“While I certainly had no trouble in finding somebody who disliked me or hated me, I did have to go through quite some trouble to feel appreciated or loved. And what I found after succeeding in finding the latter was more fear and pain. The memories of a past lover visited me after I made love and harmony with Cherry. Am I that generous, sympathetic and charitable when in times of joy? Should I be more cautious of happiness then as it tends to sell me out more than grief and sorrow? I remind myself that Cherry deserves happiness too. She deserves the happiness that comes from me and the happiness that we create together. Yes, I shall be careful not to drown in that sorrow born from empathy. I shall empathize more with Cherry who is in fact present and with me. Though I must say the past ghosts can put up a good fight in times that should be of joy. I wouldn’t say that this specific ghost I’m speaking of was actually an evil one. Which is why she haunts me in my moments of joy with Cherry. Still, above all Cherry deserves my love. The past should not have left and ended up as ‘the past’. You never leave somebody you love. I hope that what I just said does not come back as a curse instead of being just a statement. I will not be frightened to death of the happiness I deserve although it may be fleeting and scarce.” – Ruminations In Dissidia, May 28th
“Stoicism is for Silver Men, for spirited men in the republic who are going to be our guardians. It’s an excellent philosophy for military men and for public leaders if they intend to be virtuous, if they intend to pursue the public good. And stoicism is characterized by the rejection of human pleasure as the standard of happiness and felicity.
Stoicism takes the position that the wise man, the good man, the philosopher must live in accordance with nature. He fears only abdicating his moral responsibility.
He is not afraid of pain, He is not afraid of death. He is not afraid of poverty. He is not afraid of the vicissitudes (misfortunes) of human condition. He fears only that he should let himself down. And that he should be less than a complete man.” – Professor Michael Sugrue
The old gods were right. And we have forgotten them. What ill lies before us if we betrayed them? When Nietzsche said that “God is dead and we have killed him” it was not out of pride nor victory. It was more like a lament. A warning of our own curse. Our modernity is our own curse. We thought the ones before us were such fools. Apes of the past. The unenlightened. How funny it is that we are worse in spite of everything we are blessed with.
We have replaced wisdom of the old gods with Twitter wisdom and useless quotes that have no real suffering in them hence no real world value. Empty words that mean nothing but shit. We chew it up just to feel good but do not improve ourselves. I am ashamed.
The generation before us, Salinger, Hemingway, and the likes still had the passion to live and thrive. They lived closer to death than us. World wars. Young men took their own lives when they were refused and rejected from participating in the theaters of war.
We take pride in our intoxication of drugs and alcohol. But are we any more spiritual than Jung? Do we even dream anymore? We have forgotten the meaning of dreams. We discard it as meaningless. We put our nihilism on display claiming to know real sadness but have we really suffered anything other than our own stupidity? Vanity in vain.
I am reminded how Jung grew old only to loathe his time amongst us to the point where he would only want the company of a worthy friend for only an hour and we waste every second as if we were to live forever but what good is immortality if we ourselves do not act as immortals should?
We have prophets walking among us. But we long for the dead prophets without truly understanding their sacrifices. If only we’d pick up our cross and carry it ourselves. We would be amongst the holy ones ourselves. But are we ever grateful in spite of our suffering?
To Those Who Cross Our Path
To the fool who thought he was king, let it be known that a king’s sacrifice is larger than the servant’s.
Let it be known that there will be responsible kings amongst the tyrants, fools, liars and cheaters. Their sacrifices will be unparalleled. Their sorrow, melancholy and depression will be untreated with only death as a sweet release. Not because of their mortality but because of the size of their hearts.
To the cowards who thought they were courageous courage is grace under pressure and you have never been gracious in your so called adventures.
Let it be known that there are heroes and knights who will continue to save lives. Unnamed.
Let it be known that there are heroes and knights who will continue to lose their own lives. Not forgotten but not revered.
To those with power, talent and luck you have only oppressed yourself by not becoming who you are supposed to be. And with that you have given everyone a great loss.
To those who are young you are ancient. Your blood is ancient. You have been given great responsibility as your purpose and great privileges such as time and energy to find your strength. Use it or perish.
To the unloved ones let it be known that you are not alone. Your strength however is not in numbers but in the divinity of solitude and loneliness. You are kings in suffering and trudging. You are masters of endurance and the world balances on your shoulders. For in this divinity there is only One lonelier than you.
To the traitors you have only betrayed yourself. Let it be known that in the face of adversity only truth will prevail.
“The speed with which all of them vanish—the objects in the world, and the memory of them in time. And the real nature of the things our senses experience, especially those that entice us with pleasure or frighten us with pain or are loudly trumpeted by pride. To understand those things—how stupid, contemptible, grimy, decaying, and dead they are— that’s what our intellectual powers are for. And to understand what those people really amount to, whose opinions and voices constitute fame. And what dying is—and that if you look at it in the abstract and break down your imaginary ideas of it by logical analysis, you realize that it’s nothing but a process of nature, which only children can be afraid of. (And not only a process of nature but a necessary one.) And how man grasps God, with what part of himself he does so, and how that part is conditioned when he does.
Nothing is more pathetic than people who run around in circles, “delving into the things that lie beneath” and conducting investigations into the souls of the people around them, never realizing that all you have to do is to be attentive to the power inside you and worship it sincerely. To worship it is to keep it from being muddied with turmoil and becoming aimless and dissatisfied with nature—divine and human. What is divine deserves our respect because it is good; what is human deserves our affection because it is like us. And our pity too, sometimes, for its inability to tell good from bad as terrible a blindness as the kind that can’t tell white from black.
Even if you’re going to live three thousand more years, or ten times that, remember: you cannot lose another life than the one you’re living now, or live another one than the one you’re losing. The longest amounts to the same as the shortest. The present is the same for everyone; its loss is the same for everyone; and it should be clear that a brief instant is all that is lost. For you can’t lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don’t have?”
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
If then you do not make yourself equal to God, you cannot apprehend God; for like is known by like.
Leap clear of all that is corporeal, and make yourself grown to a like expanse with that greatness which is beyond all measure; rise above all time and become eternal; then you will apprehend God. Think that for you too nothing is impossible; deem that you too are immortal, and that you are able to grasp all things in your thought, to know every craft and science; find your home in the haunts of every living creature; make yourself higher than all heights and lower than all depths; bring together in yourself all opposites of quality, heat and cold, dryness and fluidity; think that you are everywhere at once, on land, at sea, in heaven; think that you are not yet begotten, that you are in the womb, that you are young, that you are old, that you have died, that you are in the world beyond the grave; grasp in your thought all of this at once, all times and places, all substances and qualities and magnitudes together; then you can apprehend God.
But if you shut up your soul in your body, and abase yourself, and say “I know nothing, I can do nothing; I am afraid of earth and sea, I cannot mount to heaven; I know not what I was, nor what I shall be,” then what have you to do with God? – Hermes Trismegistus, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius
Listen Before I’m Gone
In that blinding frenzy, deafening silence and empty solitude I wondered what it meant to feel alive when it feels like it would be such a relief to be dead. The pain nullifies any happiness I’ve ever felt rendering the past hollow and bleak. The skin, it begs to be touched. It begs to be scarred and stabbed. Underneath it lies the heart holding all the hurt which itself ruptures the entire being. What a paradox. Were we made to fall apart?
How funny it is that I’m not thinking about being worthy enough to be loved but instead I’m thinking about what it takes to be worthy enough to kill myself or be killed. I don’t want to leave this world having done nothing.
Could Jesus Christ himself have been suicidal? The way he put his heart out there for all to see, touch and eventually stab since it was out there in the open. Betrayal is inevitable. I have to admit the pain almost killed me and maybe it is still there swimming in my veins like poison soon to kill me.
I’ve had my fair share of dealing with neurosis. Bipolar disorder, anxiety and depression. I’ve learnt about those who killed themselves in spite of their love for life. Yes, their love for life and living. These people lived better than everyone else. Yet at one point in life they desired to stop living. To some it was the pain like Sylvia Plath and Hemingway. To others it was just the absence of a desire to live like Eduardo Leve’. Yet, they lived well, better than everyone else and somehow I felt that they deserved to kill themselves and I would not blame them nor would I scorn them. I have only love for these people as they have given way too much. I wish I could give them a hug or company. Just to let them know that I understood it all. The disappointment, the hurt, the unrequited love, the fatigue, the boredom, the disdain of the mediocre and of course that possibility for happiness that was so close yet unattainable. Their works decorates the world with such genuine beauty where the mediocre and phony reigns supreme.
I once said that Billie Eilish was the perfect girl to have a song called “I Love You”. I would also liked to say that she is a girl who deserves to have a suicide song. It’s the song right before “I Love You”. Yes, the song “Listen Before I Go” is a suicide note. But I doubt she’s doing it for the attention in spite of the sad boy sad girl hype surrounding her.
I should revel in the fact that I exist in the same timeline as her. I should also note that the only songs of hers that I love are the melancholic ones as they’re painfully sincere and beautiful. It gives reason to suffering.
But people don’t take suicide seriously until it’s already done. Even Sylvia Plath attempted suicide three times with the third time being her last time. I know there was betrayal from her husband’s part as he himself wrote about it in his poetry.
How can one inflict so much pain to another soul? How could you possibly hurt someone that much?
Maybe some of the best of us are the suicidal ones like President Abraham Lincoln who was openly depressed and was put on suicide watch. He even mouthed the words to a fellow friend “I must die some day.” I also mentioned of Jesus Christ who was made immortal through his crucifixion.
It’s not the silence of the lambs you should be worried about. It’s the silence of the wolves that you should fear. I wasn’t so sure if I meant to say that the silence symbolized a certain terror or the death of the wolf itself. Perhaps it could be both. I am the wolf. The bearer of the curse. I shouldn’t forget. I shouldn’t forget in spite of the collective or whoever, that when you suffer, you suffer alone.
But that solitude and loneliness is divine as God is alone too. As Anwar Sadat believed that death is predetermined by God maybe I’ll take my own life one day or better yet maybe I’ll be deserving of a crucifixion like Abraham, Anwar and dear Jesus Christ himself. Until then I’ll work on deserving to die.
I remain scared to death of happiness and all of it’s ever changing lies.
The Real Peaceful Muslims
Malaysians have accepted Muslim scholars like Bilal Philips and Zakir Naik, while the West have embraced other Muslim scholars as well. Only the message they preach are totally different. Why is that so?
Tarek Fatah
Tarek Fatah is a Canadian author, secular and liberal activist, with an educational background in biochemistry. In 2008 he published a book entitled “Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State” drawing the distinction between the “State of Islam” which is a spiritual state that begins at a personal level, hence allowing individuality within the faith and “Islamic State” which is the politicizing of Islam such as what Mahathir did during his time as the Malaysian Prime Minister. Tarek also defined Islamism (Islamo-fascism), a brand of totalitarian and bigoted, politicized Islam. Tarek is known to promote the spiritual side of Islam more than the theocratic strict rules that seek to control the masses instead of inspire people to pursue spirituality. Other books he has written include “The Jew Is Not My Enemy” and “The Hindu is Not My Enemy”.
Maajid Nawaz
Maajid Nawaz is a British author, columnist, liberal secular activist, politician and founding chairman of the Quilliam Foundation the world’s first counter-extremism think tank standing for religious freedom, equality, human rights and democracy. He was an ex-radical and the poster boy of Hizbut-Tahrir, an Islamist group that seeks to overthrow governments and societies using Islamo-fascist propaganda via military coups. The group is banned in a number of countries including Malaysia and Egypt. He has worked with Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman on a National Geographic show called “The Story of God” and is currently working with well known Neuroscience PhD and prominent atheist Sam Harris with tours. He has made appearances on BBC & CNN debating or discussing the Islamic faith and terrorism alike. Maajid is fluent in Arabic, memorized half of the Quran and he has a book out called “Radical” about how he got involved in the radical Islamist group Hizbut-Tahrir leading to his arrest and imprisonment in Egypt where he spent 5 years behind bars, even in the notorious Mazra Tora prison alongside Jihadists, Muslim Brotherhood Islamists such as the assassins of late President Anwar Saddat of Egypt and members of Al Qaeda.
Dr. Usama Hassan
Usama Hassan is a senior researcher in Islamic Studies at the Quilliam Foundation. He is a British astronomer, lecturer, theologian and was an Imam at the London Masjid al-Tawhid before receiving death-threats and reputational scrutiny for debating that the Quran supports the evolution theory and that the hijab is not part of the Islamic religious duty. He is a trained Imam having memorized the Quran at the age of 11 and joined the armed Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan when he was 19 and a second-year Cambridge undergraduate studying theoretical physics. He was active with the hard-line Salafi movement in the UK preaching a return to the golden ages of Islam. Like Maajid his fellow Quilliam Foundation member, has numerous appearances on British television promoting the liberal secular side of Islam.
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser
Zuhdi Jasser is an American medical doctor, former lieutenant commander in the United States Navy, and is now one of the founders of The Center for Islamic Pluralism. He is known as an American Muslim activist for separation of mosque and state” and against the ideology of “political Islam”. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Jasser and a group of other Muslims founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy as a means to engage with political Islam, to reform Islam and stop terrorism which is was only a symptom of politicized Islam. Former head of CIA James Woolsey describe him as “the kind of man our government should listen to.” Jasser is an outspoken supporter of Israel condemning Hamas, Al Qaeda, and even the Saudi and Syrian dictatorship.
These scholars have been invited to public debates and talks in universities and television throughout the West and are well received but scholars like Zakir Naik are barred from entering the UK. Should we ask what is wrong with them or what is wrong with us?
Genovese Syndrome
In the early morning hours of March 13, 1964, 28-year-old Kitty Genovese was returning to her apartment in the working-class neighborhood of Kew Gardens, Queens, New York, when suddenly a knife-toting man stabbed her from behind. Awakened by Genovese’s cries for help, a neighbor in one of the apartment buildings poked his head out the window to see what was happening. “Let that girl alone!” he yelled. But neither he nor any of the other residents came to her aid. Genovese staggered around the corner toward her home. Her assailant, Winston Moseley, followed close behind in his car, got out, and stabbed her again. “Oh my God! He stabbed me!” she screamed. Her cries awakened other sleeping residents of Kew Gardens, but still no one appeared. She stumbled into the vestibule of the nearest apartment building but Moseley followed her. There, he finished what he had started. The prolonged murder lasted thirty-five minutes. Only after the third attack did someone actually call the police. The caller explained that he “did not want to get involved,” and had actually phoned a friend in Nassau County for advice on what to do. It was a familiar excuse the police heard from a number of spectators that day. The fact that thirty-eight eyewitnesses stood by and did nothing raised a number of disturbing questions among law enforcement professionals and clinical psychologists. In the next two decades, scholars would ponder the phenomenon that came to be known as the “Genovese Syndrome.” In March 1984, experts in sociology, psychology, medicine, and law met on the campus of Fordham University in New York for the first “Catherine Genovese Memorial Conference on Bad Samaritanism.” R. Lance Shotland, a psychologist at Pennsylvania State University concluded that a person is less likely to intervene in an emergency if there are a number of other persons present. “They take cues from others. A lone bystander may help 70 percent of the time. As a member of a group, that same bystander may help 40 percent of the time.” Moseley, a 29-year-old machine operator, confessed that he had been driving around the neighborhood hoping to “rape and to rob and to kill a girl.” He was convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair, but the sentencing was later commuted to life imprisonment. While serving his time at the Attica facility in New York, Moseley attempted to go straight. He earned a college degree and became involved in prison and reform movements. In an article published in the New York Times on April 16, 1977, he explained his new outlook on life. “The man that killed Kitty Genovese in Queens in 1964 is no more. He was also destroyed in that calamity and its aftermath. Another vastly different individual has emerged, a Winston Moseley intent and determined to do constructive, not destructive things.”
The Sacrifice Of Thích Quảng Đức: Sit With Me
On June 11th 1963, Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, sat down in the middle of a busy intersection in Saigon, covered himself in gasoline and He then ignited a match, and set himself on fire. Đức burned to death in a matter of minutes, and he was immortalized in a famous photograph taken by a reporter who was in Vietnam in order to photograph the war. All those who saw this spectacle were taken by the fact that Duc did not make a sound while burning to death. Đức was protesting President Ngô Đình Diệm’s administration for oppressing the Buddhist religion.
Đức’s last words before his self-immolation were documented in a letter he had left:
Before closing my eyes and moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead to President Ngô Đình Diệm to take a mind of compassion towards the people of the nation and implement religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. I call the venerables, reverends, members of the sangha and the lay Buddhists to organise in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism.
chastemodest 