Tag: spirituality

  • Perhaps…

    Farting against thunder. That’s often the sum total of my state of mind these days. For a moment today I felt as if sharing my thoughts on this and other blogs of mine was in fact perpetuating the whispers of insignificance that taunt me. It’s an insane cycle. Needing an outlet, not necessarily creative or emotional, but just something to release the noise, make space for the clutter to fall into an open space so that I might be able to look for clues on how to unravel it all.

    I sometimes feel repulsed by what I write. At other times, I’m repulsed by the fact that I write at all. I wonder if all my efforts at unlocking the logic behind the ridiculous labels is in fact me denying that those labels actually apply to me. Perhaps I have a mental disorder but my arrogance and obstinacy prevents me from acknowledging it. Perhaps my views on what is or is not good in this world is in fact tainted with a sense of idealism that is unachievable.

    I shy away from debates that used to impassion me. I look at others and recede believing that my attempts at getting them to understand, or appreciate, or simply entertain an alternate view is futile. I seem prone to taking up lost causes as if doing so may spur on some global reawakening about something simple that seems pivotal to the resurrection of old school values that I cling to so dearly. Perhaps I only cling to them out of fear of not being able to embrace the new? Perhaps I’m not farting at all against the thunder. Perhaps the thunder is in fact the clutter in my head, seeing chaos where only randomness exists, and seeking order where none is possible.

    Perhaps the days of my sanity are numbered. Perhaps the purpose of life that always seemed so poignantly obvious to me was in fact a figment of my own imagination. A conjured ruse of a troubled teenager’s aspirations lacking in substance and form, with a life breathed into it from the seat of desperation that wrestles within my soul. Perhaps I was feigning sanity all along.

  • In Need of a Label

    Sometimes I feel inclined to succumb to the labelling that makes others feel more comfortable to be with me or around me. Perhaps I should be the stereotype that is expected of me, and assume the position of vulnerability and neediness that would make others feel more significant around me. Labels, stigmas, stereotypes and the like repulse me. It forces me into a pigeon hole and makes me feel smothered and claustrophobic.

    It’s seemingly easier for me to deal with others that don’t fit the mould than it is for others to deal with me. I don’t tow the line when I’m expected to, and I don’t reserve opinion when it would be proper or polite. Instead, at this ripe old age, I still fail to realise that sincerity is not what is being sought, but rather affirmation. Saying the right thing at the wrong time has probably gotten more people in trouble than anything else.

    Such is the double standards of being human. We choose to see others through our insecurities and then lash out when they respond in a way that exposes it. I’m probably a prick of a human being because I don’t see fit to play along out of obligation when needed to do so. I assume that others are as passionate about the truth, sincerity and transparency as I am, and I’ll repeat that as many times as is needed despite knowing how arrogant it must sound.

    Proclaiming not to be arrogant isn’t the same as professing to be humble, which as they say is arrogance in itself. The absence of arrogance is not necessarily humility, nor is the absence of humility arrogance. Both are in fact perspectives that others hold of us which most often would not be true because it’s easier for me to dismiss someone else as being arrogant instead of accepting that I may have failed to engage meaningfully or explained myself sufficiently. This doesn’t excuse the behaviour of those that are inconsiderate morons who assume that the world revolves around them, although having said that, I get the nagging feeling that I just contradicted myself.

    This is a pointless ramble.

  • Imam Al-Ghazzali on Feeble-Mindedness

    …the parable of the feeble-minded person who thinks that the light of the sun is the result of its rising, is like the parable of an ant which as it happened upon the surface of a sheet of paper, was endowed with reason and thereupon watched the movement in the process of writing, only to think that it was the work of the pen, but would not go beyond that to see the fingers, and behind the fingers the hand, and behind the hand the will which moves it, and behind the will a deliberate and an able scribe, and behind all, the Creator of the hand, and the ability, and the will. Most people do not look beyond the nearby and earthly causes and never arrive at the Cause of all causes.

    Imam Al-Ghazzali (The Book of Knowledge)