Life (10 Year Version)

I graduated from college 10 years ago. Exactly 10 years ago today, I started my first job, first corporate job, and career in tech. I look back and realize I was so naive. I didn't know the difference between health insurance and car insurance. Hilarious for someone who now works at an HRIS focussed SaaS company. This piece isn't about my career however. 

I have been reflecting a lot on these past 10 years recently. I was a young, dumb kid. I am still young and dumb but slightly less so, less of a kid and more of a baby adult. I was joking with my friends that every time I see kids under the age of 10 now, it's usually with a parent my age. It freaks me out because I expect them to look my parents age. 

I have lived a lot of life in these last 10 years. I came to terms with my own grief. I learned that I am much weaker because of that grief than my peers who haven't experienced it. I am overcoming the deficiencies caused in my growth because of that grief. And more importantly, I am making peace with the fact that the world will sympathize but will never give me grace for said shortcomings. It's one of the most confusing things about grief (and trauma). It may have been imposed upon you but you are still accountable for your healing.

I am less judgmental now. I used to love the Anis Mojgani poem, Shake the Dust, because it reminded me that we all live our own heavens and hells. I knew this logically but I did not know this fundamentally. At twenty-two, my friends and I were still pretending that we were fine. We were fine because we did the thing. We took the honors classes, got into good schools, and graduated with honors in Practical Majors. Twenty-two is the age I was scoffing at Chris McCandless for abandoning the practical path in search of the Wild. I thought I wasn't judging but I judged more than ever, and it's because those judgments were projections of myself. I didn't have the guts to be brave so I criticized others for their valor. 

I understand Mojgani better now. Of what he meant when he said, this is for the bigots, for the sexists, for the killers. For the big house jail-sentenced cats becoming redeemers and for the springtime that always seems to know to show up after every single winter. I know life better now. How instantaneously it changes colors, like weather. A phone call to inform you of a Stage 4 diagnosis. A hospital visit that turns into a triple bypass. Someone had to drop out of school because they had to take care of their sick family member. Someone else got pregnant too early. And another person you know is on round eight of their IVF cycles. That one kid from high school is a convicted felon now, and the other one is working in Hollywood. Job layoffs, economy, war, E files, it seems to never end. People you encounter are going through their lives trying to survive this system built to destroy us. 

This is the last ten years alone. It has shown life, forced me to weather storms I didn't think I was capable of. Prioritized what matters, how to ignore what doesn't, and to live the everyday not the big moments. Your worst moments don't define you, and your best moments are just that - your best. The multitudes we contain are often a reflection of those around us. 

I am constantly evolving. The absolutes I knew were false. The Big Things weren't so big, and the little things were colossal. Being thirty-two is knowing that being present is the only thing I truly have. Bygones are bygones, what is to come will come. None of that matters. This current moment is the most important thing. 

I would tell my twenty-two year old self, you have some of the skills and some of the experiences. You're going to learn so much. It's terrifyingly exhilarating. 

I would thank my twenty-five year old self for starting weight training. 

I would congratulate my twenty-seven year old self for going to therapy. 

And I would hope that my forty-two year old self is wiser and kinder. 

Cause I Knew Everything When I Was Young

'Cause I knew everything when I was young

Taylor Swift sings in her song Cardigan from the album folklore. I remember my 12th grade English teacher taught us how to read poetry. She brought in chocolate creamsicles and asked us to describe how it tasted in class. Creamy, chocolatey, cold, and so on. Then we read a poem about a vendor selling ice cream. We broke it down line by line. What's the poem about, she asked? None of us could have guessed it was about a funeral in Mexico. I think that was the first time my worldview shattered. I thought I knew everything. I thought I didn't like Poetry. I did.

Whether it was Faiz writing mujhse pehli si muhabbat mere mehboob na maang or Agha Shahid Ali reminding us, Each ray of sunshine is seven minutes old...so when I look at the sky, I see the past, I unlearned everything I knew with each poem. That phase of life is interesting. You have spent the first eighteen odd years of your life learning. And you know that you have a lot more to learn. But for the first time in your life, you think you know everything. You think that everything you learn from here on out will be a subset of all the bullet points you already know. You believe so deeply in your own knowledge that the thought of being unaware is alien to you. So you tend to make a lot of statements that are absolutes and live with a profound faith in those statements. 

I don't like Poetry. I will always be friends with so and so. I cant imagine a world where I will be conflicted in my decision because my moral compass is strong (untested but strong). I will always like Lit Fic and I could never like Sci-Fi. I want to study PreMed. Money doesn't matter when happiness is concerned. There was nothing arbitrary about my sense of self at eighteen. I knew who I was. Until, I didn't. 

No one tells you that when you are young and you think you know everything, it's because you haven't lived through anything. When you are young, you haven't seen your life partner lose their parent. You likely haven't been a caretaker. You haven't heard of a kid you went to school with die of suicide. You haven't been passed over for a promotion because of politics. You haven't had your morality tested. There is so much that you haven't learned because you haven't lived through it. 

My mother passed away when she was 43. My entire life, her death has been about me losing my mother. But recently, her death has become about her. I always heard that she died young. How could she have died young when she was my mother? I am at that age where I say that about people who die at 43 now, they died young. I often think about all of life she never got to experience. Her kids as teenagers, Artemis II, orange man becoming president, her son getting married - so much of life that she never experienced because she died young. I thought I understood grief at 10, and then at 15, and then at 20. I am learning now that this grief just morphs into different beasts each time I learn to slay it in its current form. 

I find myself a lot less judgmental now. There are very few things I believe in but my belief in those things is steadfast. All the absolutes that guided my life are mere suggestions. I am sure I will look back to this piece of writing in ten years and laugh. Or perhaps I will find it endearing the way I look at my writing from 2010. I am unlearning this constant need for perfection. This fear of failure has paralyzed me for so long that I stopped writing entirely. I think less of what people will say and more of what my mother would have wished for. That's a nice way to live life. Think of what all the women in your lineage would have wished for secretly and try to fulfill it all through you. I own a home I bought with my money. The first woman in my entire lineage to do so. I don't take this lightly. I built my peace from the bricks they laid. It's a humbling thought. Centuries of women, whose DNA I carry, all living through me. Like a magical connection that transcends time and space, all connected by the same thread of desire. 

At 32, I don't know much. I know more than I did at 18 but I know way less compared to what I will at 44. I will also know more at 44 than my mother ever did. I keep that thought in the back of my mind a lot. She never got to experience 44. I want to experience it for the both of us. I want to learn more and more, about everything and nothing, but mainly about what I thought I knew at 18 but didn't. 

The Case for Romance Novels

I read my first Romance Novel when I was eighteen. A fresh graduate from high school, the world was my oyster. In this world filled with hope, I stumbled upon an awfully written, extremely misogynistic, Romance Novel. It wasn't quite Romance given that it started as a Twilight fanfic (if you know, you know) but it was all the rage in 2012. I couldn't put it down. It was a fascinating character study where nothing made sense, or was good, but everything happened. A billionaire? Check. A damsel in distress? Check. Skinny, young, inexperienced 22 yr old enthralled by someone more experienced? Check and check. It was awful but it opened up a whole new genre of books for me. 

In 2012, everyone read Romance and pretended not to. This bookish world, pre-Covid and pre-TikTok, was the shameful place readers-who-knew-better resided in. These mindless books you would pick up in between college assignments were the equivalent of brain rot doom-scrolling today. Back in 2012, people wanted to be perceived as intellectuals on the social media stratosphere. Having interests that didn't add any value to your life were deemed as beneath you. As one can imagine, this was not the time for Romance. Romance section at the bookstores saw more cobwebs than a cemetery. You would often find tacky covers with ripped bodices and oiled ethnic looking men in mass market paperback format (RIP to mass-market paperbacks, you will be missed) in this section. I recall blushing walking through this section at my local Barnes & Noble. 

It was in this timeline that I found myself gravitating towards Romance. It wasn't that I thought these books were good, it was just that they created judgment free worlds for me. The world was beginning to care about the right words. We didn't quite have words for Social Justice warriors or Woke or Virtue Signaling in the colloquial language yet. This was a world where what words you used mattered a lot. The over-correction from years of not caring about language was finally happening. Naturally, in a world like this, you cannot admit to reading (and enjoying) anything remotely misogynistic. Traditional roles were ridiculed in the face of Girl Boss feminism and women were in their I-can-do-it-all era. We had effectively solved centuries of patriarchy, or so we thought anyway. 

Romance Novels, in this world, provided a haven for exploration of thought. A world created by women, for women, curiously meandering through many facets of what women want. No mockery of desire, no outrage because women's rights are being set back, and no shame for wanting to question aspects of what women should want. Romance Novels became the sanctuary for all forms of love. A woman who wants to be a construction manager, or a baseball team owner, or is madly in love with her childhood friend, or has forsaken all forms of love until she meets The One, or never connected with anyone until her, or them - all were welcome. A brown girl who has forsaken marriage until she finds her Darcy at a wedding of a friend of a friends, or one who falls for the tatted guy her demure, simple-minded parents would surely disapprove of existed outside of fleeting desires. A biker romance where a guy would go to war for his woman was no longer a Homeric fantasy. Romance Novels greeted all with open arms. You have a niche trope or sub-trope that you always fall for? There's a Romance Novel about that somewhere. Whether you like spice or sweet, someone has had the same desires. Romance Novels created the most wholesome world women could communicate through. 

The greatest thing to come out of Booktok is the shamelessness that Gen Z influencers created around reading Romance. The popularization of Romance on Booktok has revolutionized how Romance gets written and published. It has created a whole new genre for Romantic Fantasy, Romantasy, because Gen Z unabashedly embraced Romance. The popularity of Bridgerton and Heated Rivalry is a testament to what Romance is capable of at its best. There is a joke on TikTok that women only want men (partners) written by other women. However, there is a degree of truth to that statement. Within Romance, women see an equal footing. It's the only place on earth where a scenario is created and resolved based off of what women want. Whether it's a Second-Act Break Up i.e. the man has to run to the airport to confess his undying love for the FMC (female main character) or it's a resolution without needing any big theatrics (as is the case with Windy City series by Liz Tomforde), all of it reflects what women want. Women, it turns out, are as human in their wants as men. And that in itself is the ultimate case for Romance Novels. In a twisted, long-winded way, a Romance Novel is an attempt by women to be considered human. In its varying themes, interests, tropes, micro-tropes, and desires, women just want to be treated without a generalization. Romance is the only space where women can evaluate other women without the influence of men. Romance nurtures thought without the need to prove, or defy, or resist. I am no less a woman because I prefer a Sports Romance over a Mafia Romance, for example. Romance Novels humanize all women - the readers, the writers, and the characters. Men are no longer the center of this world and that opens up a lot of room for reflection. 

In its lack of attempt to be taken seriously, Romance Novels have created an inquisitive study of womanhood. There is no expectation of effort from the reader, and yet, if one chooses to, they will find plethora to ponder over. Romance Novels embody seamlessly what many works of fiction try so hard to, they remind women that no thought is too shameful to be experienced. And ultimately, in doing so, Romance Novels have freed women from performing for men. 

Copy heart. Copy bracelet.

I recently switched back to an Android phone and found my saved notes from 2015 - 2017 in my drive. These were some random snippets of thoughts and quotes from books I was reading at the time: Gatsby, poetry, notes on Death, recipes, and grocery store lists. I found a list I had written down when I lived at home with my parents to help care for my grandmother. Such an interesting snapshot of time.

At work, I delivered a presentation today on how the software we use captures and compares data month to month. The technical part of me wants to write a piece of code that compares on certain values but isn’t that what writing is at the end of the day.

I have always found writers who write for themselves to be the most enjoyable. I don’t care what the audience wants to read, I care what you want to read as a writer. When you bring in performance, it always cheapens its meaning a little bit. Alyssa Liu winning a gold medal on her terms is the greatest example of this. She performed for herself. And in her joy, we all found a missing piece of ourselves.

In my previous writings, I found a draft of a piece I was writing on Math after graduation. It’s one of the many pieces I never bothered to publish. I am always taken aback with my love for all things Math. It lies dormant because I haven’t studied it in years. However, it always finds itself back in my life. A couple of years ago, I was going through a really tough time. I started tutoring Math to high school dropouts so that they could get their GED. At the time, I needed to think about something other than myself. Math was that grounding force for me. It was numbers and letters. In its familiarity, it reminded me that world could make sense.

I felt similarly invigorated by the Artemis II mission. Math working so beautifully and precisely to take humans further than they have ever been, and returning them safely home was a tribute to The Human Spirit in every way. It lit a fire in me that I haven’t experienced in a long time. The blaze that kept me going through my undergrad degree because I forced myself to find joy in the little things is peaking through under the protection of an experienced mind. I no longer believe in the systems we have created as the absolute truths. My therapist often says, life exists in possibility. In a way, it’s the most mathematical thought. Probability teaches us that there is no perfect 0 or 1. The basis of Math is in the Multiverse Theory. There exists a universe that we define. Once we have defined that universe, what are the conclusions that we can draw from it? This universe is the universal set. So, mathematically speaking, life is in its possibilities. And this is where things become joyful.

Whether it’s the first woman to ever go around the moon or a 4 minute performance an athlete has prepared their entire life for, only to so-called blow it. The possibilities of human capability are endless. Why go to the moon? Why climb the mountains? Why explore the deep ocean? Because it’s there. It’s as simple as that. There are a lot of practical reasons for all of it but at the end of the day, it’s something we believe is possible. And that possibility alone is the defense of its attempt. Given the right resources and the perfect scenario, what can a human being achieve? And if we fail, when can we try again?

As Huxley says in Brave New World,

“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.'

'In fact,' said Mustapha Mond, 'you're claiming the right to be unhappy.'

'All right then,' said the Savage defiantly, 'I'm claiming the right to be unhappy.'

The Great Attempt at anything is the reason for it all. Humans to stare at in awe, humans to cheer, humans to communicate with, and humans to come back home to - this has always been the North Star. It means something because we care. It exists because we want it to. Not out of hubris but in appreciation of. An homage to the stardust in us responding to the stars further away.

Some thoughts on Representation in Art

 Growing up in Texas as a Pakistani-American is challenging on many fronts. I am not going to bore the reader with tribulations of being Hyphenated, as that discourse is overdone. However, a missing piece within the current conversation is the expectation placed upon the Hyphenated to represent Pakistan (or Homeland). I find it quite silly because the stage is set for the Hyphenated to fail. You can never represent the experience of someone back home. You simply haven’t lived it. And you cannot be the other half of your hyphen only. The battle begins early on and most seem to stumble their way into a sort of peace. If you don’t let yourself get pulled too much in either direction, you manage your way through life pretty okay. Of course, the average person only has their loved ones to disappoint. The complication arises when you extrapolate that balance and attempt it at a global stage. Whether it’s Hasan Minhaj trying to make jokes about brown dads that evolved beyond the Russell Peters caricaturization of brown dad humor or it’s Riz Ahmed’s self-deprecating attempt at satire in Bait, there isn’t enough of an audience with that niche experience to grant them immunity from the monumental task of Homeland Representation.

In the recent years, both Minhaj and Ahmed have challenged the ideas of what it means to be Hyphenated but that critique is largely aimed at the Empire and not at the Homeland. It doesn’t help that anyone making it big in Hollywood uses being Hyphenated as their brand to get anywhere. Simply put, they have asked for the criticism from the Motherland.

It is a disadvantaged brand because in trying to appease everyone, it manages to displease all. There’s a saying in Urdu, dhobi ka kutta na ghar ka na ghaat ka, which represents this brand quite well. It makes me wonder, however, what responsibility the viewer has towards the Art they engage with. There’s a general sense of entitlement with any diasporic Art where it must represent all facets of life in Motherland. This thinking was highlighted in criticism for a show like Never Have I Ever that dared talk about a brown girl falling for a white guy (completely neglecting the fact that most brown men consider it an accomplishment when they sleep with white women, for example, Jemima Khan is still revered in Pakistan despite Imran Khan having been married thrice). Outside of the general misogyny, I find it fascinating that a generation of millennials that grew up smitten by Hillary Duff and Chad Michael Murray had trouble accepting a brown girl wanting to date a white boy. The audience back home seems to want a Pakistani drama in English and aired on Netflix but following the script of Hum TV. The diaspora, who are probably closest to Art like that, find it cringe for attempting to do what great Hollywood TV has done. And anyone outside of the specific Hyphenated cannot help but stereotype, even while trying not to. A Trader Joe’s meal that combines Thai curry sauce, Chinese soup dumplings, and coconut milk finding a moment of stardom on TikTok attempting to be cultural but being hollow in every aspect.

The onus of deriving meaning from Art is as much on the viewer as it is on the creator. The nuanced filtering of what works for the viewer vs not is the path forward. Anyone creating Art for the consumer is always bound to fall into the trap of pretty aesthetics over actual substance. Art is meant to be a portrayal, not a two way conversation. Picasso didn't paint in hopes that people will feel represented. It is the artists’ job to create what is most truthful to them. It is the audience’s job to engage, not to demand.

Eldest Daughter

She woke up one morning and it didn’t crush her. The dust particles visible in the sun rays breaking through her bedroom window, the quiet of a morning that lead to a day of responsibilities but allowed the freedom to start slow. This is it, she thought. The content her mother and grandmother never got to feel. Even at peace, the duties of an eldest daughter couldn’t be shirked. The hope of all the generations prior and the weight of the upcoming generations sit tightly on the shoulders of the eldest daughter. But on days like today, she felt she could just be. Take a break. She knows the crown is sitting there like dirty laundry, she will need to wear it again. She’s one mishap away from her phone ringing and shoving her back to, well, life. However, life can wait a day and allow her to live. 

She wonders why regardless of culture, the role of the eldest daughter is the same. Project Manager at best, sacrificial lamb at worst. She remembers the first time she had to step onto that stage. She was five and asked to make sure her little brother, four, didn’t run off. Watch him for a second, will you? She felt something at the sheer unfairness of the request but didn’t have the alphabets of human emotions down enough to explain this bubbling feeling in her chest. It came out as anger, as frustration, as a loss of individuality. A single tear wiped away with chubby hands, a shrug of her shoulders, and the first of her smiles plastered on her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes as she turned to her brother. This was the beginning of everything to come. How things would always be going forward. The child in need of protection becomes the protector. 

She mimics a similar shrug and forces herself back to reality. After all, she is also the first to unlearn this. She often wonders if she had an older sister, who would she be? Perhaps what she needed was the mother she was forced to be. Being an adult, she realized, was simply giving yourself the permission to be the child you would have been. 

She felt like a Broadway actress most days. Sitting in front of a computer screen giving technical advice to companies willing to shell out thousands of dollars for a few hours of her time. She played the part well. Logged into her investments to ensure she had enough for her future, and perhaps a family member’s. Her bills were paid. She had followed up with her friends and family, asking how they were really doing in hopes that they didn’t feel alone. Check, check, and check. She had an acceptable boyfriend. Someone her family approved of. Also, check. It was a great theatrical production that she decided to put on every day. She wondered if this was what life was. 

beauty and the mundane

 Some of the best writing I have done, in my opinion anyway, has been when I have felt the lowest emotionally. Too often, us writers - if I may take the liberty of calling myself one, although, I am far from one - believe too deeply in the idea of a tortured artist. We assume that because we wrote well when we were depressed, that our work was a byproduct of said depression. It makes us question our worth in a very confusing way because when we are no longer depressed, when we have gone through therapy and life is going well, we start believing that we won't be able to write again. I have nothing to say, you think. Everyone is having the same conversations and what can I possibly contribute? You silence yourself because anything worth talking about has the same three arguments floating around on the internet and you don't want to become part of that echo chamber. You can no longer tap into your own darkness to make it sound more creative, deeper than it is, and so you stop believing in your worth as a writer. 

It's a funny place to be at because contrarily, you love reading about the mundane. The reason Vlog culture is so big is because people actually love the mundane. We don't always need the fantasy to escape. Watching someone buy their daily groceries is just as much of an escapism as entering Hogwarts. This is not a new phenomenon. One only needs to read about how Plath describes chopping vegetables to be convinced of the argument that we love talking about everyday thing. The song Lover by Taylor Swift has a line, we could let our friends crash in the living room...this is our place, we make the call. It's toted as a romantic ballad and used by many as the song for their first dance because its beauty is in its simplicity, in its mundanity. It is not about big romantic gestures, it's about the little ones that remind you that a relationship is about the small mundane actions. 

So much of life is contained in these small acts and those are the things that matter. The everyday logistics of human existence - grocery shopping, filling up gas, taking out trash. They matter because when we see someone else replicating those motions, we are reminded of a weird sense of harmony. Perhaps we have different struggles when it comes to the big stuff - you might be dealing with an aging parent while another might be dealing with a newborn - but these small repetitive mundane moments prove that some things just make sense in life. That you could be a billionaire or someone working 3 jobs to make ends meet, you still need a car that has gas. It's a strangely comforting thought.

the final hour

Been thinking a lot about what it means to be human and to live a conscious life. Consistently declining, your body giving up on you to a point where you can no longer swallow, where you forget there is food in your mouth, where you have no concept of reality, is no life worth living. It is a miserable and cruel existence. You are holding onto a faint glimmer that something might get better. There comes a point when you have to rationalize and accept death. You don't want to be the murderer of your own parents but you cannot deny reality either. Life is not a bedridden existence where you cannot convey what you feel, where you cannot experience food, where you no longer recognize your children or even yourself. Life is consciousness. It is understanding that the first ray of sunlight brings a new day, that drinking a glass of cold water on a warm day, feeling it go down from your mouth to your esophagus and then your stomach is a reminder that your body is alive and fighting everyday to exist. It is recognizing the eyes of those borne of your loins from a mile away. It is feeling the pain and sorrow that existence brings. It is understanding the joy you feel when you see another human smile. The moment you stop understanding the gravity of these everyday experiences, you are no longer alive. You are a shell housing organs, pumping blood, and taking breaths. You have lost that which makes you you. These experiences need not be prolonged. These resources can be utilized for the young, who have a chance. This is a sacrifice owed to the young, from the old. The bow after the curtains are closed. The old have lived through their time. They have taken advantage of their young pliable bodies with a spring in their step and the energy to match the strongest coffee. They have created and rebelled and loved and hated. They understand death. There is nobility in acceptance of death - yours and your loved ones. Easier said than done and yet we have a timer since the day we are born. The clock is ticking - on us and our loved ones. If we must accept a truth, it is this - life ends. 

Sabr

I was perusing through my journal and I landed on this line from my nanis autobiography that says mainay sabr karna viraasat main paaya hai and it just brought me so much peace.

Sabr is an interesting word because yes it's patience but it's also more. I always imagine sabr as this shut door you are standing at and you hear these screams on the other side and you have the power to open that door but you know the screams on the other side will engulf you and make you lose your voice so all you can do is stand there and listen to them and fight the urge to open that door.

Many people think of sabr as this idea for the lost and hopeless, and it is. But for me it's not as much about hopelessness as much about it is the willingness to fight. I think in all these grand tales of valor, we do not crave the victory as much as we look for these heroes who seemed defeated but were simply waiting for the right time to strike back. Sabr to me is that crucial moment of gaining strength when you know your only defeat is in giving in to your urges and letting defeat ensnare you with its false promises of victory. Sabr is a reminder that you are human - in your weaknesses, and more importantly, in your strengths. That to win, you must lose for the moment for it isn't really losing, simply waiting.

On Becoming Pakistani Hyphenated American

I am twenty-six years old. I moved to the US when I was fourteen. Until I had moved to the US, the longest flight I had ever taken was from Islamabad to Karachi i.e. moving to the US was my first time stepping out of the country. I want to take this time to explore the "Pakistani" in me vs the "American" in me.

When I had just moved to the other side of the world, I was elated. I had always dreamt of wanting to move to a country where the schools had no uniform (yes, that was the root of my excitement, I was fourteen). I knew that moving to America meant you have to clean your own bathroom, you have to do your own laundry, and you have to pick up after yourself. I also had some vague idea that high school was of utmost importance in America, that Americans generally were bad at Math, and that for some reason the entire world was obsessed with both hating America and wanting to be America. Mind you, this was in 2008 when Facebook had only recently become global, when your Newsfeed still had FB statuses that went "[insert your name] is...." and you would fill out the rest. This was the time when Superwoman was barely that brown girl with cool braids who made a funny video on YouTube and when MLID (My Life Is Desi) was the coolest new way to find home away from home. (Side note, main purpose of YouTube was to catch up on Indian dramas and there really wasn't any money in YouTube). The point being, when I had just moved here, what it meant to be Pakistani, or Desi, or Pakistani-American was just as awkwardly being defined by the people around me as it was in my head. We didn't have a Hasan Minhaj with Patriot Act on Netflix or Mindy Kaling with her own show. Our version of brown comedy was Russell Peters with his hyperbolic impressions of what it meant to be raised in a brown household. That was funny then because we didn't know comedy could take a more realistic form. We didn't know that you could be both Pakistani/Desi and American and be true to yourself.

I paint this picture because I struggled with homogenizing the two identities for a long time. In fact, it wasn't until the APS Attack in 2014 that I actually took the time to re-evaluate how I had been looking at these sides of me. There was time where I held on to the Pakistani identity with my dear life while abandoning any attempts to learn what it meant to be "American." There were also times when I abandoned what it meant to be "Pakistani" and tried to catch up to the "American" culture in full speed. Perhaps those phases were necessary for what I will end up learning but during those times, they felt halfhearted. I mention the 2014 APS attack because at that point in time, I was going through my "American" phase. I was hell-bent on ignoring everything remotely Pakistani about me. I remember going to the kitchen to make coffee in the morning and my mother telling me about this developing story where a school filled with kids was gunned down. I remember then going to the university to take my Intermediate Analysis final exam and walking out of that exam completely numb. I spent the next few hours scouring through countless articles online trying to make sense of it all - the grief I felt, the anger, the heartbreak. I remember thinking "am I allowed to be in this much grief when I have not cared about this country I was born and raised in nor kept up with anything going on there for a long time?" I would spend the next few weeks in complete mourning of it all. Understanding the selectivism in my own grief because it was the army kids who were attacked and not those of civilians from a rural town. Evaluating why it still hurt so profoundly. Thinking through the actions I could take and if *anything* at all would be of any help. But the most resounding thought in all this was the idea that I cannot let go of Pakistan. It was the most clarity I felt amidst all the chaotic emotions. That I can move to a different country and assimilate but I cannot let go, entirely, of where I am from. And that was a momentous shift in my thinking.

I do think that if I was fourteen in 2020 and moving to the US, the distinction in my mind would not have been so rigid because I would have been exposed to a lot more via social media/the internet. But it is interesting to note that my generation, people who were in high school between 2008-2012, were truly the first generation to go through the left being very stringent about calling out Islamophobia. Here was a country that had elected its first black president, a country that was just starting to forget a bit of the 09/11 and not look at all Muslims (Muslim looking/sounding) with hate because the left had started to call out Islamophobia pretty stringently. There were of course still attacks on Muslims (looking/sounding) but the hurt wasn't as recent as for those who were right before us and were in high school or college when 09/11 happened.

My generation had the unique opportunity to break away from a hate and define what it meant to be Pakistani-American, in a way. It is tough, as a fourteen year old, to understand that you can be both Pakistani and American. That you can look at both identities of yourself and find a way to create something that is true to you. That you can love and appreciate Faiz and Ahmed Faraz and Iqbal Bano and you can also love Plath and Anne Sexton and Sontag. You can find humor in Jordan Klepper and Biswa Kalyanrath simultaneously. You can care about the impending war between India and Pakistan and worry for their safety just as much as you can care about the collapse of American Healthcare system. That the two don't have to battle for your attention. Holding on to your "culture" doesn't mean not progressing. Salima Hashmi (Faiz's daughter) very eloquently mentions that every generation holds a responsibility to their own generation to take the works of those before them and examine it in the "current" times. So what we owe, to the country we belong to and the country we live in, is that examination of ideas in "our" light. We must, as a generation of immigrants, analyze what it means to live with an identity that holds on to our roots but flourishes with the ever-changing wind.

On the Process of Doing

If I die now, you'll have a hint for which god to petition. 

Julian Randall wrote this line in his poem "On the Night I Consider Coming Out to My Parents" when he mentions that he is Black and Dominican and Bisexual.

I have been thinking about labeling of self a lot lately. Of these words we subscribe to so we can find someone who understands: pakistani-american, ex-muslim, fitness nerd, analyst, mathematician, mountain climber, music lover, fashion lover, reader. So many labels so we can find someone who understands numerous facets that are about self and all that feeds is the idea of consumerism. I want people to understand me because I am important. No, it's not quite your turn yet, it is still about me. I am going through a tough time in life so my thoughts, my feelings, should outweigh everything else.

Last year, when I took my trip to San Francisco, I realized the selfish nature of grief. It is a comfortable emotion that blankets you in its warmth and drugs you into thinking it's -40 degrees outside and you need its warmth. The irony? It's a 100 degrees outside and you're running a fever. It is an odd sensation, letting go of that grief. You have a void that needs filling and you don't have an emotion strong enough to counteract it. That is the hardest part about pain. Not necessarily the suffering of it but the void that comes after the suffering is over. The emptiness that follows that coerces you to face yourself.

After I had come back from my Washington trip this year, my dad had said, it's great to travel but the true place you need to travel to is your inner self. See where your thoughts lead you when they are uninfluenced. My uncle had suggested I wake up pre-dawn and make a habit of writing - before I have had coffee, before I have washed my face, before I have taken a single action. The idea is to get your mind as pure as you could and see where it takes you. I have not had the guts to implement that quite yet but I have started working out in the morning recently. I don't make any decisions - I set my outfit the night before, I prepare my workout bag the night before, I order coffee from the Starbucks across the street. I just get up, make my bed, wash my face, brush my teeth, change into my workout clothes, and go.

Alex Honnold describes his routine before a big free solo climb. He mentions that on bigger climbs, he minimizes the number of decisions he has to make so his body can save energy. He describes the process of free soloing El Capitan at Yosemite - climbing a 3000+ feet steep wall without ropes, merely using his body. He mentions that performing a climb like that, you do not want to perform at anything more than 70% of what your body is capable of. This is because you want it to feel natural. You do not want your body to feel fear or discomfort or any emotion that can trigger an insulin response in you and cause you to lose your footing. If you do, you fall off the wall and die - as simple as that.

I cannot help but think of the power of discipline in all this. The discipline required to do something so often that it becomes a part of your routine. You are not a person, in all your labels, who identifies as someone who brushes their teeth, or takes a shower, or fills their gas tank. You don't think about it. It's what you do. Then, if there are things we want to do, we must make them so routine they're almost mindless. You take the decision of whether you want to or need to do this thing or not out of the picture. There is no decision left.

You just do.

Thoughts from Mountains

Motivation is BS. It's all about your routine.

Aisa kahan se laoon ke tujh sa kahein jisay.

Human beings are so futile in front of nature. Nature is so magestic and we are mere mortals. It will live on with us, despite us, without us. That is all. -may 28, 12 pm. After a 7 mile hike to glacier basin.

When I'm in mountains, I don't miss home. Normally, when I go on a trip, I miss home after the second night. When I'm in mountains, I feel peace. This is where I belong, where I'm meant to be. This is home. The peace and quiet away from the loud cities. Your troubles too menial for a mountain. It takes life, it gives life. You are helpless in its angry storms, you find sustenance in its flowing rivers when the snow melts. This is life and all that it encompasses. That's all.

I belong in mountains. They brought me to tears. It was the lack of oxygen on a fast elevation but it feels like a weight off my shoulders. I haven't cried in a long long time. But when you're breathing, trying to fight for your life, you get human emotion in its most raw form. No pretenses, no barriers. Just you and nature and your emotions. What will you hide? What is left to hide when your body is struggling to breathe? Humbling experience. Working out in the gym means nothing when you don't have enough oxygen to breathe. You can get stronger but you cannot produce oxygen your body needs if there isn't enough.

Hitting PRs in a perfect environment is one thing, climbing up a mountain on a 30% incline for 3 miles is a whole different ball game. 

Inaction is action against the victims. As simple as that.

It doesn't matter how much I love a place, no place is Houston. Houston is home because Houston is where my family is.

None of them are you. It's not to say no one will ever be you, or better. But a year later, and no one is you. Being in love is a gift. Loving you was an honor. Being out of love and learning to live with that is the biggest lesson.

Notes from Margaret Atwood

Read your fiction out loud.

If there isn't something there, it's not gonna work. Look for the iron rod, what's the iron rod that's holding it all together? I have thrown away novels where there wasn't any there there. Think about the structure. There's the story and how you tell the story, and those are two very different things. Think of The Iliad and how Achilles starts his story. it starts in the middle of the Trojan War not at the beginning, there's a reason for that. How do you define a story? It's quite simple. Somebody doing something somewhere is a story.

Everybody has the same fear of the blank page but fear can be exciting.

Second book is always the worst because if the first one has been well received, you don't know who might be waiting in the shrubs.

Are there any topics off limit? Everything can be discussed by somebody. Writers shouldn't tackle things that are completely unknown to them. They will screw it up. Although Franz Kafka wrote America without ever having been here. But he was Franz Kafka after all.

Look up Margaret Atwoods review of GOT

The sentence 'this can't happen here' is never one I have ever believed in. It can happen everywhere.

What is the point of publishing if you don't want people interpreting your work?

I was a little less interested in what they looked like as opposed to what they thought, on whether her characters represented on screen are visually better in the movie or the series.

Capitalism without any checks and balances flattens everything in the pot because if the only motive is profit and you keep doing it, there's nothing left...if you turn everything to gold, theres nothing left to eat. Money is abstract, only good for what you can change it into....

Revolution refers to the wheel of Fortune, it revolves but doesn't end up in a horizontal plane where everyone is equal, if you're at the bottom of the wheel it's not very fun.

I would need to know their age and socioeconomic status and profession. Women are, I hate to say this, just like people - On what advice she would give to women.

Thoughts from Miami

1. I had a phone call with an interviewer at the airport while on a girls trip to Miami. I had wanted to grow up into this person. Now it just seems hectic. (I did not accept the job offer.)
2. I am learning to be by myself entirely. No music, no podcasts, no background noise. It's uncomfortable. It's awkward. It forces me to think of things I do not want to think. But I think it's liberating.
3. I am doing things that terrify me. I am hoping that this discomfort leads to better character development.
4. I am learning to listen to the opposite point of view. Two years ago, if someone told me they were not a feminist, I would have shut down entirely around them. I am now listening to their thoughts with curiosity and no judgment. It is hard. It is also rewarding.
5. There is so much in my life that is up in the air right now. None of which I sought out. I need the gym right now to merely function. It's the one place where I have what I need.
6. I spoke to ma on the phone. It was nice. Hearing the voice of your loved ones, even on a trip where you're just having fun, is always welcome. It's nice to know that there are people who will always love you. There are people who you can always come back to.
7. Sitting on a beach, watching people be fearless around water. Makes you almost forget twenty million things happening outside of your bubble. Reminds you of the goals you set when you were fifteen, twenty. And now at twenty-five, the weight of those goals has increased. The stake is a lot higher. In the relationships you build, the choices you make career wise, the life you want to work towards. The fear of failure is greater. As is the fear of success. What happens when you reach your goals. What do you work towards then. From a fitness perspective, from a nutrition perspective, from a mental clarity perspective, I am where I need to be. But there is a weird restlessness in me. As if something great is meant to happen and I need to acquire all the skills I can for it but I don't know if I can be prepared for it.
8. I am giving up the pretense of craftily worded sentences. Of perfect syntax and creative diction. Aesthetics ate the content. I want to say things right. I want to write what I mean. With clarity and precision.
9. There is no such thing as a perfect job. There is only the right job at the moment. There is no such thing as meeting 'the one.' There are only right people for the moment. It is not a negative statement, only a temporary one. Moments, emotions, feelings, thoughts - they are all fleeting things. All you can do is take a deep breath and live.
10. The Lyft driver asked if I was Mexican. Then he asked if I drink since I'm a teenager. We went to a well known Cuban place. The coffee was great, the food terrible. These two guys next to our table started talking to us. One of them worked in IT, other in Medicine. It was odd yet interesting. I love first conversations. There is so much to know about a person. There are no expectations yet, only surprises. Letting go of expectations is hard.
11. The beach gives me a lot of anxiety. The noise from the water, the birds. Probably because I can't swim, I always feel restless. Wonder what it's like to be fearless at the beach. To be able to sit there and not do anything. Such a foreign concept to me. I am always ready to leave. It's like I don't feel like I can take a minute there to catch my breath.
12. I am such a home body. 2 days in a different city and I am already itching to go back home. I miss my shower and my bed and the comfort of my things. I cannot have a job where I travel a lot. I wonder if the need to travel a lot stems from not having a home. Such that you are constantly searching for that place you can one day call home.
13. Randomly remembered this line from Strings' song: Baat kehni bhi hai aur chupani bhi hai.
14. It takes leaving to remember what home is. 

Old Writings 2012 - 2013

So this is the end of a story.

June 5, 2012 at 12:44 AM

I just graduated high school. I am not sure how I feel but I'm letting all the emotions take over me right now. It's surreal. 

You spend four years awaiting this moment, for some, even more than that......and now, it's over?

Years of wait for a 40 second walk across the stage, two pictures, and that's it. 

But isn't that how life works? The best part is in anticipation. The wait. The curiosity of what is to come. And the best moments in life are often defined by the curiosity of what will be.

Like John Green says, we use our future to escape the present. I mean, who knows where we're headed. But it's nice to think about it. Everything seems possible. Everything seems real. 

The thing is, change is good and inevitable. But you still miss the past. You miss the people and the places and the person you were at that point in your life.

When I look back to high school, I see a very ignorant version of me. But it's good because I also see the part of me that constantly tried to become less ignorant. 

I look back and see a person who discovered that writing was her escape. And just the act of discovering it was beautiful. I mean I know that I go through phases of "oh maybe, I can write..." and then "what even. I just want to kill myself because I am an insult to writing." But I guess that is what learning means. To recognize your strengths and weaknesses. 

I was talking to a few friends today about how much fun it would be to travel broke and free. To meet new people, have crazy adventures, and just be spontaneous. A few years ago, this idea would have seemed crazy. Now it sounds just wonderful.

I might be being naive. I mean there are serial killers and rapists out there. Not everyone can be trusted. I might also be neglecting the fact that just being on your own might be the scariest thing ever. But lately I have realized that life is measured by experiences. And there's no relative length that describes an experience. It just depends on you personally. 

I don't know what I am writing anymore or why I am writing this for that matter. But see, I am okay with that. This may have been another thing that I learned in these past four years. It's okay to not know precisely what you're doing or where you're headed. You might find a destination. You might not. But meanwhile, enjoy the scenery.

A few days ago a friend of mine asked me to post my life goals, this was my response: keep walking aimlessly until I find a sojourn so beautiful that it makes me want to stop and stare for a while, and then continue walking.

I guess what I am saying is that I like ambiguity and uncertainty and unknown. 

I feel like I have learned the most about empathy though. People deserve kindness and understanding. I mean, you might meet someone on their worst day. They might have lost someone close or their dreams might have been crushed or they might have found out that they only have a few more breaths, and you see that they are not kind and so you decide that they don't deserve your empathy. When in reality they needed your empathy the most that day. 

I have also realized the importance of people in life. Being surrounded by good people might not eradicate your problems but it just might make it easier to deal with those problems. Same with strangers. I have learned that if a stranger smiles at you randomly or gives you a compliment, it makes your day a lot better. What I am trying to say is that random acts of kindness keep you going. You think you can't hold it any longer but then someone appreciates you and you realize that you can make it after all.

So thank you for teaching me these wonderful things. I will miss the person I was in high school but now I am off to new and better things. There's a lot to do and never enough time.

P.S. This was inspired by Pandy's thank you note!

Thoughts of 5:20 AM

November 26, 2012 at 5:37 AM

Two weeks of classes left and then finals. First semester of university almost over. To be honest? It's pretty scary how fast time flies when you are a part of something. When you're watching life go by as a standbier, it crawls on a speed so slow it may have been negative had Physics allowed. But I guess this is the beauty of being conscious and a part of something. Perhaps that's why we wish so ardently that we were a part of something much bigger than ourselves. Because it's nice to be doing something.

I just deleted my Tumblr and I guess I needed to write my thoughts somewhere and this seemed like the ideal place. Cause you know what better way to privatize your thoughts than to post them on the internet. I have a strong feeling I am making up half of these words or using them incorrectly, so I'm going to use the "it's 5 in the morning" excuse to wheedle my way out of that one.

It's sad how I have developed this urge to voice my thoughts. I think it may classify as pride on some level since I strongly believe that my thoughts are worth voicing. But here's the irony, what I am trying to voice is never the same as what I end up voicing. The meaning is lost somewhere between my mind and my pen...err, I mean keyboard. 

To those who read, I thank you. To those who didn't, I don't blame you; I usually end up skimming through posts that are longer than two sentences too. To those who did and are on my friends list but I never really talk to, feel free to comment (or ignore), I promise not to think of you as a creeper.

Night/Morning, people!

Thoughts of 9 PM, Monday Night

November 26, 2012 at 9:17 PM

I just woke up and am in that state where I'm halfway between sleep and wanting to punch anyone who talks to me. Kidding about the latter part, apparently it's not legal or something. 

Today, I decided to be brave with something. Today, I had an epiphany. Today, I dissected a heart. Had I been not so tired the entire time, I would have called it one of my better days. 

I was standing in line for Smoothie King and the person behind me taps on my shoulder and says, "Those glasses are wicked cool." I smile, thank him, and wonder how he could get away with using the word "wicked."

While dissecting, my lab partner tells me how he punches stones everyday to get firmer knuckles. I look at him in disbelief and he answers, "Yeah, man, you know Bruce Lee? He used to do that. I want to be like him." I'm not sure if I'm supposed to praise this so I keep my mouth shut, smile, and go back to dissecting.

Lately, I have been doing that a lot. Rendered speechless so I ignore the world and just smile. Surprising how much you can get out of by smiling. It's a lazy person's ultimate tool. Just keep smiling, just keep smiling. Who knows? You smile at a stranger and it helps them breathe easier. 

I like fountains. I like lying on the grass, watching clouds travel at a speed, and listening to water fall. It is very calming to the mind. Time, in a way, stops there. Your worries can wait. Your next big test is doable. And so on. 

I hate editing but I feel so honored when people ask me to edit their papers or proofread their words. I suck at using words. I don't know grammar. But I like that people associate me with words. Sarah Kay once said, think of five words you want to be defined by and become those words. Writing is definitely a word I want to be associated with.

I am told that I shouldn't wear my dreams on my sleeves. That people are cruel and become obstacles in your path. To them I dare say, you know nothing about dreaming. I am young and proud and arrogant so I suppose I can get away with saying such things. I can get away with having unrealistic dreams and unattainable goals. I have no responsibilities. So for a few moments, I dare to dream.

Thoughts of 1:45 AM, Thursday Morning

November 29, 2012 at 1:59 AM

In all technicalities.

Today was too brutal. It hurts when you're told that you're not good enough. It hurts a lot. 

I realized today that I have my finals in a little over a week. Not a good realization. But I can do it. Or if I repeat it enough number of times, it will be ingrained in my mind. But in actuality if you repeat something enough, it loses all meaning. So, I am back to square one. This is why I don't give pep talks. Because I'd probably end up discouraging the person.

They had fake snow at school today. It made me smile. I made a snowball but then I realized I had walked alone to the area and had no one to throw the snowball at, so I awkwardly put it back down. Then I got hit by one. I wanted to pick the snowbal up and hit back but I didn't know who hit me. 

The Mindy Project is my new favorite show. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, should watch it. I usually can't watch more than an episode of a tv show but I ended up watching all the episodes of it. (There are only seven but that's still a lot.)

This morning, I was at the satellite and I heard these three people having an argument over demons v/s dragons. I swear they brought in neoclassicism and marxism at some point. It was fascinating. I wish I had followed their arguments closely but I was cramming for a class. 

It's too cold in my room. 

Goodnight, people!

Thoughts of 2 PM, Thursday Afternoon

November 30, 2012 at 2:26 AM

I burned my tongue while drinking soup today. I do it every single time. I think Freud’s pigeons would condition not to do something as silly faster than me. 

A friend of mine gave me a handwritten letter today. Yes, people still write letters using a real pen. I love sending emails but letters will hold a special place in my heart, always. There’s something about ink drops on a piece of paper that carry words straight to my heart. Or maybe I am just incredibly bitter about all those years of write-till-fingers-hurt exams. (I loved your letter. You know who you are.)

Yesterday, my professor talked about woods being the most conscious place possible. I am not trying to be cynical or funny but I would be too frustrated by mosquito bites to be conscious of my mind. How do you untangle your mind while you’re getting your blood sucked out of you? I mean it sounds pretty poetic but it’s not very practical. But then again poetry rarely is. I guess that’s why they use physical pain to muster truth out of war criminals and terrorists. We say that the peace of mind is much more precious but when it comes down to it, we choose physical comfort. Always. 

Pain is a funny thing. Our threshold is always higher than what we think it is. And yet, we are terrified of it more than anything. I think it is the single thing that brings us closer to ourselves and yet we run away from it. We are some silly beings.

I'm slowly realizing the importance of individuation in thoughts. I know our thoughts are influenced by everything and anything but it is important to filter thoughts in a way that the ones that bring you intellectual delight have precedence over the others. That might be selfish but I believe it is a necessity. 

I bought coffee today that smelled like nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla. It smelled of winter (well pseudo-winter cause I live in Texas). On my way back, I saw Christmas lights. I love this time of the year. I love it so much. People associate cold with darkness and gray and all that is lost. The sun doesn't shine and it is just depressing. But winter reminds me of foggy mornings in Lahore and the evening bonfires, of forgotten tales and late night street cricket. If seasons were places, winter would be home for me.  

P.S. I wrote this in Biology but couldn't find the guts to publish it on Facebook then. 

Thoughts of 6:30 AM, Saturday Morning

December 1, 2012 at 6:45 AM

To those who believe I can’t wake up so early on a weekend, ha!

Yesterday, the professor in her lecture talked about the difference between empathizing with someone’s words and telling their account for them thinking you know how it feels to be them. I had never thought there was a difference. This makes me really sad. How many things have I possibly not thought of? How do you live with that?

I think the weirdest thing for me to hear about myself is that I intimidate or scare people. I don’t think I can ever get used to hearing that. It scares me too, having that much power over someone. 

The neighborhoods around UH break my heart. Every time I am driving through them, I get extremely melancholic. To see the broken houses and middle aged people at home at 10 AM on a weekday just ruins me. Maybe, they work night jobs. Maybe, I am just making false assumptions. Or maybe they are exactly how I see them. I know that I can’t end world suffering and that to be human is to suffer and all that philosophical mumbo jumbo, but how can I ignore what I feel because that’s how things are “supposed” to be. But it’s a good way to keep focus. Sometimes, I forget why I am doing what I am doing. Driving through those places is a very brutal reminder of what needs to be done. I suppose it’s a necessary anguish, it keeps me motivated. 

I was looking through Time's 100 Most Influential people and saw Ali Ferzat up there. Well-known for his political cartoons in Syria. He drew cartoons satirizing Bashar Assad. They found him, beat him up, and broke his hands so he couldn't draw. He let them heal and is back to drawing. It's people like him that inspire me. To be so in love with something that life without it seems impossible. To care about the truth getting out more than personal safety. To live a life giving truth and justice a voice. I dare say, that is religion for me. People who are passionate about something speak to me. Combine that passion with a bit of courage and that is my definition of a hero.  

I am going to pull a Seneca here and end this with a quote. It means nothing and everything, it has just sort of stuck with me since I read it a week ago. It has really pretty diction too.  

For there the least of whispers was kept safe:

it crossed that cleft with words of tenderness

-The Metamorphoses of Ovid

Thoughts of 8:15 AM, Sunday Morning

December 2, 2012 at 8:33 AM

I think early morning is my new favorite time. It is quiet and foggy and chilly. It is beautiful. The kind of weather that coerces you to contemplate everything. Of course, it's not too peaceful since I'm blasting 90's Bollywood music. Not trying to be ethnocentric but desi music is really the best.  

A friend of mine tells me, "Mina, you have the kindest heart. Take care of it, there really aren’t that many." I think this is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. It's overwhelming. Remember a few days ago in one of my notes I talked about Sarah Kay and five words? This is another word I want to be associated with. Usually, I fail when it comes to being kind. But it is something that touches me more than anything. I think that if there is one thing that can truly bring a change, it's kindness. People remember kindness. 

Also, questioning my sanity. Why did I choose to take Honors Chem? WHY?

Have a productive Sunday, people.

Thoughts of 12:11 PM, Thursday Afternoon

December 13, 2012 at 12:20 PM

I have been feeling kind of blah lately because of finals and my cold but it's okay. I have my thoughts now.

The kid next to me at the library is explaining to his mama that he is fine, not broken yet. That he's eating enough and getting enough sleep. That she should not worry. I think there is a sweet pleasure in worrying about your loved ones.

There are days where I pause and realize how much I have changed. Today is one such day. Four years ago, I hyperventilated when I had to speak in front of strangers. Now I find comfort in conversations. I have realized that it's okay to let your thoughts be known and heard. That it's okay to say that you make punnett squares in your free time trying to figure out your genes and be thought of as a weirdo. It's okay to let the world see who you really are. In fact, you should find pride in it. Today, I had my oral final for Human Situation. A thirty minute conversation with a professor over literature I have read this semester. Not once did I think I was taking an exam. It felt like a conversation with a really intelligent person who told me she liked my thoughts. I showed her an aspect of me that I usually keep hidden. And you know what? She got excited because she shared similar views. Funny thing, life is. We try to fit certain molds, trim ourselves to make it easier for us. When in reality, weird is good. Weird is memorable. Weird is fun.

Thoughts of 12:01 AM, Tuesday Morning

December 18, 2012 at 12:17 AM

I'm taking a break from Bio cramming. 

There was a weird silence on campus today. Not the kind that's peaceful but the kind that's almost daunting. I realized how huge my university is and how easily people can make it seem so small. You know it's one of those things that you know are true but their truefulness (is that even a word?) never ceases to shock you. Like death. You know it's happening but it still manages to knock the air out of you. But perhaps that's a good thing. There should be things that continue to surprise you and change the core of your existence. That most importantly bring you out of your indifference.

I know this is cheesy but I am so thankful for friends who understand me. In a weird twisted way, they help me be more coherent in my thoughts. 

I haven't written in two months. This makes me really sad and happy at the same time. I need to write soon, though. Fear is a funny cruel thing. Most of the time, I am too scared of not using the correct words. Whatever that means.

The difference between "is" to "was" is merely of two letters. And yet, its magnitude is greater than most things. What was cannot be changed. What is, however, can be. Who was matters less than who is. I think I need to constantly remind myself of this.

Thoughts of 3:02 AM, Friday Morning

December 21, 2012 at 3:13 AM

I thought I wasn't going to write anymore of these because I finally have time to write in my journal but I need to spew somethings. 

I hate reading the news. I hate it so much. Because every time I do, I hear of violence. I hear of injustice. I hear of torture. I hear people being labelled as collateral damage. So much suffering, so much pain. It breaks my heart. But then I wonder about the lives of those for whom this is a reality. I have the privilege of not reading the "news." I can afford to not read the news. I can actually not know what's going on in the world if I ignore the news. But for others, it's a reality. They don't even have the option of "ignoring" the news because what's news to me is reality to them. They are living in what is news to me. I can live a life without knowing what's going on in Palestine. But for Palestinians, they just need to look outside their window. I can live without knowing what happened to the girl in Delhi, but her body screams her reality every second she is alive. I think that this is too much to handle but I forget about people who have no choice but to handle it. 

And with this heavy heart, I bid thee goodnight. I am going to lose myself in a book because I have the privilege of doing so.

Thoughts of 2012

January 1, 2013 at 6:56 PM

Because bullet points are, well, easier to read.

• Sometime last year I read this quote: Find what you love and let it kill you. I don’t know who spoke these words but they had a profound impact on me. We are not waiting to die. We are not “going” to die. We are dying. We die with every passing breath, with every heartbeat, with every second. We die a little every moment. It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not. Disease only expedites the process. Morbid thought, I know. But you know, it made me think of all the things I love and wouldn’t mind dying for. It brought me momentary clarification. 
• It’s so easy to condemn killers. You think of the victim and you start pointing fingers at the man pulling the gun and that’s that. But what about the man pulling the gun? Why does no one point any fingers at his killer? You know why? Because then we will all be pointing those fingers back at ourselves. We form the opinion of right or wrong but we forget that we also create the right and the wrong. We mold people into victims and killers. We, the society. He may pull the trigger but who compels him to?
• You know, we all try to run from our past. From who we were, from who was in our life, from what we did but there really is no redemption except acceptance. There comes a point where you have to accept what you did, who you were, and who was and move on from it. It’s not that moving on is a choice, it’s a necessity. Adaptation. Change. You can be as strong as you want but survival is based on change and change stems from acceptance. 
• Sometimes, it makes me sad how my words are so dependent on your perception of them. How what I say has no value if said to myself. How my thoughts need a portrayal. How I need to use words. How I need to think in words. My thoughts aren’t independent. They are the product of all that I have read and heard. They are not original. They exist because they are molded. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. My thoughts were neither created by me nor can be destroyed by me. I am just a medium. My words and my thoughts are matter. Matter that doesn’t matter. What a sad thing to think. 
• Books teach you to empathize. I mean normally you’d hear that someone killed someone and you’re likely to condemn the killer. You’d see it as something black and white. But when you read a book, from the perspective of a killer, you realize that you know maybe the killer was provoked. Not saying that the victim should attack (although idk about this….hmm). But what I am saying is that books make you realize that there are a billion screwed up minds out there and that there are a billion screwed up reasons for doing the screwed up things. And all the screwed up reasons are immersed in a gray cloud. And sometimes that gray cloud is lingering towards the white side of the color palette. And that makes you question your lifelong held morality. It shakes your world. It’s like growing up your entire life thinking that sky is blue but then realizing that the blue is really every color but blue because blue is the only color that light reflects. Sometimes when I read books, I can empathize more with murderers than with people who appear to be like me.

Thoughts of 11:05 PM, Sunday Night

January 6, 2013 at 11:04 PM

Eventually, I'll stop writing these. But for the time being, here it goes.

i. Often, I wonder what goes through the minds of people the society deems to be criminals. I am curious as to what the person's thoughts are that lead to killing someone, or raping someone, etc. I want to know what Mengel was thinking while experimenting on all those people. I am trying to understand. I just want to know where the boundary lies between sanity and insanity. I am not condoning their actions. Please believe me when I say that. But I would like to see things from their perspective, for the sake of my curiosity. 

ii. A friend of mine tells me that I am one of the most well-read people they know. Another tells me that I never tolerate mediocre books or shows. I don't agree with their words but it's nice to know that people notice things. 

iii. I have been thinking about this for quite sometime and I realized that I can't befriend people who lack passion. I almost feel sorry for them. People who lack passion seem so lifeless to me. There is no spark in their eyes. No excited babbling about the things they love. They seem so indifferent about everything. 

iv. Here's the thing. Despite what happens to you, despite how much you fall, you don’t have a right to turn yourself into a victim. There will be times when you will be cheated on. There will be times when people will do awful things to you. But you should never let yourself turn into a victim. If someone treats you badly, it’s their flaw. But it’s also your shortcoming that you let them treat you that way without fighting. Someone treats you poorly? You give em hell. You’re not a toy to be played with. It’s okay to lose that fight. But what is not okay is to become a damsel in distress and wait for a savior. You have to save yourself. That is the only way. No one can save you but you.

i am not a poet

January 8, 2013 at 9:31 PM

i. i look under my bed

try to find metaphors

that would somehow beautify these

abstract pieces.

your words are simple, they say.

there’s beauty in simplicity.

ii. there are moments,

when you want to take a person and

rip them apart so

you could fill them up with you

because they simply

don’t understand.

iii. those days when

getting out of bed requires

supernatural strength,

i salute you.

iv. most of the days,

i struggle in finding a way to

put my thoughts in pen

and hit that "publish" button.

it feels like giving up a vital organ.

taking out too much and

presenting it on a platter

for the entire world to be ogled at.

it's too damned scary.

Thoughts of 1 AM, Friday Night-Saturday Early Morning (ish?)

January 12, 2013 at 1:01 AM

"It's the words, man. It's always the words."

You are right. Often, words can be sharper than daggers. They can slice through your heart. You know that the person speaking those words has best intentions at heart. You know that they mean well. But that doesn’t lessen the effect of those words. They still manage to shear through your skeletal muscles. You think that since it’s one of the strongest muscles in your body, it would put up a better fight. You think that surely nothing as simple as a few words could puncture your heart. You deem yourself to be stronger than that. But alas, you’re not. And that is a brutal realization. You’re angry. But the anger isn’t towards the speaker of those words. It’s towards yourself. For caring too much. For caring at all. For letting yourself be human. For letting yourself get hurt.

I deem an author to be a "good one" when they can make me empathize. If they can't, I blame it all on their lack of penmanship and not on my lack of empathy. I have a feeling that is an awful thing to do.

That is all.

Thoughts of 5:35 AM, Wednesday Morning

January 16, 2013 at 5:45 AM

• My sleep schedule is a joke. 
• Note to Self: Do more. Think more. Listen more. Speak less. 
• “I am not here to tell you how good you are. I am here to tell you how far you need to go to be worth a damn in my eyes.”-Modernity Prof. I love teachers like that. I love teachers who care more about your education than your feelings. I don't care for sugar coated words and left handed compliments. If I suck at something, tell me straight up. I'd be damned if I don't try my best to improve but even if I don't, I'll be the one to blame.
• On Monday, I met someone who has four degrees and is working on a fifth one. Gosh, I love people who're in love with education. I love people who want to learn, for the sake of learning and knowing things. That may have something to do with the umpteen educators in my family. And to think I created a havoc when I was asked to do homework back in kindergarten.
• School makes me happy. I don't care how nerdy or geeky it sounds, school makes me happy. I love the caffeine highs and the humdrum of a normal weekday at an educational institution. 

That is all.

Thoughts of 2:11 PM, Friday Afternoon

January 18, 2013 at 2:14 PM

• Let the sun wash over us as we find comfort in our ambiguity and ignorance. For a few minutes, let us forget of all that has burdened us and live like a five year old on a birthday. Let us forget all the bygones, let us forget all the to-be's, let us truly breathe in this moment and carve it in our memories. So much so that when our eyes refuse to cooperate, when we can't hear ourselves breathe, when we have to depend on another to walk two feet, we still remember the sheer vivaciousness of this moment. When we are hurt, we look back to this hour and remember all that is possible. All that can be. Let us breathe in the life, the wild spirit of youth.
• How sad is it that the words the author struggles with, the words the author gives birth to, are never really truly his. They belong to the muse and the reader. And yet, the author goes through hell to voice them. The beauty of penmanship lies in this sadness.

Thoughts of 8:23 PM, Tuesday Night

January 22, 2013 at 8:34 PM

I think the only way to truly gain knowledge is to coalesce it in your life. To live that knowledge everyday. To breathe and think of what you know and where you can go from there. To become your knowledge. It is so interesting how things you learned years ago, how things you never thought could help you, resurface right when you need them. Regardless of how much you claim to hate school, of how homework makes you hate education, it is important to remember that there are people out there who'd give anything to get the kind of education you are getting. One must not ever underestimate the value of schooling and good teachers and healthy friends. I am just realizing how lucky I have been in this matter. I have had the privilege of getting educated by some of the most knowledgeable and inspirational teachers, who truly helped me learn and grow as a person. I have had the privilege of acquaintances, who dare I call friends, with passion and purpose and kindness and a yearning for a better self. There are flaws in everyone. There are times we all fall short. I think it is important to realize that by the end of the day, we are all human. 

Last week in a lecture my professor said, you don't have to die to go to hell. I have been thinking about that a lot. I haven't formed a conclusive thought but I think I can empathize with the depressed.

Kaleidoscopic Moments

March 24, 2013 at 9:54 PM

The cries of bruised egos mantle my thoughts tonight. I think of the time when I was six and swinging on this swing and the sun was setting and I just kept swinging because I truly believed that I could reach the sky. A cup of tea and your memories keep me warm on this cold bitter night in late-March. As winter and March refuse to line up, so do my thoughts. The universe is restless in its infinities and you are restless in your thoughts and perhaps the two aren’t different at all. You close your eyes for a few minutes as your favorite song plays. You already know all the words by heart. Heck, they’re probably a poster in your room. But you feel the impact of those words again. You notice a phrase that you loathed once that now fits in your life perfectly. It's a weird coming-home-after-months kinda sensation. The only difference is, you can finally smell what your home smells like. 

Empty Amusement Parks

May 14, 2013 at 12:12 AM

With its creaking Ferris Wheel singing an ode to the muses of dawn, you worship the silence and ambiguity. A few seconds of peace, the chirping of memories from the past, the hues of filled chairs: it’s all in a layer of fog surrounding your mind. Listen to the quiet that is before the chaos. To the lull that ensues before the storm and the stillness that makes you forget how to breathe right before an applause. We seek vengeance. There is surely something romantic in raging a war against the universe. The paradox of it all, thus, lies in its very state of existence. No number of crumpled pieces of paper could ever take it away from you. It’s all there in your skin and bones. Decomposition, perhaps, is then the answer. 

thoughts and stuffs

June 1, 2013 at 6:54 PM

a few things I have realized/remembered in the past few days

• if you wake up early between 7-9 am and do 20 minutes of yoga, your day goes great
• simple things make a difference. you think people don’t notice but they really do.
• when people leave, even if it’s just one person, you feel like a part of you has gone missing. it’s a weird feeling. but although it is saddening, sometimes people leaving is a good thing. sometimes it’s the thing you need and not necessarily want
• good books, good music, good conversations, heck even good coffee can make a huge difference. you don’t necessarily need to party through a weekend to feel alive. i think, to an extent, being alive means being able to enjoy simple things. like a pretty blue mockingbird.
• never.google.baby pigeons. seriously, worst decision in the past few days. they are ugly and creepy.
• sometimes you need to go to a park and swing your thoughts away. heck, you should swing all the time if you can. while swinging you should close your eyes or just stare at the clouds. clouds are always pretty.
• i love lists. really, i love lists.
• i also love coffee.
• i love lists about coffee
• but i despise weak coffee
• and instant coffee