Belonging

Have you ever wondered where you really belong? In this vast universe where there are so many niches and corners where could you find comfort? We seek that feeling where you'd chose to be in just one spot rather than anywhere else. And it might not even be a geographic location, more of a personal sort of security. Sometimes it feels as though we search all our lives for that sense of belonging. We might even believe we found it once or twice, but before we can be certain of its existence it always escapes us.

It's all really a matter of choice..you choose where you will belong.

Spring of my freshman year I took Islamic Philosophy with crazy prof. Morewedge. And on the 2 days of that entire semester where he gave a serious lecture, I felt like I learned about this whole other world, a supposed part of my religion that I never even knew existed. Most of it was the theories of "Islamic" philosophers and men of intellect. They weren't firm on following the obligatory practices, but their theories were an inspirational thought. They all spoke of this unconditional love for god, where no generic form of prayer was essential. Where the lover was lost in the search and adoration of their object of desire. They were these crazy sufi mystics who wanted to find oneness with god, they believed that god was so divine that from his glory the world was created and greatness emanated into the world, creating the soul of each man. And the purpose of each soul was to return to its ultimate source, The Truth. Yeah, for a good while I was confident that these men were doped up on hashish and opium when they wrote their passionate proclamations, but to some degree it made sense...

we all search for something, somewhere, someone where we can feel completely at ease; to feel entirely confident that this is where we belong. Where we can feel complete. The pressures and hectic moments of life are of no meaning, they are simply details in a mirage we walk though as we look for what is real. And I think for me that sufi ideology was so powerful because I never felt I could find that sense of security in this life or in this world so this whole theory really hit home.

Yes its true, I wanted to become a sufi mystic at that point. I thought of nothing more fulfilling than to spend my time twirling around in circles praising the lord all day. Of course, I soon realized that the mystics barely had any means of income and spent their lives truly very devoted in the love for god. so much that they had no need of things like money,a house, cars, food, clothing...and the pleasures of this duniya firmly placed my feet back on the ground... like all good dreams, we always land on our beds with the nice THUD of reality.

While the sufi thought is a beautiful ideal in itself...it doesnt have to be the only option to finding my belonging. obligatory practices are one way to go. we whine and pout about them because they limit all the faltoo bakwas we'd rather indulge in...yet time and time again i find that the only place i let go of all thought, the only place where i can be so calm that its almost as if i have escaped my own being...the only time i can feel like everything makes sense... is at the janamaz.

Things That Bother Me

There are very few things that bother me, or at least that's what I used to believe. As I starting thinking more about it though, it seemed like the list is quite long. It might just be that I'm being too critical, or perhaps it's because I'm just riding in a rough patch of life right now. Whatever the case may be, these little things about the world and its inhabitors are testing my tolerance ..and certain things I cannot stand at all, beyond the point of irritation into abhorrence. So here is my list for everything I can think of that I don't like or maybe even just makes me a little peeved.


-rootbeer..yuck.

-how when we were little our best friends changed every year, because we didnt have classes together with the old friends anymore..but now when we're older, it still happens because people are just too careless to want to keep up with meaningful relationships...or maybe they really aren't so meaningful afterall....and I guess more than being a bother that just hurts...so I'm not talking about that anymore.

-radishes

-squirrels

-when one side of my umberella breaks and it sort of droops, letting all the rain in.


-lauki. No idea what it is in English, but its a paki vegetable and I hate it.

-flaming gay men...I work with one..he sits behind me..I want to put a muzzle on him every time he opens his mouth.

- people who are wayy too public about their lives on things like facebook and friendster..its like shut up you aren't Paris hilton so stop wishing you were...stop trying to pretend that you are cool by posting a million pictures of you and your lamer friends because you are only proving (besides knowing how to do really good eye makeup) that you're all pretty much useless in life.

-when my contacts stick to my eyes

-traffic jams

-mean cops

when my heel gets stuck in the cracks in the sidewalk on livingston.. I  hate that campus..this should've been a separate line.

-livingston campus. now it is.

-anal professors that take their jobs entirely too seriously.

-never being home for dinner. it's the worst.

-how everyone cares that Madonna adopted an African kid and no one focused on the matter that so many kids in this world are orphan and need to be adopted.

-how Halloween is just not the same once you grow up.

-having to make life altering decisions...it's so not fun....at all..

-uncertainty...now that I can confidently say I HATE.

-cramps

-incompetence

-feeling like you're struggling only to get nowhere

-licorice

-thursdays...and sundays...and mondays..I could keep going.

-sound of my alarm clock

-when I wait all week for it and it ends up being a rerun


-waking up at the buttcrack of dawn



list ends now...I'm too lazy to think of what more can possibly bother me.

Closure

Ever thought you wanted something...wanted it pretty bad? Did it bother you when you couldn't understand what made it so special that you even needed it in the first place..but then it bothered you more that you couldn't have it? And perhaps you got pretty damn close to even achieving it...pretty close..but not enough... that must have been the worst..no? that sense of failure, or feeling like the world just plain sucks because you can never seem to get what you want or that God is just a mean kid who likes playing jokes on you...

Often what happens is we do get what we want, just not how we want it... like when we're 17 and we all want a car.. we'll get a car.. but not the super cute acura rsx that the freakin bimbo chick is driving (or the even hotter bmw that the spoiled rich kid has, which you so deserve more than him), but no,we get a nice reliable corolla instead...life has its way with things, and there ain't a whole lot you can do about it...so you suck it up and drive the dinky corolla everyday and are never thankful that you at least have a car at 17 while the rest of the world is riding the big yellow bus or better yet, getting driven by mommy dear...and you forget about that thing you'd been hoping for.

Even though you might not say it, secretly, deep inside you still keep praying that some day the thing you've always been hoping for will come true..Time will pass..life will move on. and so will you...and then one day unexpectedly one of three things will happen:

1. You will get what you wanted and things will be great.

2. you will get what you wanted and things will suck, you wish you had never asked for this..whaaat were you thinkingggg?? (in which case you are a fool and an ungrateful one at that...but, hey.. aren't we all?)

3. You don't get what you want, but you find something that will bring you back to it and all the memories/emotions attached to it that you pretty much had forgot about..and you will realize that you were faaaar better off not having it. That this was never meant for you, had you only understood that earlier you wouldn't have spent so long pining for it. Well, maybe there was a reason it took you so long to get over it too..maybe all that wishful hoping has changed you..hopefully for the better..it has made you wiser and thankful for what you do have. You now understand that only God knows the reasons behind why things happen (or don't) and only time will tell you them........... Sometimes, it's nice to reflect on things and be happy with what you don't have.

Untitled until I can think of one.

I have this problem where I often want to write something down yet when I sit for a moment, all thoughts escape me and I don't know what to write any longer. Often I've seen that if you just start off somewhere, anywhere, you'll end up where you are meant to go. But, do I really want to go there? More often than not we don't even know where we want to go, and so comes about experimentation. Write whatever comes out, think whatever you feel, do what seems right...Doing so doesn't always have a purpose, we just do it for the sake of having done it. It might not even be significant...yet other times, it may be monumental. I'm not quite sure if any of this makes the slightest bit of sense, or if I'm scratching the surface of a deeper thought inside my brain.

You know what never ceases to amaze me, how the occurrence of one event can so naturally lead to another, as if that occurrence wasn't really necessary but then in the larger scheme it truly was. For if the first unimportant event never happened, the essential second event would be entirely nonexistent. IE: Tonight on a hungry food hunt I broke the handle off of the vegetable tray in the fridge (why i was even looking inside the vegetable tray is evidence enough of how hungry i was), then i sat and went oh crap i must fix this..upon numerous attempts i finally got well, nowhere..so i just shoved the handle thingie behind refrigerator door and was about to give up on food and my future profession as a fridge fixer when it happened. since the veggie tray is at the bottom, my eye level was lower and i found directly infront of me....chicken seekh kababs leftover from yesterday!!!!

SO if the tray handle had never broken, those kababs would not be happily moving along my digestive system right now. Purpose acheived.

I am so drugged up on Nyquil at the moment....ok I lie....i just wish i was....

I go back to that Finance homework now...internal rate of return...present value of crap...future value of my foot kickin Sala Palmon's ass for assigning all this work...now that seems like a worthy investment :)

And so it begins..

The acheivements made by scientists and researchers have me in awe of where our world has gone in such a short period of time. 1400 years ago men stood outside their homes to determine the birth of the new moon. Today the same act can be approximated with less than zero percent error several months (if not years) in advance. If the location and distance of objects as far as Pluto can be determined (which can no longer be referred to as a planet due to more recent discovery), then gathering information about the earth's satellite seem like child's play.

Yet, it seems no matter how far modern technology will take us some old fashion folk still insist that relying on traditional methods is the correct path of order. Despite advanced tools and gadgets that can take probes to mars, travel deep into the depths of the ocean, give a woman a bionic arm, lead conjoint twins to be separated and live healthy lives; there are still some men (with rather long beards) who are firm in believing that all such tools are mere workings of shaitan. Or that's what they are showing when they can't bring themselves to accept the achievements of today's world.

What I ask is HOW is it possible that a religion of such deep roots, a strong message, which was brought into the public by such an extremely wise man, have bred such extremely disorganized, stubborn and foolish men of the Islam I follow today? I almost feel disgraced to be led by instituations that call themselves the "Circles" and "Societys" of Islam when they cannot determine a simple date of the month's beginning and most importantly, do it with UNITY.

Why must we wait until 10 hours before the next day to determine whether it is a new month or not? You never doubt that July will have 31 days or that November will have 30, do you? Even if it is a lunar calendar and the dates change annually that is no reason for dispute. Do you ever see the Jewish population in a baffled state the night before to determine when Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur will be? Why are calendars published years in advance if the topic will be debated until the final moment? And if it must be debated until the final moment, then can the entire population have one agreed decision?

What is this nonsense of "the arabs are wrong to start today, we refuse to follow them because we are stubborn and cannot come to a common consensus so we insist on doing it tomorrow. Not because we're actually right but because of course we can never be wrong". If this selfish bullheadedness were only affecting the men with long beards then I could personally care less. But the sad truth is that their decisions do have repercussions effecting the entire Muslim community.

What angers me is that these small disputes and disorganized events that occur year after year collectively contribute in creating a horrible image of Islam portrayed to the rest of the world. If we cannot value each other's opinions then how can we expect anyone else to? Why must every Muslim constantly battle one another over the start of Ramadan? Why does one masjid have to go against the decisions and declarations of another? Do they not realize that their political policies will leave our religion in a far worst state of ignorance than it already is in? All it does is make us seem like fools for following old men with long beards and bad accents who can't even get their people to unify together in celebrating this truly significant month.

What I pray for is that the Muslim youth of today (would stop going to Buda bar and Abyss) gather some sense of responsibility and value the knowledge that God has bestowed upon us. That they handle matters so that my daughter doesn't have to sit online 25 years from now and rant that she is sick of never knowing when Eid is or when Ramzaan start. So that we finally unify, not just in picking one damn day to celebrate together, but in accepting our differences, being receptive of each other's opinions and thoughts and truly working towards a common goal for the benefit of our religion. THEN maybe I will be proud of calling myself a part of this society. I'm tremendously proud of being a Muslim but the shameful acts of the "scholars" I'm told to follow make that a difficult pride to express.