What is it that sets brilliance apart from mediocrity?
That was the exact question I asked Google; and I didn't get any full answers. Then I thought of Malcolm X, and I remember writing how these elements are what appear necessary for greatness: sincerity, discipline, courage and wit. At the same time, I'm realising comfort is a pitfall for mediocrity. If you're too comfortable where you are, you're probably not struggling or striving for anything, which means you're bound for, if not already mired in, mediocrity.
Passion too. Passion is probably the catalytic element that drives everything else. Passion is something I find immediately attractive in other people.
I'm thinking about all this because some days, I feel myself sinking into pits of despair or traps of my own mind, when I think on the trajectory of my life and how it's all mapped out; thinking that this is it, the circumstances of my life make who I am; and I can see the ends of my predictable days living out a supposedly-satisfactorily mediocre existence. I need to lift myself above this. I need to be living reaching out for the stars.
Because of my faith, I have another world to aspire to, Alhamdulillah. But even as I live this life out, I aspire to be more than I am, more than this apparent trajectory. Bi irtibat bi Sayidina Nabi, insya Allah.
God, please please please make me bigger than myself.
Monday, June 26, 2017
eid mubarak!
Mostly, this is what this blog is:
but then, do I really want everyone to know?
It's more like, I hope at least someone somewhere will know.
Someone will find this beautiful, or meaningful, or touching.
A lot of people frequently post happy, amazing things about their lives on mainstream social media. But more often than not, when I come here to blog, it feels like the things that weigh heavy on my heart and mind are the ones that beg to be put on the page instead. And so yes, more often than not, this space has contained my lamentations and pain. Which is why, in general, places like facebook and instagram are not suited to me. I sometimes feel like I have nothing happy to post about (which is patently untrue).
And if this blog were the only representation of me, then you would perhaps think that my life was miserable -- but it isn't. In fact, tonight, we had a cousins meeting to plan our future holidays, and we cracked up so much about a lot of things while we planned. I was having a ball of a time.
But then as I arrive back here in front of the screen, in the quiet of the night, what comes to my mind instead are things that bring tears to my eyes. And I take refuge in this:
حَسْبُنَا اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ
For us, Allah is sufficient, and He is the best disposer of affairs.
Eid Mubarak everyone -- I'm still learning how to live life in balance, between hope and fear.
Thursday, June 22, 2017
There are some days, more often than I previously thought, when I wish I could find some song, some picture, some poem that can encapsulate all my thoughts, fleeting or pensive, and all my emotions, in their unique combination of both pain and pleasure, happiness and regret, gratitude and guilt. Because all the events of the past days typically accumulate together when I blog -- so which should stand out? which should I tell? when at this precise moment, they are roiling together to form one reflective experience.
*my dad is away in Madinah again to celebrate ramadhan and raya, and I wanted to tell him something before he left but I didn't
*another family friend came back from pilgrimage and told me of the duas she made for me (and for all the others she loved), and I just remember the love that I felt just having her think of me, and having her hug me -- thank You for putting such wonderful souls in my vicinity
*being back at KK a few times this month and realising how much I love my team, now that I am more often than not away from them. oh God, why is it that we frequently don't appreciate what we have till it's gone? and despite my thinking that I'm perhaps a picky, prickly person who doesn't befriend others too well, how is it that I've miraculously accumulated so many amazing people in my life, thank You, God.
*realising that the older I get, the more people I love, Alhamdulillah. what's this about aging being a terrible thing?
*learning to pick my battles, and to accept people who maybe do love me, but can't or refuse to understand me
*Alhamdulillah for being privileged enough to do the work I do; to be excited about the future of my work; to be energized about future projects; to be inspired by the people around me and the children I work with
*my dad is away in Madinah again to celebrate ramadhan and raya, and I wanted to tell him something before he left but I didn't
*another family friend came back from pilgrimage and told me of the duas she made for me (and for all the others she loved), and I just remember the love that I felt just having her think of me, and having her hug me -- thank You for putting such wonderful souls in my vicinity
*being back at KK a few times this month and realising how much I love my team, now that I am more often than not away from them. oh God, why is it that we frequently don't appreciate what we have till it's gone? and despite my thinking that I'm perhaps a picky, prickly person who doesn't befriend others too well, how is it that I've miraculously accumulated so many amazing people in my life, thank You, God.
*realising that the older I get, the more people I love, Alhamdulillah. what's this about aging being a terrible thing?
*learning to pick my battles, and to accept people who maybe do love me, but can't or refuse to understand me
*Alhamdulillah for being privileged enough to do the work I do; to be excited about the future of my work; to be energized about future projects; to be inspired by the people around me and the children I work with
meeting old friends!
I want to bring this cat home. ):
but my mum would not have it.
Monday, June 12, 2017
Something that stuck in my head from today:
Freedom from want,
is freedom to live.
---
On other hilarious news, this happened on tumblr,
and explains a lot of my fangirling:
Feel so validated as an INFP.
INFPs are awesome, yesssss.
---
Finished with The Pleasures of Reading in An Age of Distraction;
I tabbed so many pages to save quotes and points, here's one:
There is a kind of attentiveness proper to school, to purposeful learning of all kinds, but in general it is closer to "hyper attention" than to "deep attention". I would argue that even reading for information -- reading textbooks and the like -- does not require extended unbroken focus. It requires discipline but not raptness, I think: the crammer chains himself to the textbook because of time pressures, not because the book itself requires unbroken concentration. Given world enough and time, the harried student could read for a while, do something else, come back and refresh his memory, take another break... but the reader of even the most intellectually demanding work of literary art would lose a great deal by following such tactics. No novel or play or long poem will offer its full rewards to someone who consumes it in small chunks and crumbs. The attention it demands is the deep kind.
The way I see it -- I've always sucked at hyper attention. On reflection of my entire schooling and life before, I realise I'm really quite a terrible student in the traditional sense; I actually really hate sitting down and studying. On the other hand, I only ever succeeded at deep attention in random spurts on random subjects, typically out of my control, haha. So I would get really sucked into something but it would usually be something I didn't need to invest time in (i.e. unrelated to work or school).
Obviously, a smart person would have both types of attention and wield either when necessary.
Oh, here's another quote in the book from David Foster Wallace that seems to address my worry here:
Twenty years after my graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliche about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.
😱
Ah that delicate balance between flow and control. To be able to exercise some control about what to attend to, and then letting your faculties immerse into deep attention with the chosen subject matter -- is that the goal? Maybe.
It's true right; otherwise, our attentions will forever be swayed by the noise and stimulation that accosts us every day, via our screens especially, and by the outside world. We need to be able to choose what we want to invest time and attention on...
Freedom from want,
is freedom to live.
---
On other hilarious news, this happened on tumblr,
and explains a lot of my fangirling:
Feel so validated as an INFP.
INFPs are awesome, yesssss.
---
Finished with The Pleasures of Reading in An Age of Distraction;
I tabbed so many pages to save quotes and points, here's one:
There is a kind of attentiveness proper to school, to purposeful learning of all kinds, but in general it is closer to "hyper attention" than to "deep attention". I would argue that even reading for information -- reading textbooks and the like -- does not require extended unbroken focus. It requires discipline but not raptness, I think: the crammer chains himself to the textbook because of time pressures, not because the book itself requires unbroken concentration. Given world enough and time, the harried student could read for a while, do something else, come back and refresh his memory, take another break... but the reader of even the most intellectually demanding work of literary art would lose a great deal by following such tactics. No novel or play or long poem will offer its full rewards to someone who consumes it in small chunks and crumbs. The attention it demands is the deep kind.
The way I see it -- I've always sucked at hyper attention. On reflection of my entire schooling and life before, I realise I'm really quite a terrible student in the traditional sense; I actually really hate sitting down and studying. On the other hand, I only ever succeeded at deep attention in random spurts on random subjects, typically out of my control, haha. So I would get really sucked into something but it would usually be something I didn't need to invest time in (i.e. unrelated to work or school).
Obviously, a smart person would have both types of attention and wield either when necessary.
Oh, here's another quote in the book from David Foster Wallace that seems to address my worry here:
Twenty years after my graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliche about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.
😱
Ah that delicate balance between flow and control. To be able to exercise some control about what to attend to, and then letting your faculties immerse into deep attention with the chosen subject matter -- is that the goal? Maybe.
It's true right; otherwise, our attentions will forever be swayed by the noise and stimulation that accosts us every day, via our screens especially, and by the outside world. We need to be able to choose what we want to invest time and attention on...
Friday, June 09, 2017
I didn't want to do this, but I couldn't refrain.
V's deep, soulful voice adds to the haunting quality of this piece
and seriously makes me want to cry.
And just like Spring Day, it is not an outright sad song,
but a melancholic yet hopeful one that speaks so much of what life is.
It's about finding quiet moments away from the cacophony of our lives
to find peace in the quiet of mornings
with special persons, with whom pain is forgotten.
And may each of us have at least one of those.
At a dusky park
A nameless bird that sings
Where are you?
Oh you...
Why are you crying?
You and I are the only ones here
Me and you
Oh you...
---
A fan commented that the song reminded her of the Darkling Thrush,
and my, isn't this poem another lovely piece.
It's obvious that I am drawn to melancholia; and I remember writing some time last year,
whilst I was whiling away the beautifully quiet and peaceful nights in the tiny town of Plockton,
how the colour of my soul would be blue-green -- a calm bordering on melancholy.
Isn't this interesting: Melancholy as an Aesthetic Emotion per se. Reading this article seems to connect and explain the various pieces that make up who I am, I feel: reflective, imaginative, narrative-loving, solitude-prone, and my love for the Scottish highlands.
Solitude facilitates the imaginative reflection involved in melancholy. Imagination's role in melancholy is twofold. First, imagination makes associations between a present and past experience, and in this sense it has a role in causing melancholy. It connects a quiet beach to an evening stroll with a lover, or a Scottish landscape with the sound of bagpipes. Secondly, imagination is used to embellish or fantasize around the memories of melancholy, perhaps imagining our return to some place. Through fancy, imagination extends memories in a way that deepens reflection, and in turn this deepens the feeling. In these cases it is imagination, drawing significantly on memory, which provides the narrative in which melancholy is anchored.
V and RapMon from BTS released a song they made
leading up to BTS festa (i.e. their anniversary celebrations),
and this song called 4 o'clock pulled so much at my heartstrings,
I couldn't not post about it.
V's deep, soulful voice adds to the haunting quality of this piece
and seriously makes me want to cry.
And just like Spring Day, it is not an outright sad song,
but a melancholic yet hopeful one that speaks so much of what life is.
It's about finding quiet moments away from the cacophony of our lives
to find peace in the quiet of mornings
with special persons, with whom pain is forgotten.
And may each of us have at least one of those.
At a dusky park
A nameless bird that sings
Where are you?
Oh you...
Why are you crying?
You and I are the only ones here
Me and you
Oh you...
---
A fan commented that the song reminded her of the Darkling Thrush,
and my, isn't this poem another lovely piece.
It's obvious that I am drawn to melancholia; and I remember writing some time last year,
whilst I was whiling away the beautifully quiet and peaceful nights in the tiny town of Plockton,
how the colour of my soul would be blue-green -- a calm bordering on melancholy.
Isn't this interesting: Melancholy as an Aesthetic Emotion per se. Reading this article seems to connect and explain the various pieces that make up who I am, I feel: reflective, imaginative, narrative-loving, solitude-prone, and my love for the Scottish highlands.
Solitude facilitates the imaginative reflection involved in melancholy. Imagination's role in melancholy is twofold. First, imagination makes associations between a present and past experience, and in this sense it has a role in causing melancholy. It connects a quiet beach to an evening stroll with a lover, or a Scottish landscape with the sound of bagpipes. Secondly, imagination is used to embellish or fantasize around the memories of melancholy, perhaps imagining our return to some place. Through fancy, imagination extends memories in a way that deepens reflection, and in turn this deepens the feeling. In these cases it is imagination, drawing significantly on memory, which provides the narrative in which melancholy is anchored.
Besides my other numerous circle of acquaintances
I have one more intimate confidant -- my melancholy.
In the midst of my joy,
in the midst of my work,
she waves to me,
calls me to one side,
even though physically I stay put.
My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known,
what wonder, then, that I love her in return.
Søren Kierkegaard
The Darkling Thrush
Related Poem Content Details
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
It's almost halfway through Ramadhan, and as usual, time is going too fast and running out; and I have done barely anything good -- and my sis was telling me how I waste too much time, I knowwww, and my dad says: why you listen to stuff on your phone but don't read the Quran, I knowwww. I am an utter fail at staying away from my screens, especially now that a lot of my work involves journeying and lots of random wait time, that I fill with looking at my phone... noooooooo. I should look more at my Kindle but the pull of my screen is ridiculous. It is obviously a drug. I need some sort of Rehab.
Anyway, I just really wanted to record this before I forget: today, I realised how much I miss working with ASD kids. I arrived at one of the schools as per my normal schedule, and one of the girls not on my caseload -- because her needs were too high for the DSP mainstream programme (shall quibble about service delivery on another day maybe, in another post) -- was having a meltdown. At first, I kind of left the teachers to it cause this girl is with them every day what, right, so I was sure they had some set procedure to handle her. But after a good 10 minutes of this kid wailing away, some unconscious part of my system was triggered, and I couldn't hold back anymore.
I went into the fray with a few bottles of playdoh and just unconsciously did my thing, and the kid settled down within a minute. As soon as the kid settled down and got out of her tantrum mode, and I let the teachers have her back, I thought, a bit too confidently perhaps haha, ohmygosh, I'm a natural at this. Later in the afternoon, little girl S started off again because someone had forced her to do something, I think -- and you should know you can't force the rigid structures of an ASD world; she was stretched out on the floor resisting all pacifying efforts and screaming away. I came over again with my playdoh and I followed her lead for a while, and after a few minutes, I had her calmly fixing puzzles and brought her back to her classmates. At which one of the Chinese teachers asked me what exactly was my magic trick with her.
At this point, I felt gratified and thought, ohmygod, I'm a pro haha -- my years of Early clinic and my crazy hours of running after hyper kids around the gym has maybe really made me a pro at sensing what these kids need. This really does come naturally to me now, and I think I was itching to jump in when I saw what was happening with little girl S. Not going to lie, this makes me feel good -- cause the years of clinical experience has actually made a difference to who I am. Perhaps it's silly to still think like this, but I need moments like this to be able to tell myself, yes, S, you're actually a legit speechie.
And oh man, I do miss my special, weirdo, lovable, ASD kids.
Anyway, I just really wanted to record this before I forget: today, I realised how much I miss working with ASD kids. I arrived at one of the schools as per my normal schedule, and one of the girls not on my caseload -- because her needs were too high for the DSP mainstream programme (shall quibble about service delivery on another day maybe, in another post) -- was having a meltdown. At first, I kind of left the teachers to it cause this girl is with them every day what, right, so I was sure they had some set procedure to handle her. But after a good 10 minutes of this kid wailing away, some unconscious part of my system was triggered, and I couldn't hold back anymore.
I went into the fray with a few bottles of playdoh and just unconsciously did my thing, and the kid settled down within a minute. As soon as the kid settled down and got out of her tantrum mode, and I let the teachers have her back, I thought, a bit too confidently perhaps haha, ohmygosh, I'm a natural at this. Later in the afternoon, little girl S started off again because someone had forced her to do something, I think -- and you should know you can't force the rigid structures of an ASD world; she was stretched out on the floor resisting all pacifying efforts and screaming away. I came over again with my playdoh and I followed her lead for a while, and after a few minutes, I had her calmly fixing puzzles and brought her back to her classmates. At which one of the Chinese teachers asked me what exactly was my magic trick with her.
At this point, I felt gratified and thought, ohmygod, I'm a pro haha -- my years of Early clinic and my crazy hours of running after hyper kids around the gym has maybe really made me a pro at sensing what these kids need. This really does come naturally to me now, and I think I was itching to jump in when I saw what was happening with little girl S. Not going to lie, this makes me feel good -- cause the years of clinical experience has actually made a difference to who I am. Perhaps it's silly to still think like this, but I need moments like this to be able to tell myself, yes, S, you're actually a legit speechie.
And oh man, I do miss my special, weirdo, lovable, ASD kids.
Friday, June 02, 2017
Update!: One of my junior speechies found my bag of books! Ohmygosh -- happiness and relief. Thank You. I thought those precious books were gone forever.
Stumbled upon this while reading "The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction" by Alan Jacobs:
You need not see what someone is doing
to know if it is his vocation,
you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon
making a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,
wear the same rapt expression,
forgetting themselves in a function.
How beautiful it is,
that eye-on-the-object look.
W. H. Auden (Full Poem here)
Stumbled upon this while reading "The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction" by Alan Jacobs:
You need not see what someone is doing
to know if it is his vocation,
you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon
making a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,
wear the same rapt expression,
forgetting themselves in a function.
How beautiful it is,
that eye-on-the-object look.
W. H. Auden (Full Poem here)