Marriage & Death

No one seems to be visiting my blog. It's kind of a good thing, I guess. I can pour out the stuff in my head without worrying how are people gonna accept the dark side of my mind.

Having travelled for 2 weeks with my parents and 2 couples of their friends really made reality look clear- relationship-wise that is. Things that I've thought before but was buried because of change of environment resurfaced.
I've lost faith in the marriage institution, or to be more accurate, in long-lasting love. I accept marriage, I do not reject it, as it has been ordained by God. And I accept love, I accept its existence, I accept how people can fall in love. But seeing what I have seen, living where I live, I highly doubt love can last life-long...unless you die early.

I'm sick of seeing men, walking ahead and leaving their women far behind. I'm sick of seeing men handing stuff for women to carry, or leaving their heavy luggages for women to heave. I'm sick of men, fed and rested, ordering women, hungry, tired, to do heavy work even after the women pleaded for a rest. I'm sick of women, being laughed at by their friends for "trembling" at holding a 500 dollar dress because they know their husbands easily buy a 1300 dollar suit. I'm sick of women having to travel without being allowed to even know when their flight is, or where are they gonna live. I'm sick of women having to stand and wait because their husbands "went somewhere" and didn't tell them where to go. I'm sick of women being forced to agree to something just so their husbands can pride themselves in their power. I'm sick of men taking their so-called "love of their life" for granted.

I find the word "sayang" so hypocritical when everyone can see she has to beg for extra money, and that you think everything you say is right, and everything she says is dumb.

I find the word "sayang" so hypocritical when you throw hot soup in her face and throws her out of the house when you're angry.

But I don't know, like I said, lifelong-lasting love doesn't seem to exist....where I live. The men in the West seem to appreciate the women they love more. They may not respect women, in the way the Easterns do, but they make up for it in gentleman mannerism and when they fall in love, you can really see it even when they're all grey-haired and wrinkled.

Do I sound like a feminist? Or a Western-ist? I don't count myself as any one of those, though. Maybe it's because I have pride in myself as a woman. I'm used to make decisions for myself. And my decisions aren't whims. Why does the world treat women as liabilities? They became liabilities because you treated them as liabilities and  severed their potentials and nobilities. The world treats women as if they're lacking. But what women are lacking are actually the due respect that they rightfully deserve. The respect that God has ordained for them to receive.

I have my own head. I'm used to be given responsibilities and being pushed to my limits without being considered the difference in energy I have as a woman. I have my opinions. I have my thoughts. Why should I let another human being make me into such an unvalued being?

People fall in love. And that love that they've fallen into is beautiful. But when I see couples in love, I can't help myself imagining what will they be like in another 20 years. Will their "great love" survive? The kind of love which exists till death and beyond do exists, I'm sure. But, I think it's very rare. So rare that it'd be like a miracle to even witness one.

It's kind of a wake up call seeing these things again. I've been living among youths, and used to seeing young love, young married couples. It even came to a point that I took a step, kinda dipped my toe, into marriage, with these ideas and hopes that my life could be different, and pushed my fear of having my spouse be fed up with me after a few years of marriage and that I'd be taken granted for for the rest of my mortal existence.

Falling in love would be the end of me. I know myself. I can pretty much let myself go when I fall in love. I can't help myself when I'm in love...which makes me more convinced that it will be the end of me.

I don't wanna ever be in that state, of having a man take control of me and be the death of my soul. But, mom would be so sad. She's really hoping that I would marry as soon as possible. And she says I'll look so pitiful when I'm older and I don't have my children to take care of me, or if I don't have a child's home to go to during festive seasons. I don't wanna ever face that shame either.

It made me kinda of understand people who take their own lives. It's kind of... for once, being able to take control of your life, despite all the things and fears of things you can't control. It's a feeling of orchestrating the end of your mortal life.
I know. It's God's right. It is.
I'm just saying, I kinda understand why people would think it.
If I could live my youth strong, please my parents, and die early before I can shame my family for not marrying, and face the extra shame of having my organism to rot in the limbo of what people will call me "unattractive loneliness"
But, I cannot orchestrate my own end.
It is against God's will.
And I may sometimes be attracted to the things He forbids, but I do not go against His will.

And besides, I'm not confident of attaining paradise, but I don't wanna end up in the other one.
And, who's gonna take care of my parents when they're older?

Again, I say to myself: Sometimes, life is so hard, so painful...and there's no way out of life...

Darkness

It's dark where I am right now.
I'm currently hiding out.
I'm hiding out from reality, and responsibilities that I have to bear if I face it.
I bundle myself up in a world of my imagination, where darkness is my freedom.
A world so impossible, I paralyse myself in between these two worlds.

I open my eyes and see the person who is right now where I was before.
That person will not understand that I, at this moment, before her eyes, am being engulfed by a daze, a confusion of who I am, a hatred towards the world I am living. She will say this and that, but there is no solution without understanding the problem.
And she will not be able to understand me.
I have been there, where all I see despite blood and sweat is hope and light.
But I have fallen into nowhere, where all I see despite smiles and laughter is doom and darkness.

I close my eyes to avoid the realization that I am falling.
I don't want to see that I am falling.
I am falling and I will be broken into pieces again.
I don't want others to see that I am falling, I don't want to accept the fact that I am falling.
But, I know I am.

Now, darkness feels more like home.

I have always cared,
I have always bore weight on my shoulders,
I have always felt guilt for others' oblivion and ignorance,
how does it feel to not care?
To go about without feeling propelled to do something.
Do as you wish, and I will do as I wish!
Darkness is pulling me into this sweetness of throwing everything into the air and go
"Screw everything!"
And I will be screwed along with it.

Music in Parisian Metro

No one really visits my blog. Because no one really knows about it. The only ones who's been on my blog are my former murabbi, her mom ( I think), one of my usrahmates, my adik-adik usrah, one of my housemates, and some other random people who visited my blog once when I posted the link to it on my fb. Once.

I'm not so enthusiastic about people, random people or strangers, reading my blog either. Well, it's always a dilemma of getting my thoughts out there, and my conflicting nature of hating people who don't really know me, don't experience living with me and stuff- get to know stuff about me, my character, my personality, stuffs I like, stuffs I think about, which, to me, are personal.

***

In January, I went on a winter trip to France, England (London), Scotland (Edinburgh) and Ireland (Belfast). It was the longest winter trip I've ever went on. 2 weeks and 3 day. The last 2-3 days or so of the trip, I was totally "pancit". Didn't wanna go nowhere. Just wann'ed to sleep.

I achieved a lot, I think, from my winter trip. Learnt a lot about myself. Experienced the culture. Understood the world better than before I went on that trip. Survived the ups and downs of travelling with other people. Lots of things happened, lots of stuff. But I'm not blessed with the ability to beautifully transform everything I see into writing. Most of the stuff I see, taste, hear, experience, they're kept in the heart-they help me to feel more; in the lens of my eyes-they help me see the world in a constantly renewed perspective; and in my head- they help me understand human, the uniqueness of them, the culture, their association with nature and development, a whole lot better.

Oh, yeah. And I hung out with ma brathahh (my bro) in London. Hoyeahh!

One thing I do feel like sharing -though you may not experience the feeling of enlightenment and thoughtfulness that I experienced when this following realization had hit me, but whatever- a scene I saw in an underground Paris metro.

I was riding the metro one Parisian morning to go see Eiffel (or was it Pierre Herme?) with my 2 hommies (no, they're not my hommies) when suddenly  a song came playing. At first I thought, "What is this, they have the radio on in the metro or something?" But then, when I looked around, there was this old couple, around 40-50 years old I'd say.
The man was playing the accordion, while the lady, presumably his wife, sang to the music. They played and sang beautifully. But everyone in the metro was ignoring them, avoided eye contact with them, some even frowned upon them. She was still singing when we got off. I understood later, when I embarked on another metro and saw another senior lady singing a few rounds and then asking for money, that the couple must've had done the same thing.

"What's so enlighteni-"

I'll tell you what's so enlightening.
I, for one, just hate seeing senior citizens or anyone whose age isn't far apart from my parents', working hard, being ignored, having to ask crowds for money. I just hate it.
And the senior couple, oh my God, kept smiling throughout their gig.
The man was playing the accordion, moving to the beat of the music he's making, smiling non-stop while looking into people's face. His partner-the same, only she was singing. But people were ignoring them, people didn't look at them. The ones who did look them had 'annoyed' plastered all over their faces for having their peace in the metro disturbed.

Making music in the metro for some money

I wondered how the man could look into their faces and still keep his smile so bright and keep doing what he was doing, an act I highly suspect I am unable of ever carrying out.

Looking at this couple, while maintaining a polite smile -stretched enough so that they can see I was smiling and not just rudely staring at them, but not bright enough that they might ask me for money- on my face, made me think:

How they are able to carry on this marvellous feat, the reason must be one out of these two:

1) Either they're really really desperate, that frowning faces are just minor unpleasantness they have to bear compared to the mountains of problems hanging on their shoulders,

2)Or they really really love what they do.

In the context of being a daie, I continued thinking then, it's both.
It's a sunnatullah (something that Allah has made it fixed so) that being a daie, someone who's calling towards good and God, is uber hard, and there's always gonna be resistance, there's always gonna hatred thrown at your face, and as you are striving for 'al-haqq' (righteousness) to thrive, there's always gonna be others who does the same work for 'al-batil' (falsehood).

Nabi s.a.w faced the worst kinds of "unpleasantness". The ignorants of his time called him a liar, a wizard, they tortured whoever followed the message he conveyed, they plotted against him, they tried to kill him. One of those people was his uncle.
And yet, he persisted.

When he stood up on Bukit Safa', he called his people in a desperation and urgency to save them from the torture that is Hellfire.
When he stood in front of the Almighty in the deep darkness of night, he called upon Him in braids of unrequited love.

We may face a lot of pain, but we go on because we're desperate, and because of love. We are desperately in love...with Him.

Crazy and Obsessive

It becomes an obsession.

I remember travelling home with my dad from MRSM on a rainy day. My dad's the quiet type. More thinking. Not much talking. Reliable, but you won't be happy if you expect a loud and exciting time with him. But he talks a lot with me.

He was giving me one of his "talks". I don't remember what he talked about prior to what I'm going to tell you, but for the sake of reaching the understanding of what I want to share with you, I figure there's no harm in sacrificing the details.

The part of the talk that stayed with me until this day is a metaphor he described.
It goes like this:

If you're running a race against a young healthy person, you could finish the race in 25 minutes and still lose.

If you're running against an old person, you could finish the race in an hour and still win it.

The point to bring across is: the run shouldn't be about winning or losing a race in comparison with another, because what makes the winning or losing can be very subjective. It could be a motivation,  yes, but not the aim.
It's about keeping track of your records and making sure your run today is faster than the day before, which in turn was faster than the day before that.

Here, the aim you want to reach plays a leading role.
Because if you aim to beat an old man in a race, you'll live your days in a way, that you'd have just enough to beat an old man.
But if you aim to be the fastest person in the world, then, training to beat an average youth is just a step you have to go through.

And now, we come to this. Obsession.

It is known than humans can obsess and become a madman, crazy over a whole lot of things: money, fame, women, grades, human approval, attention, romance and intimacy, grades, etc.

The obsession towards an aim propels you to spend each second of your waking moments thinking about it: devising, planning, plotting, working, calculating, whatever possible to be done while going about your day....Nay, even the world around you shall be part of your massive plan in reaching the aim!
Your life shall be lived to reach it, your soul shall be offered to it!
You shall be known as Majnun (the crazy one) as you lose yourself in the madness of the obsession!
....that you have not been called Majnun yet...
simply means you are not obsessed enough...that is, if you've shown any obsession... at all.

"So remind [O Muhammad], for you are not, by the favor of your Lord, a soothsayer or a madman." At-Tur:29

But, what happens when the obsession is directed towards a faulty aim? An aim, capable of changes, capable of weakness? An aim, hailed from creations?

And not the Creator Himself?

Know, that
No aim is greater than He, the Creator Himself.
No obsession is greater than that towards Him.
No journey is more fitting of sacrificing your time, your possessions, your soul than one to reach Him.

Creations can disappoint you. The Creator does not.
Creations may overlook your sacrifices, may leave your obsession towards them unreciprocated. But, the Creator offers you Jannah in return.

How I wish I were a Majnun...a Majnun for the One I should love the most!

Alas, what am I obsessing over, instead? What fills my mind day and night?

Oh, how I wish I were a Majnun...a Majnun for the One who loves me the most!

Then, the idea of meeting You would be so sweet, instead of bringing such a fright!