Tag: rant

  • Ramblings

    I have so many thoughts racing through my mind tonight. I regret the tone that my blog has taken recently because it has made me far too aware of the presence of others that read my posts. I regret indulging myself so much in the opinions and praises of others. I feel shallow and insincere in any efforts to write anything meaningful in order to feel some release from the cacophony of restlessness that keeps echoing in my head.

    I visited my aunt in hospital tonight. I’m usually a very composed person even in the face of extreme trauma, but tonight I found myself actively subduing the tears and the lump in my throat when my uncle explained to me how he had to lie to his ailing wife to convince her to remain in hospital a little longer so that they may be able to find out what is causing her excessively high fevers.

    Her condition has been worsening by the day for the last few weeks without any indication of the underlying cause, and her appearance is a far cry from how I remember her to be. It reminded me of my late grandfather that also pleaded with his family to take him home when he was rushed to hospital for a lung infection. He was 93. All he wanted to do was die peacefully at his home, in his bed, but out of sincere care his family failed to see what was really happening and instead insisted on keeping him in hospital. He died in a cold ward without any of the simple comforts he had grown to appreciate in his humble surroundings at home. Truly humble surroundings because he was a simple man. A man that literally gave his fortunes of wealth to his siblings in order to establish them in life before he made a comfortable home for himself and his own family. He died a poor man, while his siblings owned half the town. Literally.

    At some point I wish we would stop and listen to what people want rather than what we want for them. At some point I wish others would stop to listen to what I want instead of what they want for me. This post makes no sense, nor does it offer any comfort from the thoughts that plague me tonight. At times like this I find myself easily annoyed by the games people play in their pathetic efforts to appease others. Sad games of lies and deception, mostly to themselves just so that they don’t have to face the disappointment of their parents or significant others. We find it so easy to lie, and even easier to justify it. But we spurn anyone that lies to us even though their motivations are not very different from our own.

    It all reminds me of two quotes. The first is that we cannot awaken someone that is pretending to be asleep. The second is from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

    To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
    To the last syllable of recorded time,
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
    Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    And then is heard no more: it is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.

    I pray I never become that pathetic shadow that is oblivious to the purpose of my existence, strutting like I own the world and fretting as if I am being persecuted whenever I don’t get my way. I will not be that idiot that takes it all for granted in the name of optimism that tomorrow is another day, and I need to give myself a break. Tomorrow is not another day. Tomorrow is simply today again, only with less time than I had yesterday, never being able to achieve what I needed to achieve today, because I’m still trying to achieve what I should have achieved yesterday.

  • A Few Random Thoughts…and a rant!

    I think celebrating birthdays breeds a sense of entitlement within us. Celebrating an event over which you had absolutely no influence whatsoever is superficial beyond belief. Automatically we entrench the idea that the manner in which you’re acknowledged or showered with gifts on the ‘occasion of your birth’ is supposedly a barometer to determine your worth to your significant others. What rubbish!

    The way I am treated when I give of myself to those around me, how I’m appreciated in that process, and how much I’m remembered in a good way by others when I’m not present seem to me to be much more relevant markers against which to determine how others appreciate me relative to how I would like to be appreciated. 

    The date of your birth is nothing to celebrate. It’s how you’ve chosen to live your life in between all those birthdays that counts. Focus on occasions and I swear you will miss life itself. Wait for a specific time to do something special and your life will become routine before you know it. There’s something to celebrate every single day of our lives, but we’re impervious to it all because we’ve been conditioned to look for events worth celebrating based on predefined bullshit criteria set out by society established on pagan rituals that 99% of us are completely oblivious to. 

    But, it’s my bloody birthday and you will acknowledge how special I am, even if you don’t bloody mean it, right? Damn! How pathetic. Today is not my birthday. Today is my daughter’s birthday, and she turns 7. And I had the displeasure of having to explain to her why it is that just because it’s her birthday, she shouldn’t suddenly expect her cousins and family to want to gather around to acknowledge and appreciate her, when they pretty much have no time for her the moment she’s out of sight. 

    I think we often forget that we’re raising kids to be adults. In fact, I’m certain that we do. Look around at the irresponsible idiots that pretend to be adults these days, and you’ll immediately know what I’m talking about. How many times have you read horror stories in the news where children were involved and thought that the adult in question should never be allowed to breed? I do this often. And I constantly remind myself these days that I am raising an adult, not a child, and if I raise her to understand that fun and good times and having a carefree but responsible spirit is not limited to childhood but something to be treasured throughout her life, then I reckon I would have achieved more than most parents these days.

    Too many parents are liberal apologists. They’re so afraid of being disliked by their children that they forget that they’re supposed to be providing guidance to the next generation of adults, rather than trying to expand their social circles within their offspring. But I guess at least they’re present and trying, which is more than we can say for the self-absorbed personifications of Barbie and Ken who think that children are just a necessary prop to enhance their social standing! 

    Blah!

  • The Universality of Islam…for Muslims

    Islam is far too universal for there ever to be only a single interpretation on how to implement its teachings and principles. I think we indulge in excess of the worst kind when we try to impose a single view of what Islam is supposed to be about. There are fundamentals of belief that is unquestionable, but the implementation of the practises offer variations across different schools of thought, with each believing they’re more accurate than the next.

    Given the universal appeal and tone of Islam, why is it unfathomable for so many to accept that the differences were in fact intended to show the breadth of practicality that Islam offers, rather than to narrow it down to a single view based on chronological order of how it was experienced during the time of Rasulullah (SAW)? It goes without saying that if something was specifically forbidden after it was previously allowed, then the prohibition must obviously be upheld. But if it wasn’t specifically prohibited, and in fact was just done differently at different times under different circumstances, why can’t we simply accept that its in fact the principle of what was being practised that was consistent and not the acts of the ritual itself?

    I’m being deliberately vague because the important point I’m trying desperately to establish is that the principles matter more than the rituals. It must. Islam is a way of life established on principles and precedents with sound logic and immense wisdom inherent in its philosophy. But we lose all this the moment we become cult-ish ritualists who believe that there can only be a single way of worshipping Allah and following the Sunnah, and that in doing so, we have to choose a madhab or school of thought and place ourselves in broadly accepted pigeon-holes in society so that we don’t unnerve people by challenging contemporary wisdom about how it all fits together. 

  • distinctly depressing is scrolling through my tumblr dash waiting for something to inspire me but nothing does so i feel worse than i did before i started because now not only is it depressing not finding something inspiring but its also depressing that im unable to be inspired and all i feel like doing is screaming but all that comes out is a yelp because ive used tumblr to express myself for so long on so much of the most important things so often that i forgot how to express myself verbally because everything was either a like a reblog or a passionate post that was largely ignored while looking at my dash and seeing some lame pic of tall grass that is out of focus and poorly lit with no focal point getting 1000 notes while my brilliant piece of prose about something so intimately fascinating just went unnoticed leaving me uninspired and feeling neglected and wondering about wandering or maybe even deleting and leaving…but im addicted…hopelessly addicted…fuck.

  • When?

    Self-affirming posts just don’t work for me. It’s the equivalent of those mantras that are recommended for people with a poor self-esteem. You know, the ones where you’re supposed to stand in front of the mirror every morning and tell yourself how beautiful you are, or how important you are, or how brilliant you are, or how…that’s what I believe is wrong with so many people these days. They’re so busy trying to convince themselves that they’re something that they don’t feel, that eventually they believe the lies that they tell themselves without ever resolving the underlying mess that led them to feel un-beautiful, un-brilliant, un-important or un-anything!

    It’s an escape from reality (cue Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen). The only mantra that ever worked for me was ‘I don’t wanna be here’…and I would say it in a deliberately hypnotic trance-like tone that was audible to the people around me. I would also hold my fists together and twiddle my thumbs for full effect while maintaining tongue firmly in cheek. That worked for me because it made me realise quite quickly how ridiculous it was to wish for something without taking action. 

    What’s worse is when I see people posting these statements of intent of how they will survive, they will overcome, they will be great, they will move on, they will they will they will…but they never DO! Hasn’t Nike gotten through to them yet? Just do it! It’s great to state that intention once, maybe twice, or at a stretch three times! But to continue intending for months on end without acting is just a ridiculous waste of life. 

    Perhaps at some point in the future we could then say,

    “hey, I spent 2010 hurting,

    2011 hoping,

    2012 planning,

    and eventually in 2013 I decided to act…

    but it seems that all my plans were outdated by then because the world had moved on while I was still denying the reality of what happened in 2009!”

    And before you hate me, I’m NOT undermining the hurt or the pain that anyone has gone through in their lives, nor am I assuming that my experiences were worse than anyone else’s. My point is simple, the more you reinforce the statements of intent, the longer you dwell on your afflictions as a victim! Stop being a victim and do something constructive. Like that old cliched proverb goes, action doesn’t always bring happiness, but there can be no happiness without action!

  • brain clutter

    The most important gifts parents can give their children has to be a healthy self-esteem, a moral grounding and an appreciation for principles. Parents that are liberal sicken me. Those that leave their children to develop their own views about life under the guise of not wanting to impose their own views of spirituality, religion and politics on them are idiots. 

    If kids were born with the maturity, logic and reasoning abilities to figure that out on their own, then why do we keep them under parental guidance until they’re 18? I have personally witnessed how kids and adults fall apart later in life because they lack the resilience to deal with a value system not of their own making, or one they do not subscribe to. And when it happens, we’re quick to apply labels to their state of mind so that we can compartmentalise and commercialise their ‘illness’. And the afflicted ones hold on to these labels because they need it to cope with their lack of control…they need it to feel alright about their weakened state without thinking they’re to blame, because the burden of responsibility is too great.

    So we focus on the symptoms, ignore the nonsensical selfish behaviour of the parents, and hope that the next generation will do a better job of figuring things out because wholesome traditional values are too oppressive or repressive or uncool to impose on our children…lest we forget that they make healthier choices if they have an informed base off of which to decide. 

    The noise…the fucking noise in my head…it makes even a bird’s beautiful chirp sound like a nagging shriek until I stop for long enough to realise it’s just the beautiful chirp of a beautiful bird…

  • F.I.F.O…

    If faced with the option to either fit in or f*** off, I proudly choose to f*** off.

    Being alone is infinitely more pleasing than being surrounded by hypocrites. We’re so busy trying to figure out why we’re deemed unacceptable or why we find it so hard to fit in that we lose sight of what is really important…and as cliched as that may sound, it talks to this simple truth…Stop labelling your state of mind and accept that you have significant reason, let alone a right to question your reality and your existence. Seek to understand, by all means. But when you attach a label to yourself or to others, you reinforce that very same mind set by believing that that is what you need to deal with. You become focused on the symptoms and forget why you’re so screwed up to begin with. If indeed you are screwed up at all, and not just different!

    The next time you do something that is directly detrimental to your well being, physical or emotional, stop to think why you’re doing it! Chances are, your actions will be driven by a need to be accepted, or the agony of not being accepted. Stop! They’re not worth it…there cannot be so many millions suffering from the same anguish just because of the same bullshit expectation that we’re all supposed to fit in. Be bold…accept who you are and know what you stand for. If you don’t, how the hell can you expect anyone else to take you seriously? 

    Conform at the expense of the death of your own soul. When you conform for conformance’s sake, you become the living dead without anything meaningful to offer humanity. 

  • errmmmm, it could also be considered naivety…and if it goes beyond that, then it’s just foolishness, or perhaps a misdirected investment of sincerity and affection…or maybe it’s being out of touch with reality…or just a cry for help because you neeeeed someone to love you back…or maybe I’m just too damn jaded to know what it is at all. Yeah…that’s probably it. Trust the Pooh, not the jaded one. 

    (Source: http://imgfave.com/view/1564066)