Words like violence
Break the silence
Come crashing in
Into my little world
Painful to me
Pierce right through me
Cant you understand
Oh my little girl

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

Vows are spoken
To be broken
Feelings are intense
Words are trivial
Pleasures remain
So does the pain
Words are meaningless
And forgettable

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

Enjoy the silence

—————————————————————————————–

“Girls talk too much” - Peter Pan

We all know it - we women love talking. This can be very charming actually - sometimes you’ll chirp along like a little child. Many times, however, it can get us into trouble.

Aside from the obvious pitfalls of talking too much - gossip, wasting of time, empty-headedness - in a marriage, often speaking messes things up. For example, as women we tend to just sort of comment on everything or mother the situation “oh, we need to do such and such” or “watch out for that”. We call it caring. Guys call this nagging.

On top of it, we tread dangerous waters when it comes to speaking about our relationships. Most guys really can’t articulate how they feel, or if they do, it comes out dumb or just plain hurtful. So save yourself some pain - just don’t delve into too many issues on how a guy “feels” - you might not like what you hear. Sure, it’s the “truth” but many of us can’t handle it. So why go there. It’s usually an unnecessary misunderstanding anyway.

Say you have a guy and a girl sitting there. The girl says “What are you thinking about” and the possibilities are beautiful - how much he loves her, how beautiful she is, how he’d give anything to be with her. What he says is, “work” or something worse. So what’s the point - I mean if he tells you how he feels, great. But until then, don’t hold your breath.

A self-respecting woman will be quiet a lot of the time. Get a life of your own, don’t nag, don’t speak if not necessary. You know what will happen? The guy will have a lot more respect for you, and even interest. Speaking too much causes you to lose your upper hand (in charm and stuff). So try it sometime - let your eyes, your body speak.

And keep your mouth shut. : )

I would catch you
I’d catch you as you fall
I would catch you
I’d catch you if I heard your call

But you tore a hole in space
Like a dark star falls from grace
You burn across the sky
And I would find you wings to fly
And I would catch you
I would catch your fall

- Bono on “Slide Away” with the deceased Michael Hutchence

“Every soul shall taste death.” (3:185)

There is ijmaa’ah amongst mankind that death is inevitable. Yet many Muslims do not realize that for a believer, death is what our lives are really all about. For some reason, unless one is talking about sacrificing oneself literally in Allah’s Way (and even then), there is a predominant culture or attitude of judgement, simplistic assumptions, or derision upon anyone who prefers death.

The first assumption many people make is that the person who has a death wish has it due to weakness. Of course, if life is hated due to fear, ingratitude, or cowardice, this is a fault. Yet for many people, especially the “soulful” types, death is very appealing, and not simply when one is sad – in fact one can feel that way even when feeling the most calm or firm in faith. Many people simply do not find life to be so enjoyable that it is fulfilling or desirable in and of itself.

Some people I have heard even deny that “depression” or mental problems exist at all. Alhamdulillah, Allah acknowledged that “sadness” exists and that if a believer is patient upon it, she will be alleviated of sins. “Nothing strikes a Muslim – no fatigue, illness, worry, grief, hurt nor sorrow; not even a prick of a thorn – except that Allah wipes off due to it some of his sins.” [Bukhari and Muslim] Subhanallah, even the prick of a thorn. This should cheer up the perpetually morose. Allah knows your pain.

The most common belief is that a person who is of melancholy nature is a tormented, deviated sinner. This may be true, but is not always the case. Imaam Al-Bukhaari, rahimahullaah, made a du’aa at the end of his life for Allah to take his life. He was plagued with sadness. One of the most heart-warming examples of Allah’s Compassion and Mercy is from the Quran itself. “And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a date-palm. She said: “Would that I had died before this, and had been forgotten and out of sight!” (19:23) This was none other than Maryam, mother of ‘Eesa ‘alaihimas salaam. I remember when I had my children a lot of sisters would look down on others due to different ways of dealing with pain, etc. and I felt that it was amazing that one of the most honored and pious of women was quoted by Allah in His Noble Book. Sometimes things do seem unbearable and Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware.

And lastly, the Sahaabiyaat radhi’allaahu ‘anhum used to pray “O Allah, if life is better for me, then give me life and if death is better for me give me death.” Basically sometimes life is a fitnah. Sometimes pious people would simply wish they were dead or did not exist due to their fear of Allah and fear of the sins they had commited, etc. The famous statement of ‘Umar radhi’allaahu ‘anhu where he said he wished he was a tree or a stone is well known. So it is ironic that sometimes death is not wished for due to the negative qualities one would assume are associated with it, but that in fact it could even be a sign of a person’s asceticism and understanding of the true nature of life.

“O you who believe! Fear Allah as He should be feared and die not except that you are Muslims.” (3:102)

I am a slave and have come upon

The days of devotion, one by one

Twenty-nine or thirty, as the crescent counts

I will sacrifice myself if my limbs be sound

My belly will gnaw me

My hands will withhold

My tongue will be silenced

My passions cold

My head will feel

And my heart will think

The Hereafter will be here

And the present shrink

My Lord is One, but I am not

There are millions like me enslaved to God

The toil of today becomes a passing vision

As we return to our Master and the innate Religion

[originally published on IslamicNetwork.com, 2005]

I have thought about killing myself off and on from when I was a teenager. I’ve been severely depressive since I can remember. I’ve been told I should be on anti-depressants. I know it sounds dumb, but I hate medicine - I won’t even take a Tyelonol most days. Also I tried it once and it dulls you till you don’t care about anything in life - sure, you don’t want to kill yourself but you don’t exactly want to be alive or care if you are.

Everyone thinks it’s something they can “talk” you out of, but it’s not true. At that point it is so heavy of an emotion, that it blocks thought. For example, if someone has a phobia of spiders, you can tell them that “it’s harmless, it can’t hurt you” but even if they know that in their brain, they can’t get their body/feelings/nerves to comply.

The one thing that is helpful, though, is the love and care of someone you want. If you don’t want them, it’s actually annoying and can irritate you to the point you want to kill everyone else too. But what if that doesn’t happen? What if you have no one like that? Well, then you’re screwed unless you can build up your emaan and be strong.

I know a believer never gives up hope and I know it is forbidden. Yet at that moment, even though you know “inna ma’al ‘usri yusraa” - you can’t for the life of you hold onto it. It’s something you can totally believe and remind others with when you’re not feeling that way lol. And of course, afterwards, you can wipe your forehead and say “yup that’s so true”. But at that moment? You draw a total blank - it’s like you’re drowning in a sea of blackness and you have no straw to grasp and you are just panicking and flailing around but not doing anything rational or positive.

And the worst is that you are so desperate you think - maybe Allah will forgive me if I really can’t take it. I know that is a trick of the Shaitaan, his feeble little straw which he holds out to you. Or you pray to Allah, please let me die.

I have actually “killed” myself before - I took the pills. But I was saved, not by any person, and not even myself, astaghfirullaah. But it just happened - my body vomited them up in a spew of blackness (literally).
It’s not that I don’t try - I really do try to be patient, make du’aa, etc.

But really only Allah can save you in the end.

[originally written a few weeks ago]

I don’t really believe in philosophy. But then again I do. Ayn Rand told me that I need philosophy. I don’t know about that. It all depends, of course, on how you define it.

If philosophy is merely thought or systems of belief, then yes, I do believe in it and have naturally partaken in it my whole life. But if it is that very lofty science studied in universities and dabbled in at coffee houses, then I actually do not believe it has produced much in the way of consideration. (By the way, my parents were appalled when they thought I was going into PSYchology, imagine their reaction when they found out it was PHILosophy.)

There are advances in science, medicine, even the arts if, aside from the early development of say, perspective, pushing the envelope and altering the way people view subject matter are considered advances. Yet, what are the recent developments in philosophy? Was it groundbreaking when Frederick Nietzsche declared that “God is dead”? The idea has been around since almost the beginning of humanity. I mean it was no modern cynical viewpoint - people rejected the messengers and prophets from way back. I guess he just had more elaborate reasons for positing his view. Maybe philosophy is simply the possession of eloquence.

So what’s new? The idea that philosophy is not as fruitful a science as one would have you believe has been termed “post-analytic philosophy”. Yet the irony is that post-analytic philosophers essentially utilize analytic philosophy to arrive at their conclusion. The basic idea is that every argument has an assumption, which of course, has a proof behind it, which begins with another assumption ad infinitum. One can never really prove anything.

But wait, I’m not necessarily saying that. Philosophy as a whole does contain some useful components. I do think logic is useful and often utilize it myself. It would be inane not to use logic in our daily lives – in court, in astronomy, even in other arenas such as politics and religion. So I do believe logic and reasoning have a place in life and are natural facilitators for thoughts and conclusions. I simply don’t think they are adequate tools to measure every facet of life. Some things defy logic or cannot be contained therein.

Aside from the obvious exceptions to the absolute dicta of paper-and-pencil logic such as love or faith, I mean I don’t even think philosophy capable of proving anything. I don’t even mean in the post-analytic sense, where I reject the idea as a logical impossibility, but I just haven’t come across a proof that actually works.

Let’s take Renee Descartes for example. I have the highest respect for this fellow. He was brilliant, a genius. Yet his famous proof “I think, therefore I am”, often considered by analytic philosophers to be one of the few bullet-proof proofs, often bewilders me.

First of all, I believe proving existence is a very different case than proving other things. For example, if you are saying that plants contain chlorophyll, and trees are plants, therefore trees contain chlorophyll – you are taking a subject: a plant, and proving something about it. However, when discussing existence, how can you “take” something which has yet to be proven? Are you not presupposing existence by referring to it or mentioning it? In this case, Descartes begins with “I”. The “I” seems to be well-defined for all intents and purposes yet the argument is supposed to prove its existence? It seemed a tautology to me throughout my college years (by the way I am a philosophy major dropout – surprise, surprise). So in logical terms he seems to be saying “A is B, therefore A is A” (A referring to the original subject, B referring to its state of being, and the conclusion proving what it presupposed).

Another point: since Descartes is actually using the “I” in both instances, can we not translate this into a mathematical supposition? He is basically saying: A is B, therefore A is C (A referring to the original subject, B referring to its attribute, the conclusion stating that A therefore possesses a second attribute). This does not make any sense mathematically. Can we interchange it then with any quality of existence? For example, if something is pink, then it exists since pink is an attribute or quality of existing things. So the cat is pink, therefore it must exist? Or “I eat, therefore I am?” (I think I’ve read funny T-shirts or mugs like that come to think of it! I think they had to do with golfing or something. Oh, how droll that a commoner can overturn an elevated intellectual *snicker* though probably unintentionally.)

In other words, is existence exclusively tied to thinking or can it be traced to other “existentially essential” attributes or activities such as “feeling” (which I think is one of the penultimate characteristics of human beings – think artificial intelligence; I don’t mean existence is tied to human beings, but that Descarte’s original problem was how would we know if we didn’t exist but were misled/deceived to think we were, thereby eliminating most sensory perceptions; perhaps he did equate feeling with thinking)? After all, there are a lot of things which exist which don’t think. Republicans, for instance.

For the record, I totally get what Descartes means, and is why I think this argument is brilliant and worthy of its fame, but “getting someone” just doesn’t seem to cut it for analytic philosophers. (I remember having a discussion with my professor where I exasperatedly asked, “Don’t you get what I mean?” and he said, “No”.) I think Descartes is right, just for the wrong reasons.

I remember in my intro to philosophy class we were talking about logical possibilities (particularly related to discussions about God). And we were discussing how ideas (such as God) could be incoherent- in other words you could have a concept which just wasn’t possible logically, such as a 4-sided triangle since a triangle by definition was a 3-sided object and if an object was 4-sided it defied being a triangle – hence a contradiction which couldn’t exist. And the professor went to the board and talked about all the “possible” and “impossible” things and what struck me is he drew a diagram on the board. So there we were actually looking at a sphere of “impossible” things which didn’t exist – and we were looking at them (well, looking at a depiction of a category of them) and talking about them, but they didn’t exist! I mean, it’s almost like they DID exist if you know what I mean. (uh, “no”)

Anyway, I’ve always been “philosophical” – people always told me I was too “deep” and I had trouble making/keeping friends due to my frightfully serious conversations and lack of social skills. I went into philosophy because it was natural, as I was always pondering things (in fact in my 2^nd year of college, when introducing myself as the teacher suggested by telling our hobbies, I precociously said, “thinking”, not meaning to be stuffy, but just honest), and I was never so excited as getting my hands on a really original, well articulated idea. I was an idealist, and felt that I could find the answers to life and then go and live them. I really ended up finding that while it wasn’t too hard to disprove almost anything, it was almost impossible to prove anything.

So it was a lot of fun, but not very useful. I still can’t really stay away from it, but I don’t think of it as anything more serious really than playing a game of solitaire when I’m bored. I remember a lot of Muslims telling me it would screw me up to delve into manmade ideas and that I would be misguided and lose my religion. I was naïve and thought that I had nothing to fear since I had the Truth. It turns out I was right to be idealistic, but I can see their point. I do think it’s not for everyone. But what I found out was that in the end, religion is one of the few things out there with actual answers.

So is it just me, do I just not get it? I honestly can’t tell. And I certainly couldn’t prove anything I’ve said here one way or another - I can only hope for the best, that I was “eloquent”. My brain sometimes feels wrapped around itself when I think too much. I figure either I’ve made some brilliant (ok, I’ll settle for good) points here or you have simply been privy to the ramblings of the insane.