Tag: simple truth

  • A Self-Indulgent Reflection

    I have a  tendency to over commit. It’s a recent change in my personality, although many would probably accuse me of doing it for most of my life. I’m often seen as the guy that rarely says no, but my recent spate of over commitment is not a result of wishing to please, or trying to earn brownie points. Instead, it seems to be driven by a realisation that life is short.

    I know, that must sound weird, but when I mentioned this to someone recently, they looked visibly moved at the realisation of it, which almost visibly moved me. The realisation was a simple one although it suddenly feels as if the true gravity of it only dawned on me when I said it out loud. When I look back on my life it seems like a million things happened in the blink of an eye, yet when I look ahead, I often delude myself into believing that there’s much time remaining. But that’s the obvious part. Taking that moment to reflect on the million things that I’ve done relative to the million things that I would like to achieve, I suddenly realised that having the skills and resources to contribute towards courses that are infinitely larger than my own life almost demands that I make the contribution.

    It’s difficult to articulate, but the truth is, I’ve spent the better part of my life daydreaming about how I will be able to influence change on a global scale, but always feeling meek when I realise that I can barely influence it in my own life. That daydream is not so far fetched any longer. The occasional burst of interest by random strangers in thoughts that I share, and then seeing those thoughts shared with their circles, and even paraphrased in their own writing soon thereafter suddenly kindles that flame of hope that perhaps it is possible to influence that change that I wish to see in the world. For once, I’m not limited to the prejudices of the circles that I grew up in. I can, and do, finally engage in a circle of beings well beyond the bigotry of the society that spawned me.

    This must sound awfully clichéd but it’s true. I find when I engage with those around me and I share, without restraint or fear of ridicule, my true sentiments on what makes life worth living, or what makes death inviting, I get a very different response when compared with the times that I speak cautiously from fear of ridicule, or worse, dismissal. I’ve also realised that when I gave up the inclination to seek affirmation about what I think or what I do, I found a sense of empowerment within me that dwarfed any fears I previously had of interacting in a social setting. I went from being shy and introverted, to being bold, controversial, and able to address gatherings or strangers about topics I’m passionate about with barely any preparation or support at all.

    My old self always nags me to be cautious, and not to over indulge in the support or affirmation that I may receive at times, but a stronger more convincing voice in me denies the right of such doubt to be heard. I’ve stopped hiding behind diplomacy and political correctness, because the very hint of insincerity nauseates me. I’ve been on the receiving end of too many callous tongues that sought to subdue me rather than inspire me, almost always cloaked with the false pretences of wanting to protect or guide me. But the opinions of others holds no sway these days, because I’ve accepted (for some time now) that they just don’t get me, and never did. But I get them. I get them well, because while they were manipulating and soliciting popularity, I watched them closely, observing the doubts and the fears behind the bravado and the bullshit, and now when their opinions don’t matter any longer, I find it easy to use that knowledge of their weaknesses to cut through their defences and disarm them with the sharpest observations that leave them struggling to find their composure.

    It felt amazingly empowering at  first, but now it just feels normal. The realisation that most people are actors living out someone else’s fantasies and fads makes it easy to see people for what they are. Unfortunately more often than not, they’re not much to behold at all, except the few with substance that is.

  • Who do you love?

    I so often hear people giving others advice about how they should overcome negative sentiments about themselves, and I keep wondering if it’s realistic? The advice most often rendered is ‘love yourself’. Isn’t that the same like telling someone that is depressed to be happy?

    I think if we dislike ourselves, it’s not because we simply dislike ourselves, but in fact it’s because there is little that we’re doing or achieving that we find reason to be proud about. Either that, or we’re seeking affirmation from quarters that are uninterested or oblivious to how important they are in our lives. So when someone seems not to like themselves, when they’re self-harming, being reckless with their health or well-being, or just being morbid about life, I somehow doubt that telling them to love themselves is going to change all that.

    I really believe that happiness is not a choice, but is in fact a state that is achieved as a result of other conditions or achievements in our lives. Similarly I would argue that dislike for oneself is a result of inactivity or lack of achievement in things that would bring one joy. I guess, at the risk of over-simplifying it, I think it all comes down to what we use as points of reference in our lives. Those points of reference can sometimes be role models, or at other times it could simply be peer pressure. But identifying what about those role models or peers it is that influences us to want to aspire to fit their expectations is key to realising whether or not the reasons for such self-dislike is in fact warranted to begin with.

    But even that doesn’t quite answer the question, or resolve the issue. I think the low self esteem finds its roots first in trying to please others, which is easy enough to set in during childhood when we least realise the impact of such a disappointment. This later serves as a distraction that leads us to believe that just because we didn’t measure up to our chosen points of reference, we’re incapable of achieving anything meaningful in our lives. I can barely recall the number of times that I assumed the best of someone, immersed myself into the relationship relative to what prestige they enjoyed in my mind, only to meet a rude awakening when they behaved far short of what I believed their true nature to be.

    Sometimes I think we just expect too little from ourselves, and too much from others. Or perhaps that’s just a vicious cycle as well. Our expectations of others are equally as high as their expectations of us, but their expectations of themselves is just as low as our expectations of ourselves. So while we’re beating ourselves up and restraining ourselves from realising our true potential, we’re betraying the expectations of someone else, while they’re doing the same to us. Such is the cycle of stupidity when we measure our self-worth by the veneer of society.

    I guess the point is that if we are going to choose a role model, or an ideal to aspire to, we need to be sure that what we’re setting as an objective is in fact the reality of what we really want.

  • A Brain Dump

    We buried my aunt last night. We weren’t very close, but she was a nice lady. She passed on in the afternoon, and we buried her by 22h00 the same evening in line with Muslim rites and customs. But like every funeral, I embraced the scent of camphor, probably more so than most would. We use camphor as an embalming agent to prepare the corpse for burial. So it’s always been a sobering reminder of the inevitable outcome of everything.

    Sobering! That was the lingering feeling that stayed with me throughout last night, and today. And it lingers still. At times in my life I often visited the cemetery alone on cold nights. Sometimes, if not always, I felt a sense of belonging, probably from the knowledge that that will be the final abode despite our best efforts to prolong our avoidance of it. Last night was different.

    Last night I made a feeble attempt to reflect on the sight of thousands of graves with their flaking lime-washed surrounds and the lives that were distilled into that piece of earth that didn’t care about their riches, their comforts, their legacies or their significance amongst men. It was cold to the touch, and lifeless. And the sense of belonging, or even yearning, escaped me. I felt dejected, not just in my own life any longer, but last night I felt dejected from the after life. Nothing offered me comfort or certainty, let alone peace. I had always felt some morbid sense of belonging to the dwellers of the graves.

    The above unfinished post has been laying in my drafts since August 2011. I never completed it, and I don’t think I can do so now either. But recent events in my life, mostly at the office, serves as a stark reminder of the purpose of my time on this earth. Betrayal is like pain, no matter how it is experienced, how long it persists, or how familiar it may become, it will never be a joy, nor a welcomed guest. I often have to remind myself of the advice I so readily dispense. Live with hope, not expectations.

    It’s been a while since I indulged myself in a brain dump. One is definitely called for, although the audience that I have solicited for my blog makes me hesitant to be as brutally honest about my thoughts as I used to be. The problem with trying to be yourself irrespective of those around you is that a large part of being yourself is in fact shaped by those around you. Thoughts spilt recklessly under the pretence of spilled ink, or freedom of expression, only adds to the already burdensome load of callousness in this world.

    Despite the incessant betrayals that I experience in my life, which incidentally becomes much easier to rack up if you’re naive like I choose to be, I still find it impossible, or at the least distasteful to treat others with suspicion simply because I was betrayed under similar circumstances before. I believe betrayal is the root to all evil, not money. We first have to betray ourselves, our deepest held convictions, before we can muster up the cowardice to betray others. Money is simply a distraction, like almost everything else that we surround ourselves with in life. Reflection is called for if we hope to know what it is that we stand for. With all the distractions there is little time for reflection, so it stands to reason that we’re more inclined towards acting in a way that contradicts our dreams and aspirations without realising it, while speaking wistfully of missed opportunities and bad decisions, because each time those opportunities visited us, or those decisions were made, we could barely discern the bullshit from the burden of reality.

  • Happy Damned Birthday

    Birthdays have always been an ominous occasion for me. I can never find a reason to celebrate because of the stark reminders carried by such a milestone. I’m certainly a glass-half-empty kind of person when it comes to this, probably because my glass full of life just got emptier at the passing of yet another year.

    I’ve been obsessed with this image of a long curve or arc that symbolises time stretching inversely across the horizon with only the very tip of its apex brushing the soil. And that single moment of its brushing represents my entire lifetime in the context of the universe, making me realise exactly how insignificant my existence really is.

    And this is not even close to my birthday, which incidentally has ceased to hold any significance for me, be it joyous or otherwise. It really has faded into just another day, because it has never changed the condition of my life in any way except to serve as a reminder that I’m supposed to take a moment to benchmark my life against others that have grovelled for as long as I have.

    We’re all beggars. Some just more dignified than others. Who is not begging for happiness or contentment, wealth or comfort, companionship and fame? At our weaker moments we morbidly acknowledge this, but when the memory of pain subsides, such realisations are discarded in favour of feelings of false elation. Forgetfulness is probably our greatest gift and mercy. Imagine the pain of a life that bore the intensity of the memories of every moment of distress or destitution?

    Oh yes, birthdays…I hate those. It’s supposed to signify the passing of another year, when in fact it’s just the passing of yet another day. Just another day, with more significance attached to it than anyone could ever justify. How I despise the feeble-minded that define themselves by such whimsical milestones!

    (This is something I wrote a year ago, and remains true today as well…)

  • The Fragility of Trust

    A question I received from a friend this morning coincided with something I was considering yesterday. I wondered why it’s sometimes easy to trust, and at other times it’s nearly impossible. Why does it seem so easy for some to walk away from depression, while others are haunted with it for most of their lives? In fact, why is depression so closely linked to issues of trust and betrayal?

    I think that sometimes it’s a balance we have to strike between wanting to trust, and not caring about the potential of betrayal. At some point we will accept that there’s a certain amount of risk we’re willing to take because we’re confident enough to deal with the consequences of a potential breach of that trust. So the reality is that we trust more easily when we have a greater sense of self, or perhaps a greater level of confidence in our ability to be resilient in the face of betrayal. Unfortunately the very nature of the issue drives us to defend or protect our fragility and vulnerability in the aftermath of betrayal, and quite quickly, without noticing, we end up stuck in that cycle not realising that we’re only as vulnerable or as fragile as our ability to rise above it.

    I’ve previously said that a healthy self-esteem is the greatest gift any parent can give their child. That self-esteem must inform the way they view themselves, their choices, and the associated outcomes. It must teach them that no matter what bad things may happen to them in life, the only part of the encounter that defines them is how they chose to respond, and never what was presented. The power of choice, and more importantly, the realisation of that power of choice, is the key to unlocking our resilience. But resilience, like happiness and humility, are only end states, but not a skill or trait in itself. Our belief in our own principles and convictions, and our courage to stand up for it in the face of ridicule is what determines (in part) our level of resilience.

    Unless we believe in ourselves, we’ll find it impossible to believe in anyone else, and by extension, it will be impossible to trust. Under such circumstances, it’s easy to confuse a hopeless surrender and dependence on others as trust. When we undermine ourselves, we empower our enemies, and like they say, the friend of my enemy is my enemy. So it stands to reason that that is how we become our own worst enemies.

  • Humility and Happiness is not a choice

    We often look at humility and consider how it can’t be acquired, because the very effort to acquire humility will be the result of an arrogant indulgence. Then there is the cliché quoted by many that the profession of humility is in itself arrogance, which has much truth in it. What isn’t so obvious though is that the pursuit of humility is equally arrogant. Humility is similar to happiness. It can’t be acquired on its own, but is in fact the outcome of something else. That may sound absurd, but in reality, it’s not the act of trying to be of a happy disposition that makes us happy, but rather the satisfying outcomes of various activities and choices that leads to a state of happiness.

    Humility is something that we witness in others, but the moment we think of ourselves as humble, or we do something with the intention of being humble, then the underlying motivation for that would be that we’re considering ourselves to be pious or good, which is arrogance. So when you see someone that appears to be humble, consider that maybe their action is driven by shyness, insecurity, a lack of confidence, or many other attributes that undermine our ability to achieve our full potential, but because we can’t see what their motivation is to do what they do, we assume they’re humble.

    However, the pursuit of happiness within this context is not tainted in the same way that a pursuit of humility is. What we witness as humility is often not an intended humility on the part of the person that we’re observing. More often than not, humility is a result of insecurity, shame, modesty, shyness, embarrassment, etc. In other words, when someone is in a situation where they seem overwhelmed by the gravity of it, or the significance of it relative to their own stature, their act or response may appear humble even though the motivation behind it may be fear or disillusionment, or a feeling of being dis-empowered or overwhelmed.

    With happiness, the same principles apply. We often hear of people that appeared to be happy and carefree, only to hear of their suicide a few days later. Their appearance of happiness may have been a choice, but it obviously had no substance. This, along with a few other life experiences prompted me to reflect on the truth behind the statement that if we choose to be happy, we will be, and that no one can stop us from being so. This is dangerously false. It leads many to believe that simply making the choice is sufficient. It’s not. It never has been. Happiness has always been a state that was achieved when other aspects of my life were in line with my needs or expectations. Happiness was never something I experienced independent of those experiences.

    Unsurprisingly, the current approach to the ‘pursuit of happyness’  is in line with the prevalent mentality that was spawned by ‘The Secret’. I have never seen so many delusional people in my life. People that walk around believing that being positive yields positive results. It doesn’t. If it did, it would mean that the proverbial bull would never charge at you if you were a vegetarian. The logic simply does not add up. However, take that same positive attitude and couple it with a focus on opportunities and beneficial outcomes to drive your actions, and suddenly you have a recipe that will allow you to take control of how you respond to situations, rather than how you simply perceive them.

    It may sound like a play on words, but it really isn’t. I engage with people on a daily basis that have this false belief that they can choose to be happy or sad. They can’t. How many times haven’t you tried to be sad or grumpy when someone came along, or something unexpected happened that put an instant and sincere smile on your face? This further cements my argument that happiness is a state that is achieved as a result of our actions in line with our desires or needs, and is most certainly not simply a choice we make. The moment we are compelled, or at least feel compelled to act contrary to our value system or our ethics, that state of happiness eludes us, and instead, is replaced by a state of anxiety and stress.

    For the same reason, a poor man can find contentment in his life, while a man of excessive wealth will find it impossible to have a peaceful night’s sleep.

  • Quotes I live by, but can’t remember who said them…

    There are a few quotes that often ring in my mind as I go through various experiences in life, but more often than not, I can never recall where I read or heard them. Some of my favourites include:

    “If you knew me the way I know myself, you’d throw sand in my face” ~ some or other Muslim scholar, but I can’t recall who it was.

    “There is no limit to what a man can do if he doesn’t care who gets the credit for it” ~ I don’t have a clue where this one comes from.

    “Why acquire more knowledge if you’re not practising on the knowledge you already have” ~ I think this was said by Al-Ghazali, but I could be mistaken.

    “Repeating the same behaviour and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity” ~ I suspect that this is just a really bad paraphrase of what Einstein may have said.

    “If you compare a sane man to an insane society, he will appear insane” ~ I think this was some guy with a French name, but I’m too lazy to Google it right now.

    “Pervasive ignorance must not be mistaken for collective wisdom” ~ Yours Truly.

    “If you don’t take control of your own life, someone else will” ~ I just made that one up.

    And obviously when I sit down to share some of these quotes my mind will go blank…

  • I Hate Skinny Jeans

    It’s been a while since I felt an inclination to post any reflective thoughts about my current state. I’m 100% primed for a mid-life crisis right now, but it seems like the only crisis I’m managing to acquire quite successfully is a mid-drift one. My chest is still pretty much where it used to be for the most of my life, so I’m quite comfortable that this is not a case of having a drop-chest. I’ve accepted that I am firmly part of the horizontally challenged brigade that still struggle to squeeze into their jeans of yesteryear. However, the situation is not as dire, nor as disgusting as it may sound.

    I have a very simple philosophy when it comes to maintaining my weight over the years. I’ve reached a point where my pants’ size is as big as I would ever want it to go, and I’ve been convinced of this for many years now. So each time when I feel it getting really uncomfortably tight around my waist, I know that’s a sure sign that I need to shed some baby fat. Incidentally, it turns out that baby fat is not as cute on a grown man. So the simple philosophy really just says that when my pants get too tight, instead of buying a bigger size and giving in to the bulge, I make a concerted effort to lose weight instead. My tolerance level to put up with that discomfort has obviously grown, and I’m starting to wonder if I’m only maintaining my pants size because of my anatomy extending over the belt line, rather than being constrained by it?

    Ok, enough of the disturbing mental imagery and on to the real point of this post. Going shopping for new jeans (of the same size I might add), has turned into quite a frustrating chore because of the insistence by retailers to shove all men (including us real ones) into that girlish designs that suggest that skinny jeans look good on real men. It doesn’t. It never did, and it never will. A man that wears a skinny jeans is probably a man that is either still living with his mother (for her to take care of him and not the other way around), or a man that gets his nails polished and has facial products to keep his skin looking soft and youthful. I hate skinny jeans. Especially for men. And I hate men that pamper themselves as if they’re women. We have more women than men in this world, literally and figuratively, so give it a rest already. Try being a man for a change. You’ll be surprised at how refreshing that can be. And no, being a slob doesn’t mean you’re a man, it just means you’re a slob. Usually a blob of a slob, now that I think of it.

    Shopping at several local retailers has proven that there is a pervasive assumption that men want to wear what women wear. I’m old school and proud of it. I yearn for a time when men were men and women were women, and each had equitable roles, and chivalry was still admired. But the feminists and the apologists will not allow such wholesomeness to survive, so they decided to force men into bootlegged jeans, skinny fit everything, straight leg jeans, low rise jeans, and everything but REGULAR FIT jeans! What happened to the good old regular fit? I don’t want some fanboy designer look. I simply want a comfortable pair of jeans that will allow me to do the chores around the house without having to shift my jewels back in place after each movement because of the feminine crotch that someone thought would be a good idea on a man’s jeans. It disgusts me to say the least, and physically pains me at best.

    No wonder we have such a dysfunctional society. Men are trying to prove that they’re as sassy and polished as women, and women are trying to prove that they’re equal to men. Neither are comfortable being their natural selves any longer except when they’re alone in their homes without any social stigmas to comply with or judging eyes to appease. All this is blatantly reflected in our children when they develop that vacuous mentality that allows only for self-promotion and a desperation for affirmation, while believing that any challenge is a reason to be diagnosed with a mental illness because the support structure that should be there to guide them through the insanity of adolescence is suddenly replaced with self-centred adults trying to compete with their children in appearance and social status resulting in social ills that leave even anarchists cringing with fear.

    Seriously. Can someone simply point me to a retailer that stocks men’s clothes for men in the men’s section, so that I don’t have to constantly look around me to reassure myself that I am actually shopping in the men’s section of the store?