The Long Road

"Can I wait for so long?
I cannot say
Oh, the precious moments...
Cannot stay
It's not like winds have fallen...
I cannot say
Without you something's missing...
I cannot say
Oh, the hands of dawn in his heart
And their face is falling down
Down, down, down...
I have wished for so long...
Now I wish for you again
Will I walk the long road?
I cannot say."
- Eddie Vedder

And so, 2010 is going. Every year, we'll always wish the upcoming year will be better. But at times, 'better' doesn't necessarily make us happy. Better in work. Better in health. Better in $$. Better in learning our mistakes. Better in appreciating our family and friends more. To be better in the society. Better as an individual. Better as a person.

So let us be better in within ourselves first and look forward to the year with a 'happy' heart! :)

The Bridge

“The mind is the heartbeat of your actions.” Anonymous




Someone once told me that there used to be a bridge where people jumped off, which is another way to go.

It takes four seconds...

One…

Two…

Three…

Four…

...to hit the water. All the survivors (though they think the death rate is much higher) report that they really wanted to die when they had two feet on the bridge, but as soon as they were airborne they really wanted to live. You've got to hit the water feet first, at a slight angle. You won't be ok for sure. But you might... emphasis on might... live.

At 180-220 feet above the water, the bridge is a good place to kill yourself dead. Every two weeks or so somebody tried it, dropping 75 miles an hour for four seconds without a parachute, a life vest, or a seat belt, to die of blunt injuries four seconds later.

I've never much understood suicide. Oh sure, things are bad, and sometimes, or maybe always, the person is sick at heart and in the head. Never had a suicidal thought though.

I've always thought that killing, whether yourself or somebody else, was for crazy people. To me, convictions aren't about just guilt, they're about how sick one was. It's been convenient for me to maintain an assumption of insanity in order to put words to a complicated phenomenon. But now some things are leading me away from that theory. Maybe those of us who do not kill are the ones who are insane. Perhaps we're all death machines, in one way or another. After all, from our first breath of life, we put a foot on the rode to death.

I have read stories about death. There’s one where I realized a prime character died, greatly affecting the well-being and success of the main character. Actually, at the start of the story, the main character ‘kills’ someone. He thinks it will solve his problems. It ends up just setting those problems loose to do real damage.

The easy part is getting the reaction of the protagonist: shock, or if he's hardened, like the main character, he can mostly take it in stride. A few deaths have touched him during his journey, and I've noticed that he's become quite the old softy as the book progresses. By the time he runs across his dead ‘soldiers’ stacked in front of him, he's pretty shaken up.

More difficult to treat are the antagonists. Why do they do what they do? Why do they kill? To them killing is a means to an end, sure. But what do they want? Power? Revenge? Are they so consumed by hatred or rage that it has surpassed their humanness? Yeah. Sure. Easy to write. Difficult to comprehend. Kinda like killing=insanity. But who among us has been so threatened, so jealous, that we'd kill somebody? No one that I know.

So, me? I'd kill in self defence. I'd fight back if someone entered my home or threatened my family, and if they ended up dead, then they're dead. I've always wondered if I might kill someone, accidently, of course. But I won't commit suicide. If there's a note, I didn't write it. If there's a gun in my hand, I didn't put it in my mouth.

But I do understand that four seconds. I've jumped off that bridge before. I'm midair right now, in fact, and I know I'm going down, what with gravity and all. The seconds are ticking by, and though I had to jump again, I'm just not sure when or how I'm gonna land.

Hopefully feet first, at a slight angle.

Happy reading.

As If the Details Are Not Enough…

“There are only two types of problems in this world. One is from God. To see whether we are up for the challenges ahead. The other is by us. We create those problems. Let’s try to minimise it then.” - Anonymous

I was looking at my schedule and then it struck me. I’m getting bored already. I’ve just started and I can sense the routine ahead of me. And I really don’t know how I’m gonna feel when I start to get familiar with it.

When you're really familiar with something, tiny differences render exponential results. Because there is something about routine that makes life feel completely pointless. It's like carrying around a brick of shit tied to a leash everywhere you go. It can't walk, you gotta drag it, it smells bad, sometimes you back up and step on it, and at the end of the day you look at your piece of shit and think, "Why am I carrying this around?". There is no point. And so do I feel with routine.

I lived everyday the same as the last, I am excited by nothing. Surprised by nothing. I'm merely living for the variables, the details that change from day to day, which are fleeting and equal nothing in the grande scheme of things.

But then it occured to me that I had it wrong, or mostly wrong. What does the grande scheme of things matter?

People in general are terrible at seeing the big picture. We live in a linear society, where the average person moves from detail to detail in order to see any piece of this infinite puzzle. Yet when it comes to finding meaning, people want the big picture. So we dream of big electrons in the sky and dudes with beards sitting on clouds playing chess, and I wonder, were the details not enough??

For some reason, I thought at the age of seven I should remember that moment and never forget. I remember playing in a pool of mud and having deep thoughts. I was contemplating God way back then. Whatever conclusions I came to then still shape who I am now. At the age of eight, I couldn't figure out the idea of God not having a beginning and an end when everything else around me does, including myself. I had a discussion about that with another friend who was about eight as well. Do most eight year olds talk about this stuff?

Twenty years on, I guess I figure it out. I guess few truly know what it means to stop and smell the roses. Fuck it, feel them too. Take a pedal, stick it in your mouth and chew on it. Rub them on your face. It's something different. My point is, finding meaning in life is hard, it takes skill to be happy.

One thing I have learned is that regardless of what our faults are, whether sexually, emotionally, financially, physically, or being self-righteous; we are on the same playing field with God. We all need him. That is the biggest gripe I have of being identified as a Muslim. People are naturally skeptical. I don't blame them.

I guess as things unfold as I explain my life day by day or perhaps every other blog entry by every other entry, the readers will be able to best determine if there is any difference in my life and theirs, and if they think it has anything to do with God. ;)

Interlude: For A Better New Day

When you stay up for a day or two straight, the days begin to meld into one another. Not having awakening as a key to when the next day is, all you have to go by is your preconcieved notions of dawn. When it gets light out, there. That's the new day.


My friend and I invented a less confusing system than the "midnight as beginning of the new day" one currently in place by our damn Earth's rotation around the sun. See, the beginning to each new day is relative to each individual. When you wake up is when the new day has begun, not at midnight. Because who goes to sleep before midnight anymore? Maybe there is but it gets to me when you talk to someone after midnight about doing something tomorrow, and they get all smart-ass on you and say "You mean today ha ha ha ha ha". Nope. Not anymore. Tomorrow begins when you awake. And in the aforementioned case of staying up all night, the new day will officially begin at 6:00 AM, as this is around when the sun rises. Only the smart-aleck who feel the need to meticulously argue about stupid inane details will find this new system difficult. But we don't like talking to those people anyway, now do we?

One more thing. Why is it that it's a penny for your thoughts, but if one desires to put forth their opinion it is referred to as their two cents? The price doubles based on who wants the opinion to be given? Sounds like a scam to me. But, again, we don't want to talk about those things either, do we?

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to not sleeping. Gotta run. Good night.

Dawning Exposure

I'm having a little trouble writing right now. I wish I could come up with some interesting excuse as to why. Oh yeah, I’m a little bored and I can’t sleep. Random thoughts about certain topics makes me go on and on writing till I think it’s distracting for people to read it and thus I need to press the delete button. Very distracting. Yep.

Hmm…. Let me think. Still thinking. Ok, got it. Here’s one for the road. The least metaphoric way that I could conjure of at this time of the day.

I’ve been thinking about Plato's forms lately. The idea that every thing that we see in our lives is an imperfect representation of some ideal thing and that somewhere in the universe there exists the perfect thing got me thinking': What would the perfect table be like?


Think about it: Tables serve their purpose well enough in their imperfect phase. You put stuff on it. Sometimes you eat off of it. That's it. The perfect table would likely not have a single scratch or dent or loose leg. It wouldn't get stained if something spilled on it. Most of the tables I’ve seen and used day to day are quite messy because I'm lazy and set shit on it. The perfect table would never be messy. Or would it? The table itself is not involved with the stuff that's on it. In a perfect WORLD, the table would never be messy, however it is simply the table itself that is messy. Would you even notice if it was a perfect table? I don't think about tables as much as this blog might make it seem, so I may be typing on the perfect table right now and not even realize it. This particular table has some scratches and dents and minor little ticks and whatnot, so this couldn't be it, but that's beside the point. If the perfect table were here on Earth somewhere, we probably wouldn't even know it. People ignore tables for the most part. The perfect table wouldn't be particularly impressive. No one would stop and realize "That table is perfect!" and meant it literally perfect!

The human mind could probably not comprehend the perfect table. Perfection is something we cannot understand because everything we come into contact with is imperfect. Plus, who wants the perfect table? Imperfect tables serve their purpose; having a perfect table would just be like having fine china that you never want to use. Or maybe since I can't comprehend the perfect table, if I were to experience it in all its glory, I would be in awe and finally realize what it means to be a table and the table-oriented part of my life would be complete.

In closing, sit with this question: Can you define "table"?

Fire Wind Water Earth

I’ve been out of sorts since I wrote my last post so pardon me for not updating this blog of mine. It’s been hard these past six weeks or so and I’m not going to lie about it. Devastated. That’s the word. I’ve learnt to accept it (I’m trying my very best! ☺)since and now the sweetest memories keep playing in my head. There’s a lot of things in my head where I’d love to share… for this mind keeps working and working that I’m unable to even sleep properly but I’ll just leave it on my book of thoughts for now. Oh yes, I do have a book just for my thoughts.

I just got to write. Write anything that I see or hear that I can reflect on. That doesn’t mean I write everything I see or hear every day. Oh no. What I do is to self edit myself what I’ve seen or hear and just pick out the small little ‘grey area’, which we normally miss out. Try it. It’s pretty tedious and boring at first but when you can connect it to your life, the satisfaction I can’t even express it through words.



I have this feeling that everyone who reads this blog knows me better than people I've actually met. Good friends of mine know me pretty well because I open up to them and basically do a live-action verbal version of this blog in real time in front of them. But there are lots of people who I talk to for a day at most and then move on, and realize they now hold this impression of me, which may or may not be accurate. As I often tend to do, I could branch off into some bullshit self-questioning "Who am I?" hoopla, but I think I'll save that for later. I may not fully understand my person, but I understand better than some I meet day to day. This is mainly because I cannot really translate my personality to other people beyond simply being. On top of that, why should I?

However, this blog is pure "self". That's what's here: Me. And I'm less inhibited here because this is text, who gives a shit. I've met very few of you people, and those that I have are already friends of mine and I have a comfort level already to express myself. It's not even a comfort issue, per se, because I'm pretty comfortable in front of people, but more so the fact that there are many facets of myself that can get lost in a false first impression. I don't want to give myself away completely, or even at all to most people. Maybe. Maybe I do only tell you what I want you to hear and believe me, the same goes to you.

As for the title, the four ‘words ‘ are all up above. Digress it. ;)

For I Wish And Pretend

“And it seems like yesterday it was just a dream…” B.o.B


It was not since mid March that I last wrote in this little box. It is no longer March; in fact, April is ending soon. This little box begs for letters to be in it… and I often don't comply with its wishes. It must be something incredibly exciting and resplendent to occupy my time such that I do not update this oft-abandoned blog, right? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.

I intend not to use this space simply to complain about the various things that have surfaced in my life recently. No, blogs are in no way intended to be used for petty bitching and empty negativity. No. So don't think of this particular entry as me being biased towards the melancholy. I simply need to express that which is currently troubling my gentle soul so as to prepare myself for better sailing ahead.

I guess I’m just worried sick. I have like things that constantly project themselves from my eyes and mind; they're kind of basically in command now. I recalled my mum was saying that yesterday was my late sister’s birthday. My late sister would have been 29 yesterday. I didn’t get the chance to see her and thus, I don’t have an image of her on my mind. And so, I wish and pretend. I pretend she is quite tall. Curly long hair. Big eyes with smile that just soften one’s heart in an instant. I pretend she would be the ideal elder sister. Someone that could inspire my two younger sisters and me. A role model. Huh. It’s easy to pretend something which we will never know but when we instill these thoughts to our mind, it gives the good vibes to one’s mind.

I don’t want to hope. Hope is something we humans will just cling on to the word. Like literally. And so, let me just wish and pretend things will be better in the next few days or weeks or so. For my dad and my family. For his health have not been the best at these tough times. For I miss his longing smile and his usual “high five” with my youngest sister. For I miss seeing his usual antics to ‘irritate’ my younger sister. For I miss his constant ranting whenever man utd play badly. For I miss his laughter when mum gets over excited and shout enthusiastically watching soccer. And for all that and more, I wish to see all that back. Perhaps, if my elder sister is still alive, she could handle this better than I am.

For now, let me just wish and pretend.