picture in my mind

I really appreciate my new work life, the independence that it affords me. There are days I actually work entirely from home. I marvel at how I've sort of attained what I wanted in such a short time span, Alhamdulillah.

I realise though, I am reverting to my uni days lifestyle, where I sometimes sit in front of my computer or with my books, being distracted by everything else in the world but the work that I need to complete. Even right now, when I should be churning out my reports, I have decided I need to blog. (How is it that blogging has become a need for me. What an excuse, S.)

I have yet to succeed in overcoming my lack of discipline; or as Gustav in my most recent book-club-read The Gustav Sonata said, I have yet to master myself. On the topic of self-discipline, I am also often reminded of Nikola Tesla, whose account of his concerted efforts at self-discipline resulted in amazement at how, ironically, it led to him eventually being able to do what he truly wanted to do. Self-discipline is the key to achieving one's potential, but how do I become disciplined and not kill all my natural curiosity and whimsy? I cannot say that I actually regret my time reading random things or watching random things because I can add to my experience of knowledge and culture; some of the most amazing things I've learnt have been discovered in this serendipitous manner.

*claws* I actually do think that the nafs/appetitive self should be treated more or less like a child. If you keep indulging it, it gets spoiled. I've long taken to picturing my inner monologue as such (for my own self-amusement mostly, haha): 4 entities in my brain, with Aql or The Brain being the bossy one; The Heart being the needy, weepy, emotional one that annoys the hell out of Aql (the relationship between my heart and brain are nowhere as chummy as Awkward Yeti's; my Brain is really mean to my Heart -- I obviously have issues); a Spiritual entity I call my Ruh who is wise and says all these platitudes but is largely ineffectual and hence garners the contempt of Aql; and my Nafs which is a child-monster who doesn't speak but wreaks havoc (like a Hulk-monster thing) when Ruh forgets to put him on a leash. There have been many instances when Aql has tried to persuade Ruh that we should just throw Heart off a cliff or something because she is essentially a nuisance and a hindrance to all sorts of progress, but then Ruh will try to calm Aql down and convince Aql that there's something special about Heart we don't understand so we have to keep her. Ahahhh obviously this is some weird version of Inside Out the movie.


how did I get to all that when all I thought I wanted to do was share this excerpt from Oliver Sacks last essays before he passed on, Gratitude:

I have been increasingly conscious, for the last ten years or so, of deaths among my contemporaries. My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is fate - the genetic and neutral fate - of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.

My predominant feeling is one of gratitude, I have loved and been loved, I have been given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

This is amazing -- except that I now realise how much of an atheist he is, because he had to put in there: the genetic and neutral fate, as though there was never any possibility ever that one's fate is in the hands of anything else. Which I find strange because the concept of fate... it'd be interesting to discuss fate with someone who has no notion or faith of anything supernatural, much less divine. And to have such gratitude as well; to whom would you be grateful then, if not God?