I see the birds stretch their vast wings to the sky;
directionless, disordely, chaotic.
The melody of their chants anything but harmonic;
a unison of scattered moths
piercing through the Hejazi sunrise,
riding the zephyr till the midday sun overtakes;
but what can overtake
in a moment defined by serenity, intrinsically tranquil?
The disorder before, between and ahead is naught but juxtaposition
of simplicity and extravagance;
of guidance and aimless wandering;
of youthfully zealous voices echoing to scream over each other as 12 brothers fight for their father's affection; neither hither nor thither.
A moment of clarity,a dilemma!
The moon is contemplating whether to pack up and leave; its rays
drizzling speckles of illumination on a winding crossroads that winds neither West nor South,
but what can overtake.
and only as the birds resolve in their flight and coalesce with the winds of change
does their song pierce the heart and the skies become light
and the anxious Hejazi sun
takes stage right as all purpose becomes clear yet again.
Nope, that pink elephant in the room ain’t
blending into the walls. We are going to address this majestic creature and her
avuncular excrement once and for all!
Poo; crap; shit; faeces; excrement; doo-doo;
the brown python; the thrilla from manila; loose motions; chocolate log; bowels
on fire; poking turtle’s head; turd; faecal tart; and my favourite of all, King
Kong’s finger.
Phew, all this talk about poo has gotten me in
the mood for some frozen yoghurt (long story).
So I’ve been vegetarian for a while now.
Sure, it’s been great, and challenging, and an emotional rollercoaster, and all
that poo-flavoured balderdash, but let’s cut the crap, and smell the daal-speckled
pungency. No vegetarian account is worth anything, if one’s bowel movements
aren’t rigorously analysed. I understand what the people want, and no taboo is
going to stop me declaring my faecal experiences to the world.
Veggies have fibre. Fibre makes you poo…won’t
being vegetarian just…make you poo a lot?
The answer to that question is, quite
frankly, yes….a resoundingly glorious yes!
Vegetarianism is to one’s colon,
what Caesarian military rule was to Pontus – it comes, it sees, and you can be sure of one thing; it bloody well conquers! It is as if an invisible set of hands is
pushing down on your colonic tubes, like a fat kid trying to squeeze every last
bit of cookie dough out of the tube – your large intestine is swiped clean!
It has been said that the act of defecation is
one of relaxation at times – ok, who are we kidding – everyone loves a good, ol’
fashioned poo. It’s flippin’ fantastic! But as with all great things, there are
great lessons to be learnt. After all, it was Uncle Ben who said, “with great bowel
movements, comes great responsibility.”
*cue ‘How to Save a Life’*
Not everyone can poo. In fact, one of the
hardest tests people have to go through in my opinion is not being able to
relieve oneself of one’s own waste. Everything from urinary infections, to
paralysis of the sphincter muscles – how often do we relieve ourselves, and
then really express our gratitude for the ability to do so? Lesson number 1
I am grateful that my bowel movements have
been superb. I’ve aced the Bristol Stool Chart, but my vegetarian diet has
consisted of the finest quality things on offer to a casual vegetarian. I have
been eating fresh vegetables, fancy quorn meals, bean burgers, veggie curries,
different desserts. I have been paying as much, if not more, on my veggie diet
than I would have on a fully meat diet. The ultimate truth is though, that many
people around the world are vegetarian out of necessity, and many of these
people will not be able to uphold a healthy, balanced vegetarian diet. Whether
I’m eating vegetables, or animals, I need to realise that due to my situational
privilege, I am eating better than most in the world. Lesson number 2
I have learnt that one can change in their
own skin completely. For example, how many of us hated certain foods when we
were younger, and now crave those same dishes all the time? I could never
imagine a day without meat, let alone 45. The body is capable of doing
anything, and we need to get off our crappers and use this adaptability to its
full advantage. Lesson 3
So there you have it. 3 insights I have
gained from poo over the last month and a half. I pray that we can continue learning
valuable life lessons from our excrement. After all, Churchill did once say, “there
is no increment, without excrement!”
What on earth is age? A measure of how many
times the earth has rotated around the sun since one has been alive?
I mean, sure, it is a convenient measure of quantifying time. But why have we
chosen to standardise our laws, and interactions, based on this grouping of 365
times the earth rotates around its axis before completing one revolution around
the splendid sun?
Speak
English, Francis
So marriage age; driving age; legal age for
drinking; age before which one can be prosecuted. These are immensely
important, and yet we choose an arbitrary number as if this has the same effect
on everyone.
What about age groupings? People are entered
into various educational levels depending on how long they have lived. This
must follow the assumption that one’s biological brain development is largely proportional
to the time one has been alive. Is it convenient? Sure it is, but I don’t
understand how practical, accurate or effective it is. In fact, in the context
of education, I think this is remarkably problematic.
Different minds work well with different
things. In school, I would finish our assigned Maths problems within minutes of
the class, and wait around doing nothing until the class ended; whereas,
remembering dates and events in History class would take me far longer than the
average student. I was dumbed down by not being upgraded in Science classes,
whilst the humanities students were dumbed down waiting for me. But surely we
had to be in the same class; we were the same age! It is even more problematic
that so much research has been done showing the harms of ‘age grading’ and yet
it continues to be the standard in education.
I was a 10 year old who towered over my
contemporaries vertically and horizontally. I grew a mustache before many
(Pakistani genes: awkward pubescent phase hits right at birth). Many girls
developed breasts, and went through puberty at very different times, leading to
so many self esteem problems, and unnecessary psychological issues; yet, they were the same age; surely they must all Have developed at the same time. Why did the
fact that we had lived the same number of bundles of 365 days, qualify us for
the same treatment in the eyes of the law, educational system, and society?
Nurture most definitely plays a grand part in
one’s personal development. Whether we use a fluffy term like ‘emotional
maturity’, or something more concrete like ‘experience’, a 6 year old in Dagenham
will be of a very different age to a 6 year old in the tribal areas of Waziristan.
We all know 30 year olds who act like they are 12, and vice versa. We even know
that one’s biological age can be very different to one's ‘actual’ age. Depending
on one’s diet and extra-cirricular habits, one’s body can be much older than
the age. A 40 year old boxer will be younger than a 20 year old smoking,
drinking, obese person.
So
produce thy scientific rationale for taking age as thy weapon of choice for how
you judge me, and I shall produce mine. Let us see who comes out on top.
For anyone feeling down because their ‘birthday’
means they are a ‘year older’, let us think carefully about the most effective
ways of measuring people’s wisdom, maturity and effectiveness in society. I
assure you, age has very little to do with it.
So I have gone many years without missing a day of meat.
In fact, for most of my life, I probably ate meat twice a day for as long as I can remember, and the days I didn’t were considered days I hadn’t eaten properly.
Things did change in uni…however, providing that background, here is my 20 day reflection of not touching meat or fish to raise money for Syria.
I have not raised much money since I started. In fact, I have not been transparent with my journey whatsoever. I have been waiting for my Huffington Post worthy moment of revelation where I exclaim to the world that I feel the pain of those who can’t afford meat, or how I entered a state of deep reflection about our over-consumptive habits, and that this journey of a lifetime has created a changed man, and isn’t that just touching enough to get some donations for a ridiculously important cause – nope, I’m pretty much ok.
I wanted this to be something it wasn’t. I’m not climbing Everest, or jumping out of a plane. I’m making an ordinary lifestyle choice for a temporary amount of time – it’s kinda mundane, to be honest.
This reflection won’t be all melancholy rainbows and butterflies though, so here’s where the garam masala comes in: I realized that I can be a vegetarian. I can give up meat if I wanted. I found it surprisingly more difficult to give up fish, but heck, I can do that too. In fact, when it comes to MY choices, I can do whatever I darn well please – but I choose to emphasise that point because more often than not, we enter our psychological blocks that hinder us from progressing beyond a certain point – whether it is an aspect of one’s personality, a dietary style, an addiction, an emotion; we have control of our own bodies and lifestyles.
It’s not always a breeze – sometimes it’s the hardest thing in the world – but it is possible.
So with this statement of the obvious, I was smacked with the realization of my shortcomings. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very welcome slap in the face, because the pain of humility is sweeter than the anguish of ignorance – but I was able to realize how my problems are my fault, and they can be changed by actions, or at the very least, my mindset. I get frustrated by the mentality of blaming the world for everything, and so this reminder from my 20 vegetarian days has been of great use.
Second, I feel better. I feel healthier, and for some odd reason, I’m eating less. I have often felt that eating meat leads me to eating more generally, as if it inhibits some appetite regulating hormone (ghrelin #knewgcsebiowouldcomeinhandy). Even when I started going to the gym again, I found that I had plenty of energy, and to my knowledge, I had sufficient protein for muscle recovery.
Third, I genuinely do feel that a majority vegetarian diet is healthier and more ethical to the planet. I would love to get to the stage where meat is an absolute delicacy in my life, and perhaps this challenge has brought me a step closer.
Lastly, this has all been for a sole cause. Syria. She is bleeding. Syria is in flames, and the only way to extinguish this inferno is for us to bring as many buckets of water as we can fathom. I am not even 10 percent of the way to the 5000 I have pledged.
Help me get there, and help them in any way you can. Syria
Within a fraction of a moment, my life
flashed before my very eyes
I do not hold on to material possession too
much. If I lose money, or something of the sort, it ain’t the best day ever,
but I know I’ll survive. I hold on to health very strongly. As long as my
family, loved ones, and I are in good health, I consider the world to be
sunshine and rainbows. However, my one Achilles heel is my work.
After attending a cousin’s wedding in
Pakistan, I just finished transferring all the images and videos from my camera
to my laptop as I was waiting at the airport. I was looking through the
pictures, reflective and reminiscent over the last few days. It had been a
great trip. I had even managed to fulfill a dream of mine; filming to produce a
short video about a hospital that was built on the very back of my own
grandfather, who founded an NGO in Pakistan to treat children suffering with
Thalassemia.
Not five hours later, I arrived at the
breezy Emirati airport that brought back warm memories. I raced home and slumped on my bed, flicking my laptop open for a casual email check.
- No libraries available. Create new
library? -
I tried to click on 'Cancel' but I was not allowed to. IPhoto was open and this horrifying message just blared at me, taunting my existence.
Say wha’? Where ma shindig at, yo? My heart sank; I looked for every possible solution as the realization that every
picture and video I had taken for months had mysteriously disappeared. I was in
disbelief for many reasons, I thought thatI must just be technologically impaired. Deleting 5 GB from my computer
would at the very least take 5 seconds loading time, yet over 100GB of files
had just been made entirely redundant. No online solution seemed to work, and a
visit to the Apple stores brought some very consoling advice.
“Make sure you have a backup
next time”
This was an anomaly. There was no
explanation for this. Although a few more hours of research might have saved me
some expense, 75 pounds and a computer shop acquaintance brought me back every
last file.
This long-winded attempt at exposition made
me reflect on a few things. Technology rules us. Sure, we can produce a chip
the size of a fingernail that can hold our entire life but…. this is a chip the
size of a fingernail that holds our entire LIFE! Information has become
volatile. Memories have become fragile. Knowledge may have become more
decentralized, yet in a sense, it is corruptible. Maybe I am misconstruing the
situation, but all I know is, it’s sure as hell easier to lose Gigabytes worth
of information than it is to lose a few hundred papers. We are dependant.
My grandfather, God preserve him and bring
him joy and comfort, has all his contacts’ phone numbers in a chip far more
powerful than any; he can regurgitate them by memory. I can barely remember my
own. The great Sufi mystic, Imam Ghezali, was once robbed whilst in a caravan,
and the one thing he begged the thieves not to pillage was his book collection.
When one of the bandits jeered at him, remarking how knowledge has no value if
it can be lost in a moment, Ghezali vowed to memorise any further knowledge he
ever gained.
I started thinking of the difference
between one who is knowledgeable, and one who is wise. Who is better? If one is
able to apply knowledge, surely that is more useful than one who can blindly
regurgitate knowledge. The wise will always be reliant on his sources though.
The brilliant academic will still need to browse his libraries, and make the
same Google searches as us laymen. What happens when Google makes a no show,
and rare literature becomes impossibly difficult to find?
Sleepiness leads to pointlessness. These
are but thoughts. Thoughts remain temporal.
No one denies the magnificence of water. It is the single, most essential compound for the survival of life, whether hominal or not. In fact, under the assumptions that water is equally integral to extra terrestrial beings, liquid water is the magical elixir which astronomers search for in their quest to find out whether we truly are alone in this universe.
Water is frickin awesome.
But water is neglected; taken for granted; excessively wasted; unashamedly polluted; a front for one’s naval might; a front for one’s economic prowess; a physical anomaly; even a reason nations have gone to war. Perhaps, our worst crime is that we simply don’t think about water.
Today, I thought about water.
I was roaming around one of the world’s largest and most extravagant shopping malls today. Dubai exudes an air…comfort for many. After a succulently appetising dinner, I rushed upstairs as the time for prayer drew near. I was met by a queue of people waiting outside the ablution area of the prayer room within the mall. This was surprising, as this mall had more than adequate facilities to cater for the vast numbers of worshippers, boasting numerous prayer spaces. I found out that there was a problem with the water supply, and the entire floor’s toilets, kitchens, cleansing facilities had gone completely dry.
The feeling of not being able to cleanse myself for prayer in this ‘comfortable’ environment was eerie. As the time for my prayer was drawing to a close, I struck my hands against the cool, marble wall and set my palms against my arms and face. I performed tayammum, a ritual that was historically practiced in a complete absence of water, and so pure desert sand was slapped against the arms and face in a symobolic spiritual, stand-in ablution. The irony was not lost on me that I was standing in the middle of a desert, yet purifying myself against one of the most lavish walls I had ever seen. I thought about the odd sight of confused people, whose expressions revealed how rare an occurrence like this was in this sacred land.
Earlier this morning, I had read about a prayer for rain that had taken place in California. This prayer was a rarity in the Prophet Muhammad’s time, and yet a drought under the hot Californian sun had driven the American Muslim public towards times of desperation. Heavenly showers descended that same week.
I envy the chemists and physicists whose research revolves around testing and exploring the mysterious properties of this abundant potion. I take for granted many things in my life, but water is something I give very little thought to; however, behind water lies an absolute ocean.
"He sends down water from the skies and each channel starts flowing according to its measure, and then the torrent bears a swelling foam - like the scum which appears from metal which are melted in the furnace for making ornaments and utensils. By such examples Allah depicts truth and falsehood. As for the scum, it is thrown away, being worthless, but that which is useful for the mankind remains behind on the earth. In this way Allah cites examples to make His message clear." [ar-Rad: 17]
What is life? Love? Sex? Consciousness?
Happiness? Intellect? I am not asking what their purpose is – that is a
question for many a great philosopher, but I am quite content with why the
world does what it does: -
Rather, my question is, what does any of it
mean?
Are these all matters of the soul, which
can never be explained by the empirical world around us? Are they matters of
the unknown, of which we can theorise about for years to come as we have for
many years past, that we will never progress enough to fully comprehend? Are we
just not there yet?
Life has a purpose, but does it have a
meaning – what makes my life better than that of a rock? Is it any different?
What makes my consciousness, intellect or capability any better, and is any
suggested answer objectively true in all cases
What does it mean to breathe? Can the
creature that has not a heart, and needs no breath, breathe?
What about companionship? I hate to use the
word ‘soulmates’ but heck, what does that even mean? Are we made to be completed
by one individual, and is that the only way to reach our true perfection, or
epitomize our imperfection? So, that must mean that humans are monogamous
creatures…just like animals? (sarcasm is difficult to emphasise, so let me be
clear that my last question had a condescending air about it)
Do problems exist? Can we live without
problems, as conflict is the only way to progress, so surely they must be
instrumental to our being; or not? If we do need problems, then why do we lose
hair over them, and if we can achieve eutopia, then are problems an innate
creation of the psyche?
Are relationships trials, blessings or
both? Do human rights really exist? Who created rights, and what gives us
self-defined rights over other creatures? What constitutes being human, and
could a merciful bird or a fly be more human than a tyrannical, ruthless
humanoid?
Is the goal to life happiness? I always
thought it was, but I have no evidence for it; a happy rapist is no
hypothetical notion I can defend. Could true success lead to one leading a
miserable life (ie a life where one feels in constant misery)?
Can we ever really feel complete? Does the
notion that we can not ever possess enough knowledge haunt us, or empower us?
Each of us will only live for a finite number of hours, and thus can only
achieve a finite number of things – does finiteness strengthen us or render us
insignificant? Are our emotions just one big sinusoidal graph, with everyone
feeling the entire spectrum through their lifetimes, recurring in peaks and troughs?
I believe in objectivity. I believe in love
as an action, rather than a predisposition. I believe in time as the world’s
greatest weapon of mass destruction.
I believe many notions, ideas, emotions,
concepts, are simply misunderstood; I don’t claim to understand them. I believe
accepting we won’t understand everything has its own lessons and virtues. I
also believe it is our greatest weakness, that we blindly follow society’s
definition of concepts as if they are set in stone. Can the stone even exist,
if we remain in oblivious ignorance of it, or arrogant denial?
