Drought

All I do these days is pick up a novel, read the first few pages, chuck it by the side of my bed. I'd then feel guilty, reach under my bed for either Rumi, Keats, Ginsberg or the Rubaiyat (whichever I grab first) and read a poem or two. I'm a disgrace. I've left much too many books half-read. Way too many. When will this spell of disinterest end?

"It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well-informed man--that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value. "

                                                                                                         ~The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde~


Frustrations that paralyzes you is poison.
It breeds self-contempt that lasts too long every time it plagues you.


All this. It makes one question one's realities.
Why torture yourself?
Why conform?


The collective norm is an infinite cruelty.

Deliverance from Error note 1

"This is the practice of dim-witted men who know the truth by men, and not men by the truth. The intelligent man, on the contrary, follows the advice of the Master of the Intelligent, Ali –God be pleased with him!– where he says: "Do not know the truth by men, but rather, know the truth and you will know its adherents."


"However, assuming that they are found only in the writings of the philosophers, if what is said is reasonable in itself and corroborated by apodeictic proof and not contrary to the Qur'an and the Sunna, then why should it be shunned and rejected? If we were to open this door and aim at forgoing every truth which had been first formulated by the mind of one in error, we would have to forgo much of what is true. We would have to give up a lot of the verses of the Qur'an and the traditions of the Apostle and the recitals of our pious forebears and the sayings of the sages and the sufis."        

"Thus they always know the truth by men, not men by truth – which is the ne plus ultra of error! This, then, is the evil due to total rejection of the philosophers' ethical teaching"


"The second evil is that due to total acceptance of their ethical teaching. For one who studies their books, such as that of  "The Brethren of Purity" and others, and sees the prophetic maxims and sufi sayings they interspersed with their own utterances, often approves of their writings and accepts them and forms a good opinion of them. Thereupon he may readily accept their errors mixed up with those borrowed truths because of a good opinion acquired about what he has seen and approved. That is a way of luring men into error."


"...the close proximity of the true to the false does not make the true false, as it does not make the false true."

                                                                                             ~ Deliverance from Error by Al-Ghazali ~ 

This puts my mind at ease. All this while, when I read books and found some sort of serendipitous truth or wisdom from writings, I find myself conflicted. I know that what I've found is beautiful and true but since the author is, to quote al-Ghazali, 'in error' I reluctantly reject them. It breeds self-contempt too because it makes me feel as if I'm adhering to teachings of those who do not see the truth. I know now that it's not that they do not see, they do, they simply do not realize it. Of course, I state this with careful reservation. It is not a universal application to be used carelessly. I also know that my judgement of what is true and what is not is very restricted for someone so un-learned like me. I understand that.

We must learn to know men by the truth, not the truth by men and be aware of the second evil.

Je T'Aime

You sneeze a little but it echoes as if in a cave. That's just how vacant my place is. No warmth seeps into you from the world outside, no warmth of any kind. You see beautiful things and marvel at them in a subdued manner, always in a subdued manner. As if looking through a window because that's just how you live your life. You do not participate. Instead, you let the world build itself around you. The way you juxtapose yourself to minimize external contact, it borders on perversion. Who else but the twisted peer at life through such narrowness and derive pleasure so little from it that it's never enough?

I have venetian blinds in my mind and rose coloured glass in my eyes but fret not, my soul is not a cave. I am not hollow. Quite the opposite in fact. It's not out of lack of interest or awareness that I not participate, rather it is a stagnant state of lovelessness. A heedless frothing of uncaring that stems from ignorance. I declare myself passionately dispassionate.

Word: Lunacy.

On the way back from terawikh tonight, at the tram stop, in the cold, the Moon is bright. Since INTEC I've fostered quite a relationship with the moon. Mainly because I could see it through my window as I lay on my bed. All those sleepless nights I spent staring at the Moon ( so much prettier than my goddamn ceiling) I've grown to be quite fixated with it. A bunch of my poems had something to do with the Moon back then.

I'd think how there's just dust on its scarred surface. No sound, no wind, no nothing. I'd then think of it as a sentient entity, not just some suspended rock that orbits this world that's made of many little worlds just like mine. If things were bad (as they often are when I took to contemplating the Moon), I'd imagine myself running as fast as I could to the edge of the world and jump off, floating into the inky, star-studded space and landing on the pearly sphere. All the while, I'd have my hand stretched in front of me, towards it, just, you know fantasizing.

To reiterate, the Moon is bright tonight but it seems more distant than usual. It's unfair that it looks exactly the same here, as it does at home. I feel like now that I'm in Melbourne, the Moon should look different. It's cruel that it looks no different. Something within me aches but really, it's probably just the cold. Lunacy, such a lovely word.

The ugly truth.

I feel that in my poetry lies insolence, disquiet, dreams and desires. It is not art. It mimics it, poorly I must say but that is the extent of my miserable attempts at 'craft'.

It is all hogwash. Yearnings of an asinine fool (forgive my redundancy) to be wise and comely. Sometimes it even verges on- I dare not type it out because then it will all be true.

I fear change but I want perfection, which is idiotic (perfectly expected of one such as me). Most of all I think I'm just a damned lazy bum. 

It all comes back to my anti-social nature I think. It brings me conflicts that deeply stirs me. Is it possible to go on a quest for knowledge, art, love or beauty without having to move oneself to align with the rest of the world?

All this profundity of thought makes me suspicious of my own mind. Of my own intent. To be capable of pure sincerity surely one must cleanse oneself of one's own vices? Rid oneself off one's own trivial knowledge of the superficial?

But I have to start somewhere don't I?

Spirituality is something I find myself again and again attracted to yet simultaneously repulsed from. All is my fault of course. The One does not play tricks on His subjects. 

Hence, I go back to what comforts me most in this prison my own mind construct around myself; Books. May guidance come to me when I seek it as often as when I need it.

Mask on.

If you say/do something often enough, will you eventually really mean them?

Social constructs compels one to obey the path of least resistance. Peaceful non-confrontational course of actions. When really, you fantasize the very opposite. Imagining how a conversation or a decision might have gone differently if you spoke your mind.

But even in your lurid imaginings, the outcome is not good. Not on a long-term basis at least. Not when you're stuffed in the same freezing almost-vacuum as them.

So I say 'Yes' and agree, I bow my head and say nothing, I tolerate, I forgive and eventually forget.

Because 'No' is selfish. Disagreeing is subversive, only leads to open-ended questions that will only tire you even more quickly than it already is. Futile.

In the mean time, just smile, viciously. They don't know the difference. They never do. As long as you don't snicker, the mask stays on. Survival does not come without suffering.