Tuesday, April 19, 2011

On why The Joker will never stop and the Batman should think of alternatives

And they say that a hero can save us,
I'm not gonna stand here and wait,
I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles,
Watch as we all fly away
(Hero, Chad Kroeger)

In the many years that I've lived, I've been blessed enough to meet many people who thought me, directly through their opinions and indirectly through their actions and experiences, things I have had problems with comprehending. 

I remember one day at school when a dear friend decided to ask a question to our teacher. It was a rather naughty question, which he decided to ask after some friction between the guys and the girls at school about a topic my brain couldn’t retrieve anymore. Obviously it was a rather trivial issue, if not, I think even my humble brain would be able to remember it better.  The question was "do we need to change ourselves in order to join a group?"

The answer to the question, given by Ustaz Azam after the dusk namaz was quite a good one. We were in the Al- Qadisiyah mosque, all a hundred plus of us from the 2005 class, staying at school for the big exam, SPM (Sijil Penentu Masa Depan, as a teacher of ours had once printed on the last page of a trial paper). 

He said change is like driving on the highway. You face only one direction, forwards, and you have 3 lanes. A slow lane for the more relaxed, the right lane for the fast ones who want to get to their destination with only their destination in mind, and the middle lane for the ones in between. It’s ok to choose whichever lane you would like to drive on, but you shouldn’t drive on the opposite direction, because that spells danger and death. Good...isn’t it?

Many people though find it awfully hard to change. Certainly is the case for yours truly. Because it feels better if someone could come and carry us to our destination. Like Batman who catches all the crooks and stuffs them into jail and Oprah who would have her crew clean and makeover a messed up house. But I think even Batman and Oprah would get sick of doing things for people, because they would know that these instant magical remedies are not addressing the root of the problem. So even if Batman could stuff The Joker again and again into Arkham Asylum, The Joker once out will continue to bring trouble, because he doesn’t want to change. 

Which brings me to a point. An uncle of mine once answered my cousin's honest question of "how did you stop smoking?" with a simple "I wanted to stop, and so I stopped". That quick answer probably summarized a longer one in the best of ways.  The thing you probably need most for change to happen is a clear goal. What is it that you truly want? Do you sincerely want the change that you verbalize to others or to yourself? Because if you really want it, you will get it. So when my school counselor asked me about the secret to my SPM result, I didn’t know what to answer him. Because there wasn’t a secret, there was just a goal, the will to achieve it, the effort and the faith that if you believe in God and try as hard as you can, God will not forsake you. But I guess I'll bite my tongue and say that the above was probably an oversimplification.  Because obviously we have variables in our lives, and forces outside of our control that interplay into the whole complex affecting us. As much as we would like to have complete power over our lives, we should understand that in reality, for us humans, there isn't such a thing as complete power. But we can certainly try to woo these factors into helping us to change. But that is a different story altogether, probably someone's social science thesis paper for all I know. So I shall not indulge myself in a typing frenzy for that. 

Believe me dear reader when I say that change is a cyclic process. That is what we learn from psychiatric lectures. That people are bound to relapse in the process of changing. The thing that makes a person finally change is their will and persistence, and a faith that their hard work will not go to waste. So it’s ok if you relapse and fall. You just need to know that you can rise again. If it’s too hard to rise again in that very moment, take a break, reflect and then try again. If it’s too hard to stand up by yourself, hold out your hand and ask for help. Because someone will eventually grasp your hand and help you up. Believe me.  You are worth the efforts of another.

Which brings me to another point. That is about helping people to change. I've heard again and again in dramas, both on TV and in real life, how in arguments, a person would say "you need to change. Unless you change, this is not going anywhere". Look, it’s easy to tell someone to change, and wait for them to reach their destinations by themselves.  But I think it’s more enriching and rewarding if we could hold their hands and walk with them along the way. It will tell the person that "hey! I'm here for you. I'll help you through because I care about you and I want to see you become a better person" and I believe, through personal experience that it means the whole world to them. And who knows, we probably could learn a thing or two from the journey together. So don’t be greedy people! Help each other change! Share and learn from each other! Remind in the spirit of love and brotherhood!  

Which brings me to the final point of this entry. About the power of the individual. We’ve heard again and again that change starts with you. That one person can affect the whole world. One person can send off a tsunami that can shake the whole ocean of people around them. It is possible. At least I believe so. And so if you see something that needs changing, whatever it is, you should take action to change it. And it’s ok to be the one who starts the changing. You will be amazed at how your actions will affect another person and how it can cascade and become larger until finally the change you brought will be practiced by all.  Don’t underestimate the influence you have on others, you have more power than you might think.

Easier said than done. But you'd never know until you try. So give it a try people! Set your end point, look up the road map, get into a car, drive in the lane of your choice, and get to your destination! You don’t have to wait for a hero to get you there.

Because the hero of the story is you.

Always wanted to be an X-Man
Azfar 

p.s.: Reading this before closing it just made me think about how disorganized and messed up this entry is.  Nevertheless I hope that all of us got something from reading this.  As I've constantly said, in hopes of defending my mediocrity in thinking, you've probably read this from a lot of other places with better articles but I'd like to remind myself of this anyways. As a friend of mind kindly told me when I asked them if my blog was boring "it's your blog, who gives a damn anyway?”  Anyhow I'd appreciate comments from whoever it is. As it is written up there, sharing (is supposed to) makes everything better.


Tuesday, April 12, 2011

On the 7 shirts that I have and the pants to go with them


I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers. (Kahlil Gibran)

My heart can never have enough.

I mean, there's always the latest gadgets launched, the newer, funner games released, the more comfortable shoes, the warmer jackets, the clearer and bigger media screens, the bigger engined cars, the better looking pair of jeans, the wider and further zooming lens and so many other things that I need to have. If my heart could have his way, my room would've been filled with new things every week, some I may need, more, I do not.

Sadly, and quite to my relief, my financial flow would not allow this to happen. Sad, but I'm alright with that. I mean, surely it would be nice to be able to afford a new laptop when the current one hangs every 15 minutes, and its 'Enter' key dangles around threatening to rob me off my 'enter'ing rights every time I hit it with enthusiasm, or to go to Japan and New York and Istanbul to see the great cities, or to have an SLR camera to finally start following the trend or at least to have a fancy robot alarm clock to wake you up with cheer in the morning that I've wanted for 2 years now!!
http://www.thegreenhead.com/2008/09/temper-tantrum-throwing-alarm-clock.php

But it has come to my realization that I can be absolutely happy without having those things. In fact, I'd probably be happier if I decided to stop thinking about them and direct the energy to my mastication muscles to eat a bar of chocolate instead.

Frankly, I must say that during these years as a medical student on a scholarship, I have been richer than I have ever been throughout my entire life! Not rich enough to be able to afford a swanky new Mac Book Pro or the amusingly overrated IPad or to go to New Zealand or Tokyo for a 2 week trip; but I have enough to never have to go hungry, to be able to drive around in my beloved shared car, to be able to call people without having to constantly glance at the screen to see how long I've been on the line, to have 7 shirts which I could rotate and match with different pants to not appear to wear the same things to work every week, to drink good coffee at Gloria Jean's on a weekly basis and to do so many things. So many things, all at the expense of my own money.

It's a common thing to see in Facebook statuses nowadays, but I don't think I can ever remind myself of this enough.

That the fact that I am here, able to post this entry on a personal laptop, in a house (lets leave the issue of who's paying rent for this particular house aside), safe and sound, with a block of Black Forest chocolate on my side, breathing and beating in health, means that I am much more fortunate than many millions of others in this world.

And the fact that you, dear readers, are able to read this post on whatever it may be, a computer at the Uni, or your laptop or your mobile phone also means the same thing.

That God has granted us so much more in terms of facility and wealth than a lot more of the world's population.

I may not have everything that my heart desire, but I've never not have enough. And it makes life easier when I think of things that way.

So with this in mind, I'd like to thank God for firstly the faith he has granted me, for the Prophet and the message he brought to the world, for the health that I've lived in for 22 years, for my family, my brothers and sisters, for friendships, new, old, forgotten and everlasting, for mentors and teachers, for people I have met and have learned from, for knowledge and the capacity to understand, for opportunities in life, for successes and failures I have lived through, for good memories, for mistakes I have made, for clear and blue skies after a tiring day at hospital, for beautiful fishes, cute pandas and fluttering butterflies, for music and poetry and how good they are at expressing my feelings , and the list goes on. Owh and I almost forgot, for you!  dear reader who spends time reading my posts!!

Try as I might, I'll never be able to count all the favours that God has given me. It's not just my personal opinion, but wisdom from the Divine.

And if you were to count Allah's favors, you would not be able to number them; most surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. [SÅ«rah al-Nahl: 18]

Just loving it
Azfar

p.s.:
For those book lovers out there and those who read all the time, a nice quote for you:
Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing (To Kill a Mocking Bird, Harper Lee)