Life Goes On

So. BTS came up with a quarantine-themed song;

Song of 2020, really.

💜

They also have a song called Blue and Grey on the new album, 

which didn't capture my ears from the first listen; but then I looked up the lyrics --

oh my heart.

It's about depression and melancholia, 

and BTS has a knack for making things so beautiful and ach-y.

Suga's lines killed me.

I don't know where it went wrong.

Ever since I was a kid,

I've had a blue question mark in my head.

Maybe that's why I've been living so hard.

Everyone's reflection for this year has been a general negative;

I'm meeting the birds tomorrow (possibly for the first time as a group this year...? yikesy.)

and I've been thinking, maybe we don't have to look at it all so bad.

I'll save my proper end-year reflection for December, but --

despite the general global human mess we're in,

I feel like this year, finally, my internal growth has solidified. 

I feel like there's a solid core now.

It's been purged for me, the blue question mark. 

I've confronted it head on,

and I can actually smile thinking about it all.

 I like this. Especially apt since I've been managing my health recently.

Radical nonpathology is the antithesis to the medical model taken up by conventional psychology and even some proponents of Eastern spirituality. The medical model is rooted in the notion that if somebody has a symptom of some sort, there is a disease down below: there is something wrong with the person that ought to be fixed. A nonpathological model, then, is rooted in the notion that there isn't anything wrong with any of us. Nonpathology sees symptoms, even painful ones, as evidence of our innate drive towards health and well-being. A fever, for example, is just your body "cooking" a virus or bacteria out of you. The symptom of a fever isn't evidence of an inherent problem in your body. It's evidence of your body's innate intelligence, responsiveness, resilience, and robust drive toward health.

~ Don't Tell Me To Relax, by Ralph De La Rosa

How wondrous the affair of the faithful Mu'min, as there is good for him in every matter and this is not the case with anyone but the faithful. When he encounters joy, he gives thanks and thus this is good for him. When sorrow or distress befalls him, he is patient, and this is good for him.

~ Rasulullah s.a.w. (Sahih Muslim)

I was having a class about loving goodness for others, and someone shared this again. It's funny sometimes how words you've seen multiple times only hit you proper later in the future, and not now exactly, not necessarily the present moment when your heart initially twinges at an unseen-yet significance. I just recently reread a quote from Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, and this line really got me today:

...no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.

ohmyheart. There's this funny thing that happens when one strives and struggles; whether one achieves the dream is a separate story. You start to have to rely on something amorphous and intangible and something deep inside you that we often hear referred to as the inner self, the higher self, intuition, and above all God. It's almost like... through the striving for your dreams... you're meant to connect with the bigger divine purpose and reaching eternity, and even the dream you chase falls into its requisite lower but essential place, marking itself as the necessary signpost to the bigger scheme of your life. As you finally marvel at this tapestry, Alhamdulillah... what can you do but simply marvel. Everything, within this marvelous moment, is beautiful and good.

This is a very belated edit to this post, but I recently found a vlog that basically relates my exact fan-rant with such intellectual vigour, I needed to put it here. It is excellent.

---

I haven't been a proper fangirl for a while, and I also haven't blogged frivolously in a while. It's midnight and here comes a fangirl rant (somewhat). It's this whole issue of comparing apples to oranges; it's not the same, guys! It's a pattern I've seen, having belonged to multiple fandoms in my life. It happened when Harry Potter was compared to Twilight (or any of the other teenage fiction movie adaptations). And it's happening now when people compare BTS to any other kpop group (they are also not the Asian One Direction, please). It gives me a weird fangirl satisfaction to have loved two majorly phenomenal success stories (i.e. Harry Potter and BTS); I have been and am a fan of many other things too, like Supernatural, and Lymond -- but I know they are not huge. BTS however, is huge. Harry Potter is a legend. There are reasons why they've been successful the way they are. If you don't find out and love them too, your loss. BTS for instance, did not garner the support of people across all ages because they're just sexy boys who can sing and dance very well (although yes they sometimes wonderfully do that too); there's something bigger to their songs and dynamic and message and thematic stories they tell, that people fall in love with. Just please don't cheapen my BTS boys. They've sung amazing songs I will love till the day I die. Also, I will venture dangerously here and say, please don't compare BTS to Blackpink who, although talented, sang a terribly meaningless sexual song that made me feel so ashamed for the very girls who were singing. (Why are you objectifying yourselves!)

Just-- apples and oranges, guys. You can't compare them.

hey, I love Big Bang (because GD's musicality is still genius) but even they can't compare to what BTS is as a whole. It's different, guys, just different. I spent the other night revisiting super 10-year-old Big Bang songs that at the time I was obsessed with. I wonder if I posted Koe wo Kikasete here last time. I might have. I loved this so much I memorised every word, hahaha.

 

---

It's nice to be playful; sometimes being all adult makes me all the more serious (and I was quite a serious child to begin with). It's nice to revisit the parts of me that were light and fun and... life must be a balance, deshou. I keep having flashbacks to my early 20s when I had slowly learnt to love myself... and then I realise when I turned 30, I hadn't loved myself enough (which sparked a huge overhaul). And I'm loving myself more now than ever before, and this time it's so intertwined with loving God and the world, and understanding the bigger scheme of things. It's scary to think that there probably won't be a clear end to the growing and discovering; but amazing as well, I suppose, because what frontiers will I further uncover? How awe-inspiring is the reality of things and how much will I be felled over by the wonders of this universe? Alhamdulillah.

cogito ergo sum

Thought is the only power in the universe whose existence cannot be denied. When we discipline our thoughts, we place at our disposal a powerful tool from Almighty Allah. The control of this force makes us the captains of our souls and masters of our destiny.

...

Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality. Our thoughts are messengers sent out to influence our physical world. When they are emotionalized, they become magnetized and attract similar thoughts.

...

Let us keep our thoughts busy with expectations of the best and make sure the thoughts we habitually think are based upon what we want to see happen in our lives.

 

 ~ Discipline Your Thoughts, Unleash God Given Power Within You, by Ismail A. Kalla

"Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all those teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed."

- Terence McKenna

Much earlier this year, before the fiasco of Covid-19 that derailed many of our plans, I had joined yet another book club started by a beloved bookstore. It centered around topics of Islam and philosophy, and I was so psyched to dive into these mind-boggling, life-altering ideas. I had shared with several of my friends and current book club mates about it, but of course, as I had envisioned it, I found myself going solo (yet again, what's new).

I silently hoped that there would be other ladies in this group, just so I wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. I settled in a chair, waiting, and then very quickly a girl sat down next to me; we looked at each other and there was a moment's pause of recognition. Pleasantly, it turned out to be a senior from school! Someone whose face I remember but with whom in the past I had little to no interaction. But it was wonderful regardless: we caught up about who we were, where we were, and what we were up to in life -- and my God, I tell you, the warm fuzzy feeling from that moment still lingers -- because I had never felt so normal in my life. I just needed so desperately to not feel like an alien, and Alhamdulillah, there was this amazing, amazing woman who suddenly turned up next to me. There are women like me, who I think are awesome (there's a possibility I'm equally awesome too!).

Sometimes it feels like I'm flogging a dead horse on this topic, but not fitting into common moulds of society makes for a difficult existence. It is a struggle to be a woman (furthermore, from a Muslim minority group) and not have people make conclusions about you, and I have painstakingly, painstakingly, learnt not to imbibe the messages I get from the outside wholesale. I am not wrong, I am not damaged, the friends I have are incredible, I am cultivating both an open mind and a strong, faithful heart, which as I think on it, is a wonderful but rarely-achieved goal. My dreams will manifest in ways unimagined, and I have learnt that my road leads to my own destination, insya Allah, Amin.

---

A little unrelated but, this song is about taking on life happy and confident. 

(BTS should just be the soundtrack of my life at this rate.)

I'm diamond you know I glow up

---

When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of distress and anxiety; if I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without pain. From this I understand that what I want, also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me. There is a great secret here for anyone who can grasp it.

~ Rumi

Oh ye who cannot take a good rub,
how will you ever become a polished gem.
~ Rumi

I got to re-reading The Alchemist;
I don't think I understood very well
what it was all about the first time round.
But this time, I feel like I do.


"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night, as they looked up at the moonless sky.

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

"Every second of the search is an encounter with God," the boy told his heart. "When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I've known that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I've discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve."

So his heart was quiet for an entire afternoon. That night, the boy slept deeply, and, when he awoke, his heart began to tell him things that came from the Soul of the World. It said that all people who are happy have God within them. And that happiness could be found in a grain of sand from the desert, as the alchemist had said. Because a grain of sand is a moment of creation, and the universe has taken millions of years to create it. "Everyone on Earth has a treasure that awaits him," his heart said. "We, people's hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, toward its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them -- the path to their destinies, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.

"So, we, their hearts, speak more and more softly. We never stop speaking out, but we begin to hope that our words won't be heard: we don't want people to suffer because they don't follow their hearts."

"Why don't people's hearts tell them to continue to follow their dreams?" the boy asked the alchemist.

"Because that's what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don't like to suffer."

From then on, the boy understood his heart. He asked it, please, never to stop speaking to him. He asked that, when he wandered far from his dreams, his heart press him and sound the alarm. The boy swore that, every time he heard the alarm, he would heed its message.

~ The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

just revisiting this beautiful music video,

after a busy day. (work life has resumed!)

an amazing ted talk

with the coolest lady.

I do come back to this now and then,

and it's lovely.

 

So when you think about your identity,

when you think about what it means to be alive,

when you think about why you deserve to exist,

... you're not your thoughts, because you think them.

And you can't be your feelings,

because otherwise, who's the you that feels them?

You're not what you have,

you're not what you do,

you're not even who you love,

or who loves you.

There has to be something

underneath all that.

Wish I had known this way earlier in life,
but I'm glad I understand this now. (:
Insya Allah, I will walk this path gratefully.

"I hope by now you implicitly realize that when I say, "successful" I do not simply mean rich, famous, and powerful. Success is so much more than that. There are so many people who look outwardly successful but are inwardly impoverished. Indeed, in my thirty years of being a therapist, I've seen that more times than I can count.

Sucessful, in this context, means something entirely different. It means being your own ally, friend, and cheerleader, even when the world or your social network isn't doing that for you. It means seeing the inherent value in building up those around you because you know how to build up yourself. It means knowing that working towards your dreams and goals becomes a lot easier once you have your brain working for you, not against you. It means letting go of the stories and limiting beliefs you've told yourself or been given by your family and embracing the idea that you and you alone are responsible for the words and pictures in your head. It means being kind to others naturally because you're kind to yourself first.

What tends to happen when a person does all the things described above is that they become successful without even trying. They may not have pursued wealth, love, and fame so much as they did the inner work to address and change how they think. But when you're happy on the inside, good things tend to happen. What I often find is that people who have the outer trappings of success without the internal work are even more unhappy than those who live more modest lives. But those who have both -- outer and inner success -- are really on top of the world."

~ I Am Enough, by Marisa Peer

I recently started a Floortime certification course (a one-year-long therapy training on relationship building as a foundation for learning) and we had an orientation session where we introduced ourselves and our professions and what we loved most about our work.

I couldn't articulate it well enough at the time, although I did say something along the lines of being able to make a difference in the child's schooling life and participation as a motivating aspect of my work; but because I've been mulling in the dumps over the past 24 hours it came clearer to me what I love most about my work actually.

It's this moment I sometimes get with a child when he or she finally fully opens up and blooms; this quite exquisite moment you can almost see at times, as a spark in the eyes; they usually start expressing themselves no matter how much they can do so verbally or not -- and it is the most wonderful, wonderful feeling. It's like this moment when you feel they finally get that, hey, it's okay. It's completely safe here, and you can talk to me. This child just becomes happy, simply happy, and accepted, and will tell you a million wonderful things in their little wonderful ways, and they're not thinking about how they're doing or failing or lacking, or how adults are looking at them, or if what they're saying is silly. And typically when this happens, I don't have my therapy goals in mind and I'm just having a real exchange with this child, you know. It feels so good.

Today, it finally crystallised for me, that obviously I crave this in return, or craved this in my childhood past. And it's just so nice to at least be able to give it, in some regular way, in abundance. It's like some weird vengeance-type mission to not have any child feel not-enough. I am sick of people making the world difficult for other people, even if it be in ignorance.

This was partly triggered by this video I'd seen earlier today:

Selamat Hari Raya!

Nothing much else to say after that, other than maybe,
may blessings keep showering down on us all! Covid or otherwise.


I came across this short clip (although I think I had been previously vaguely aware of this),
and I need to post this here because I often pray for patience on my blog!
I should pray more for ease and blessings.
Insya Allah, Allah give me much goodness and bounty from You.

It's the wonder and mercy of the Prophet s.a.w.,

who always wants to make it easy and good for us.

💗

ooh-ooh and you're gonna be happy

❥  I'm really loving this song right now.

 

You know those days when you're sad for no reason,
Your body's heavy, and everyone else seems busy and fired up...
I can't take another step,
I feel I'm already behind,
The whole world seems so hateful.
There are speed bumps everywhere,
My heart crumples and I just talk less and less.
Why? I've been running so hard.
Why is this happening to me?
Back home, I lie on my bed,
I think, "Is it my fault?"
In the midst of this dizzy night,
I glance at the clock. It's almost midnight.

Will anything be different?
Probably not.
But even so... today is done.
When the hour and minute hands align,
The world holds its breath for a moment --
Zero o'Clock!

Ooh ooh and you're gonna be happy,
Ooh ooh and you're gonna be happy,
Like the snow that just fluttered down
Let's breathe, like it's the first time...
Turn this all around
When everything is new, at
Zero o'Clock.

---

I was out this morning to get my swab test done in anticipation of our returning to work sometime next month. This song came over my ears as I walked home and it was just timely and nice and filled me with such hope. So relatable. We all have those slug days (as E and I like to call them), but then this song made me pause, and think, It's okay; there's tomorrow. Come on! Halsu isso! Ganbatte. It made me feel less alone too; we all have such days, eh.

I'm a lot more cognizant and conscious now of my thoughts and internal verbal commentary -- so wonderful, hopeful songs like this (which I've always actually been a fan of) are extremely welcome. Listening to this song, walking a long slow walk home, and stopping by random open stores to do some shopping felt like an amazing blessing. It felt like...

yes, I'm gonna be happy now.

You care so much about why things aren't better,
that you can't let go and let things be better.
~ Abraham Hicks

The compelling thing I find about Jordan Peterson is that he is often able to put really abstract, spiritual, psychological ideas, or metaphors into these logical connections that you can't help but agree with. It's amazingly refreshing, and I find myself on occasion needing a little bit of his perspective, after delving into various topics. Especially if those topics tend to be very abstract and metaphysical and 'fluffy' in certain corners -- Mr Peterson puts you back on solid ground with those concepts.

Well, what else would come out of chaos? If you fall apart and then you put yourself back together, what is it that comes back out? Well, at least you were in better shape than you were before. Then maybe you do that 20 times in your life, or 50 times, and you do it voluntarily. Every time you do it, you're more like the thing with the halo and less like the thing that's being thrown overboard by your friends.

...

Just because something terrible happens to you, doesn't mean you get to wander off the path and make things worse. Maybe it doesn't matter how terrible it is what happens to you.

... maybe the only real misfortune is to become corrupted.


He makes it so clear to me. It's like, I know these stuff, you know. My religion tells me to be good, and kind, and respectful to my parents and all humans, and do good deeds to purify yourself. But Mr Peterson tells it straight and ruthless to your soul and addresses your dark impulses: oh, life is difficult, is it? Humans are mean to you? I'm sorry dude, you still have to play nice and play by the rules. It's not an excuse for you to be evil. And it reminds me of Joker, the movie, you know? That whole argument about society creating the very evil that torments it. Which has a lot of truth, certainly. But then is Arthur not at fault? He is still at fault, is he not, because no matter how terrible humans have been around him, his entire life, it doesn't give him license to be evil or cruel. At book club, we often come down to this dichotomy: this path that creates both the hero and the villain. A lot of characters are one or the other inclined. Because the very same excuses and circumstances that can drive one to horrendous action, can create nobility when endured and overcome. And it brings us to that other dichotomy about what actually has control over our lives and our destinies -- are we always a result of our environment, or do we have power over our lives (respectively democrats/liberals vs. conservatives, to be terribly reductionist, ahah)? I think I perhaps used to have too much sympathy for the former, but in recent times, I swing from one end to the other, I feel. (Oh, the ever elusive ideal, balanced position.) Perhaps when one grows and matures into higher awareness, it becomes more sustainable to keep middle ground, to have sympathy and empathy, and yet have solid control over one's decisions and path.

God, grant me equanimity and patience and the ability to see the right path.



And then later Datin S shared this beautiful excerpt about working through such things, you know.

"Yet the jungle challenges our spirit of adventure too. It invites us to risk the pioneering journey through the obstacles we meet in the long and arduous process of becoming who we truly are. It is no accident that so many archetypal stories tell of how the beautiful princess can only be reached by the prince who has the courage to struggle through the dense and fearsome forests to liberate her. We are both prince and princess in our own stories. There is a pearl of great price to be discovered, and it will only be found if we risk the struggle to penetrate the entanglements of our fears."



As a last bit to this compilation of new learnings in recent days, here is something I've learnt, about organising my mind, reducing mental noise, and having clarity. I used to talk about compartmentalizing thoughts as a necessity to coping with my used-to-be-uncontrollable-emotional-states, but thus far, it had been largely lip service. But here, I'd learnt about an amazing visualization process for my mind, that really tells me to go to a room in my head for particular tasks! I was super excited to discover this. Insya Allah, this shall be another step towards productivity! I often feel very defeated when I think about how productivity for me appears to be like a mountainous task and yet for other people they live with enviable levels of efficiency and I wonder how they function internally as humans (cough all the SJs in my life, cough) -- but I've learnt to appreciate personal goals and personal gifts.

 

Creating imaginary spaces and rooms (with accompanying decor haha) is super fun.

Prayer of Tremendousness

Selawat 'Azamiyyah

O Allah,
Verily I ask You by the light of Allah's tremendous Countenance,
that fills the pillars of Allah's tremendous Throne,
and by which Allah's worlds were established--
that You send prayers upon our liege lord Muhammad the possessor of tremendous rank,
and upon the family of the tremendous Prophet of Allah,
as great in magnitude as Allah's tremendous Essence,
with every glance and breath,
and as many times as the number of what is contained within the knowledge of Allah, the Tremendous,
with a prayer that is perpetual by the perpetuity of Allah, the Tremendous.
(This I ask) out of reverence for your right, O liege lord, O Muhammad, O Possessor Tremendous Character.
And send peace upon him and his family with the like thereof.
Join us together just as You have joined the soul (ruh) and the self (nafs)--
outwardly and inwardly, in wakefulness and in sleep,
and make him, O Lord, a soul for my essence in every aspect,
in the lower world before the Hereafter,
O Tremendous.

~ The Muhammadan Litanies, Shaykh Yusuf al-Nabahani

This makes me want to cry a little.
Mostly because I grew up with this but only now read the full meaning.
It must have been one of the first things I recited from memory as a child, just from having heard it read repeatedly around me (I've recently reflected as a speechie how blessed I am to have an exceptional verbal memory, Alhamdulillah).

I hope that even in ignorance, prayers can be answered.
I hope that in all our heedlessness, God will still be Kind and Generous.
Actually, in truth... what other state can humans be in, but ignorance. The flipside of gaining morsels of knowledge is realising what depths of ignorance one has been mired in. It promptly makes me feel hopeless, but then I come full circle to my earlier statement: to be hopeful of the mercy of the Divine.

Amin.

gentle

Currently having an arabic class but being badly distracted.
I was looking through my acquired collection of Rumi quotes,
and rediscovered one... that is lovely, and empowering.

The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.
~ Rumi

This resonates at the moment,
Alhamdulillah.
And may it continue to resound
in the future, indefinitely.



It reminds me of another quote,
that was hanging on a huge advert at the Tampines train station
for quite a long time:

There's nothing so strong as gentleness,
And nothing so gentle as real strength.

spoilers for The Last Kingdom, just in case!

 

 

 

 



 

currently utterly enthralled with The Last Kingdom,

and awaiting Season 4 eagerly.

I've been having a rewatch of this from the beginning,

and can I say: Uhtred is fast becoming my favourite fictional hero of all time.

He's about to dethrone Lymond, and I never thought that'd ever happen.

 

Yes, global quarantine time has afforded me the luxury of consuming entire blocks of television; and revisiting this story has been time awesome-ly spent, haha. Both objectively and fanatically, this show is amazing. I actually don't know why I haven't raved about it here before. I am a true sucker for hero stories, and for a long time, Lymond has topped my chart for favourite fictional hero. But now, I don't know, Lymond. Uhtred is utterly amazing. This story is a masterpiece, and quite underrated. I especially love certain character dynamics in this show, the likes of which doesn't exist in Lymond (not quite). And I think, that's what's tipping this show over for me.

 

The unique relationship Uhtred has with King Alfred is so compelling, and I dare say, is one of the best of its kind I've ever seen on television. Furthermore, acted to perfection. They are enemies or friends or rivals or allies, take your pick. The final conversation between the both of them at the end of Season 3 was so cathartic, and on this round of watching, made me cry like crazy. My goodness, I want to save that scene in my pocket or something.

And the pure, loving friendship with Hild!

I am not Uthred of Bebbanburg, I am not Uthred Ragnarson...

I would say, you're each and all of those men. You will only follow what you truly believe and that is no bad thing. The only thing you're not, is cursed. You're a free man. Your path is your own. You have a choice to make, Uhtred, that is all.

Then I choose you as my greatest friend.

oh my heart! ❤❤❤

 

 

 

Anyway, aside from Netflix, a lot of other times are still spent in front of screens, meetings, reports, and projects. I realised today that I haven't stepped out of my house since Monday, yikesssss. I know it's totally expected of circuit breaker, and I did share with Datin S, that you know, hey, the downtime is actually nice! I get to do the things I should be doing because I have no excuse now. But man, I miss seeing my friends. :( I miss walking out in the world. We had book club via houseparty video conference, and while it did happen, it was certainly not as fun as being physically with a group of people.

 

Ramadan is coming too!

May the times change for the better,

may we all pray better;

may this challenging time hide a beautiful blessing.

insya Allah!

 

Happy fasting, and stay safe and healthy, friends!