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.

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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.

 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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