This journal needs a new direction.

Today, it gets just that.

In this paradoxical world,

one paradox is ;

the need to know politics to survive

& the need to keep away from it, to survive.

Straight as an arrow, the way to go.

22

I turned 22 a few days ago , it was calm. Amidst the stillness i had time to think and ask myself what the agenda would be for 22.

To do that, i first asked myself how 21 was. In concise terms, the input was good but output was near non-existent. The great change in me was my willingness to put down my ego in favour of learning, observing, analyzing. I listened to people, i tried to watch and understand things and i tried to be a better person, morally. I felt disappointed with my output, i knew that alot of time was wasted doing things that would not add up in the final count. After some careful thought, i am sure that it stemmed from an unclear direction ahead, which gave rise to a lack of motivation which ended up in, what is broadly defined as ‘lazy’.

But the lessons of yesterday perhaps, gives us a springboard to mount something meaningful today. I feel this year, will be about assembling the pieces together. It will definitely be about output, just doing, applying wisdom, doing, doing doing. There are a few things i have decided in this uncertain life, and they are that . . .

I want to be successful, i want to give my best in what i do, and i want to be a free spirit who’s not afraid to think big and do big. I want to live a life, not drag it. I want my life to have meaning, to know where i am going and to be certain that i am accumulating the right knowledge that will set my soul free as i live.

& i want to do all the above while remembering why i live for, and that ultimately God decides my fate.

Ok it is vague above and i feel the need to be specific.

22

- I will embrace guidance in living my life, i will enrich my soul and i will learn more about God and deepen my understanding on the way to live a righteous life. I will do it.

- Continue observing, learning, listening and analyzing. I will look out for the real world as i go along and i will seek to understand the human being.

- I will seek knowledge about anything and everything. I will sharpen my competencies in writing, reading, calculating,communications and decisions.

- I will try, to be financially independant, as best as i can.

- I will seek an experience , not a job.

I would like to take the opportunity of this fasting month to strengthen my focus and start the ball rolling. May we all appreciate our circumstances and strive.

God willing.

22.08.2009

Between appearances and substance

A friend once asked me whether I consider myself a Muslim. I asked him: first of all, what is your interpretation of Muslim? He then asked me what is my interpretation of Muslim. And I gave him my interpretation of Muslim: one who believes in God, the One God, and does what God commands, which is to serve mankind.

Then you are a Muslim, he said.

I know of people who set up Christmas trees every year and place presents below it and get drunk on Christmas Eve. They may even go to church once a year for Christmas Mass. But they believe that whites are superior to non-whites and the genocide of non-whites is no great tragedy to mankind.

These are not Christians.

I know of people who go to Mekah every time they face corruption charges so that they can pray in the ‘House of God’ for divine intervention in beating the corruption charge.

These are not Muslims.

I know of people who perform the pilgrimage to the holiest of temples every year and yet have scores of murders to their credit.

These are not Hindus.

I know of people who place altars and burn joss sticks every morning in their massage parlours that front for brothels.

These are not Buddhists.

To these people, they are ‘religious’ because they perform the rituals associated with whatever religion they believe in. But that is as far as their religion goes. Compassion and service to mankind is not at the top of their priority list. All their actions are guided by greed, lust, vanity, egoism, arrogance, and all those other anti-social attributes you can think of.

It is time Malaysians stopped ‘talking’ religion. Religion is not in the rituals you perform. Religion is not in the clothes you wear. Religion is what is in your heart.

Some Muslims suffer from a very serious fundamental problem. The problem is they do not follow the fundamentals of the religion. Islam is the religion of ‘there is no god but God’. See the small ‘g’ and capital ‘G’ in the two god words? It is spelt that way for a very good reason.

For that matter, many would argue that Islam is not even a religion. It is a way of life. You breathe Islam, so to speak. In other words, every beat of your heart ticking away ticks for Islam. You do not need rituals to prove you are a Muslim. The fact that you are breathing already means you are Muslim because when you breathe in and then out that breath translates to Islam.

If you do not grasp what I am saying then I can’t help you. It just means you look at things from a very superficial and on-the-surface perspective. You need to go deeper than that. You need to feel the pulse on your wrist and be able to say, “This is Islam.”

And that is what happens when religion, any religion, has been reduced to rituals, ceremonies and the manner you dress. You lose the essence of the religion. And this is when we start arguing about trivial issues while we allow the essence of the religion to pass unnoticed.

Does it matter what women wear, or how a man dresses, or whatever, when below those external coverings lurk maggots and worms eating away at our soul? I suppose this is a statement many religionists, Muslims included, would not be able to comprehend.

If we believe in God then we would believe that God created us. And would God play games with us by creating us of different faiths so that we may kill one another? All religions believe in the beginning of time and the end of time. And the Abrahamic faiths believe that we are all descendants of one man and one woman, the first two beings on earth.

Would this not then make us all brothers and sisters? And we may be brothers and sisters who follow different paths to the same destination but is this not God’s wish and something absolutely beyond our control?

Who are we to question God’s wisdom in making one brother/sister a Jew, another a Christian, yet another a Muslim, and others of the Hindu, Buddhist, etc., faiths? Do we know better what is God’s grand design? Dare we shun God’s wise decision by shunning those who do not follow that same path as us in arriving at the same destination?

Yes, this is certainly food for thought in a prelude to the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan. God has said He knows better what He has planned for us. Maybe it is time to not question or dispute what this plan is because surely, if he is really God who is the Creator of us all, He would have been able to create all of us of one faith and avoid all these disputes and killings in His name.

- No Holds Barred-

During this short time, I have learnt that it pays to take it easy, to stay calm and to understand.

I am slowly making peace with myself.

That’s the way to happiness.

& every night i remind myself of this fleeting life, that one day surely, it will fade away, as the fading sunset does.

I hope to come to You then, with clean arms and straight eyes.

Employability

Hire and promote / First on the basis of  integrity/ Second, motivation/ Third, capacity/ Fourth, understanding/ Fifth, knowledge/ And Last, and least, experience.

Without integrity, motivation is dangerous/ Without motivation, capacity is impotent/ Without capacity, understanding is limited/ Without understanding, knowledge is meaningless/ Without knowledge, experience is blind.

Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.

You feel right.

From the way you read me, to the way you think about things and … the way we work together.

I wonder, where all this may lead to.

‘I decided the most important thing in life is to have a target and aim for it, not to do it would be even more stressful, because in all of us is the desire to feel useful, to have qualities and to demonstrate them.’

‘For every passion there is a big price to pay, when you are hungry, it is only your stomach that is telling you it is hungry, it is just a part of your body. When you are hungry for success, it is the whole person, the whole life that wants success.’

‘I believe the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes art. You read a book and the writer touches something in you that you would not have brought out of yourself. He makes you discover something interesting in your life. If you are living like an animal, what is the point? What makes the day interesting is that we try to transform it into something that is close to art.’

- Arsene Wenger -

Dear Hakim,

Good things await the patient and steadfast, those who stay on the right path, never wavering. Holding on to the truthful promise of happiness.

- 11/08/2009 , 2300 -

It just wears me out. It’s not my thing man.

And for today ;

[20:124]  “As for the one who disregards My message, he will have a miserable life, and we resurrect him, on the Day of Resurrection, blind.”

[20:125]  He will say, “My Lord, why did you summon me blind, when I used to be a seer?”

[20:126]  He will say, “Because you forgot our revelations when they came to you, you are now forgotten.”

[2:286] … “Our Lord, do not condemn us if we forget or make mistakes. Our Lord, and protect us from blaspheming against You, like those before us have done. Our Lord, protect us from sinning until it becomes too late for us to repent. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our Lord and Master. Grant us victory over the disbelieving people.”

[2:201]…”Our Lord, grant us righteousness in this world, and righteousness in the Hereafter, and spare us the retribution of Hell.”

[7:126]… “Our Lord, grant us steadfastness, and let us die as submitters.”