most. It works well for me, so I’m unlikely to consider any significant shift in my disposition any time soon. But I have this nagging feeling that it also excludes me from some of the joys of life that most take for granted.

    There is much that others take for granted while I marvel at their abilities or experiences, yet they marvel at my apparent composure and seemingly level-headed approach to life. We’re all actors after all, but it’s only those of us that realise and accept this fact that are the most powerful in society. Sometimes I seek to impose my sense of balance on those around me. I do so with sincerity of intent to want to improve their quality of life, but I’m soon reminded that such an endeavour is steeped in arrogance. Arrogance in the belief that I am superior and that my challenges were more significant, and therefore, if my balance works for me, then surely it must work for lesser mortals, right?

    This post seems to reflect the senseless ramblings of my soul quite accurately this morning.

  • Where Will This End?

    I wonder at times what the point is. Not of life. Of living. The worst distraction I’ve ever experienced in life has been my obsession with people’s opinions and affirmations. As much as I appear aloof or independent of it, it influences my behaviour in ways that disgust me at times.

    I’m in the process of killing my Tumblr blog. The dashboard on Tumblr seems to drive the same kind of behaviour as Facebook. It turned me into an attention whore seeking desperately to carve a niche for myself in a sea of uninterested acquaintances. But being the naive fool that I am, any seemingly sincere engagement with a stranger leads me to believe that I am being appreciated for the essence of me. The essence of me? I barely know what that is yet I fool myself into believing that others may be able to appreciate it.

    I sometimes feel like I’m primed for a mid-life crisis, although this crisis has already been in effect for the better part of my life. Responding stereotypically towards a stereotypical event hardly holds any appeal for me, but the tedious tendencies of society to label everything and everyone is rubbing off on me. I can think of no other reason why I continuously attempt to define my state of mind and my phase of life although arriving at a definitive term is quite simple. Dystopia. This is what it is, but hopefully will not be when it ends.

    The struggle then is aptly defined as my grave attempt to turn dystopia into utopia whilst still remaining morbidly functional in a dysfunctional society. Why do I keep measuring myself against society? I must be mad.

  • 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. 

  • A Brain Dump

    Looking across the table at my daughter leaves me wondering if she’ll ever grasp the extent of the struggles and sacrifices that I and many others have gone through just so that she may have a normal life. She already takes so much for granted which goes against so many principles that I always thought were established laws of nature, so much so that I foolishly assumed that she would automatically adopt them as her own.

    I’ve been cautioned before about not being able to change the genes of a person, but being the pragmatic idealist that I am, words like that do nothing more than spur me on to prove that idealism still has a place in this world. I’m not so sure any more. There was a time when I was unshakeable in my views about what principles could or could not be compromised in life, but these days it seems as if nothing is sacred any longer. Reciprocation is a luxury while selfish individual rights supersede everything else. 

    This must sound extremely selfish since a parent’s role by default is supposed to be a selfless one. I don’t think selflessness exists. It’s a nice idea, and makes for really wholesome use in the embellishment of people’s efforts, but at the root of it all, of everything we do, lies a single common thread that contains just two words. Gratitude and affirmation. There is only so much any individual will do for the sake of the greater good, before we expect that greater good to return the favour. 

    There is no balance any more. The echoes no longer just remind but now they taunt as well. Echoes of what this world is and for what it was created. I once heard a wise man say that this world was created for respite, not justice. I hate how true that statement is. For this reason the good will always be trampled upon while the usurpers will continue to flourish – in this world only.

    Looking at my daughter tonight made me realise how insignificant we can be in the face of the most significant challenge in our lives. How oblivious others can be about the sacrifices we make on their behalf, while they live as if the world owes them everything leaves me staring vacantly at the future. 

  • 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? 🙂

  • A rant…

    And so it happened…again. My naivety led me down the garden path thinking that at some point principles and integrity will shed a glimmer of hope that not all corporates operate on the same basis. But like I said, my naivety once again got the better of me.

    At moments like this I’m reminded of that proverb that says that there is no limit to what a man can do if he doesn’t care who gets the credit for it. I generally don’t care about the credit, but I do care about the paycheck, because a pat on the back or a flowery compliment doesn’t pay the bills.

    I’ve been on both sides of this fence, and neither side has greener grass. Both sides have an equal amount of manure, and both sides have underhanded swines that will rather play political games to protect their fragile egos and to cloak their incompetence before they’ll do the right thing for the right reasons.

    Being sincere and having integrity requires conviction. Look around you, whether in the corporate setting, or in a non-profit organisation, the ethical void is disgustingly obvious. Conviction only exists in self-preservation. Everything else takes a back seat for the 99% that are prone to declare themselves victims of someone else playing their marked card before they got a chance to play theirs first.

    The human race disgusts me. That guy from Matrix got it right. We’re a virus. A disgusting virus that respects nothing but greed and self-indulgence, even in our arrogant piety we’re competing to prove that we’re more pious and more sincere than others, woefully inadequate in sincerity, and forever professing humility out of arrogance.

    This rant was triggered by yet another blow to my rib cage that knocked the wind out of me. A blow that came from behind even though I knew it was coming for a long time now. But I’m a naive fool, that’s why I give the benefit of the doubt to others even if they bear all the hallmarks of the putrid souls I’ve had the misfortune of dealing with before. If I judge them prematurely, I’ll step firmly on that slippery slope that will lead me to the place of putrefaction that most of them dwell in. So for now, I’ll continue to allow others to screw me over before I take any action to protect myself or my interests. My idealism will be the end of me.

  • Brain dump…almost

    This icy weather, failed attempts at parenting and hyper-acidity are recipes for a very depressive night. But there’s enough positivity to keep me grounded in reality, rather than allow me to slip into a morbid state. Nonetheless it’s the type of mood that prompts mass un-follows and bulk deletions of posts, but for now, I’ll resist the urge for both.

    Waiting for the calm, for the ease or the breather between life’s throes continues to be a futile exercise. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a meaningful and therapeutic brain dump, but even an attempt at that leaves me staring blankly at my screen. I discovered that the secret to overcome this is to write about the blankness when staring at the screen. So this is my brain dump. A post of seeming nothingness from a brain incapable of much right now.

    There’s always just one more thing before I should be at ease. Always one more thing I need to do or get out of the way, or one more thing that needs to be achieved. If only I can just get past this or just get that resolved, then I’ll be able to focus on what I need to, or rather want to. But I suspect that this same cycle of insanity is what causes people to lay in their death beds wondering where they lost sight of what was important.

    The philosopher’s view of life is insensitive, although often truthful. Right now, philosophy is a cold comfort in the face of dis-ease. It’s the kind of uneasiness that rears its ulcerous head when my energy levels are lowest, and the brain clutter is highest. It’s the burden of being conscious. Not awake. Conscious. Aware. It’s tiring. Even when nothing is wrong, the realisation of how little it takes to make everything go wrong nags like an annoying itch that can’t be reached because it’s in between the skin and the bone, but not quite in either and scratching it only causes it to flare, but rarely to abate. 

    That’s reality. That annoying bit between the head and the heart that can’t be fully rationalised, nor fully dismissed. What a ramble of bull!