The Traveller's Diary

CHAPTER 20: Philosophy Drives Me Mad; Incoherent Mind

2010-10-21T19:25:00.000-07:00

Welcome

Recently, I have a very dark thought in my mind. Should I have found the truth in what my Creator wants me (and others) to believe and practise, I will leave for God’s commandments –I do not have a choice. I ask for guidance and then He gives me one. Is it then alright of me to reject it and return to my comfort zone? But it hurts me more to be an opponent of Islam should I learn that there is a religion or belief which is an absolute truth, assuming for the sake of discussion that the faith I am in is not. Not that I ask for that –I asked to be guided to the right path, the path of the righteous who never incur His wrath, the path not of those who have gone astray. Being an opponent to my home is the last thing that I ever want. And I am not a prophet; I am merely a human, seeking to understand the world and the people around including myself.

It was a painful journey for me, having coming to a stage in my life to discard and detach myself from most of the things I believe and then embark with nearly nothing. I remember the times I suffered subconsciously because of doubt. Those were the days full of hidden anger and despair, let alone depression as I concealed it from everyone by putting up a false pretence of me having assurance of what I had faith in. I would pretty much concede of my biasness during that period of mine. My mind was not coherent with my thoughts and the things I believed till today unorganised.

But maybe now after a deep thought-process which it will trouble any of us to delve into our minds, I have come to reassure myself that God does exist and He cannot be in any way that I thought of Him. That is to say, He cannot be a demon or aka a god with an evil personality or someone from the future. Some of you may want to argue that my definition of good and evil stems from my experience in the world. Partially, that is true. Yet at the same time after all these thoughts of the possibilities who my creator would be, I could describe that despite how illusionary the empirical world I live in there are notions or ideas that actually represent reality even if they are as intangible as my mind. What I mean is; I come to know there is a creator after acknowledging that I cannot be born without any cause and I cannot be sure of my existence unless I think. In my opinion, such a gift proves the existence of a creator. And even if we learn the descriptions and names of the terms good and evil, in the “realm” of thoughts we would still recognise the things which we need to know for ourselves so as to lead a life full of meanings. That is as far as I can describe best for now; I admit that in my mind right now is as messed up as before. However, I am beginning to clear things up as much as I can. Thus, you may not find me to be able to answer to my own points convincingly. The best example which I can provide for you to think about is Descartes’ idea of truth in geometry. One add to another one becomes two i.e. 1 + 1 = 2 and it is never possible for one adds to one to become greater than the amount it should give e.g. 1 + 1 does not give more an answer more or less than 2. In whatever language we used to describe the abovementioned idea, it is probably undeniable that such an idea does exist. With regards to the definition of good and evil, at this stage I could only provide an answer to the definition of evil to as far as a notion which hinders me from seeking and finding the truth along with the true meaning of my existence. Thus, I am more inclined in acknowledging that the deception is part of the characteristic of evil, to mislead me from knowing real is.

Well, I do not really see any point of actually summarising what I have already discussed in my previous entries. You know well that I have the habit of writing a lengthy article even though I have tried not to. Until there comes a time that I can express everything in my mind, I must then organise my thoughts and connect them together so as to make sense of things for myself (and yes, I need to share that I got nagged by my mom a minute ago for my messy room –thus I may not be able to write coherently). What I am pretty sure right now is to study as much as I can about the beliefs of others and what I have faith in.

However, until I am proven wrong, I do not have a choice but to go on believing what I believe. Yet at the same time, I should continue my struggle in searching for the truth with an unbiased and open mind. It is not easy, though. Moreover, I am not even in the actual state I should be in i.e. I am disturbed by many things lately, emotionally, mentally and physically.

I almost have nothing to say as I am typing down for the very last chapter which falls under the revealed label i.e. P _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. Some of you might have already known or guessed what the hidden words are and could have probably suspected it is Philosophy. Indeed, philosophy drives me mad –nobody said it hadn’t. It is not that I’d never raised a question to my facilitator who taught me in the G208 module regarding how a genuine seeker of knowledge could come to realise about truth since the theories in philosophy is almost contradicting to each other. I did.

CHAPTER 19: P_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Drives Me Mad; Plato’s Cave

2010-10-16T19:56:00.000-07:00

Welcome

I have been procrastinating from my main and materialistic objectives, certainly. I have no doubt in that. As I am currently waiting for an uploaded video in YouTube to fully load, I thought maybe I should start my next chapter of my journey.

It has been for the past a couple of months since I decided to pour out my thoughts. And as I am typing, I hope that what I intended is consistent up to now. I truly hope I have been sincere in undertaking such a path that I never knew would be full of obstacles especially the misunderstandings of friends moreover some of those I have known for years. In the course of relieving my mind by pouring my thoughts, I was often hindered by a darker voice in me as though tempting me to write so as to gain fame.

Truly, being acknowledged as such a person whom I am not is never been something which I ever want. I do not remember if I ever mentioned that once someone called me a philosopher merely because I was currently reading on philosophies and within me I took that as sort of a mockery. To be known as a philosopher is not my intention of studying philosophy. I do not want to care whatever names or titles people give me. All I want is I. I want to be sincere in my soul-searching for the truth because I will not be spared from death either. And that fact is terrifying when I have come to a realisation that God exists especially when I do not know what I will be heading after my soul leaves the world. Thus, I should not take advantage of His Mercy.

I beg your pardon for the usual digression. I think it is time of me to proceed with what I intended for this entry.

I remember attempting to explain about the allegory of Plato’s cave in my second semester of my first year in polytechnic. Back then, I had no idea what such metaphor really meant –all I could afford in explaining was only describing how the scene seemed like. I only realised what the Greek philosopher Plato meant by such metaphor. And, sighing a light breath, I will resume in explaining what I failed to do so years ago when I was still an ignorant.

There was a cave and in it were prisoners whose bodies, hands, legs and heads were chained to face the cave’s wall. Behind them was a light source, presumably a fire, for objects behind it to be cast on the wall as shadows. Imprisoned since at a very young age, these prisoners had nothing to stare or watch but the moving shadows (since there were people behind the light source carrying the objects for the prisoners to perceive the dark objects over the illuminated wall). Thus, the only reality they recognised was the dark figures on the wall as they could not turn or toss their heads around to see where these shadows came from. Since young, the prisoners had thought and perceived the shadows as real.

However one day, one of the prisoners somehow managed to escape out of the cave and soon first learnt how glaring the sun was as though its rays of light were searing his eyes. Having imprisoned in a cave with a dimly lit light, he had thus never gotten to use his sight to adapt to a brightness of a light more intense than what he had experienced in his childhood. Strolling about, he began to learn of his surroundings through the senses which he never had the chance to use during his imprisonment. After all, his entire body was chained, removing any chance for mobility, not even to turn his head in another direction but forced to face the illuminated wall with shadows passing back and forth before him.

He began to gain mastery over the remaining senses which he had been deprived of since as a child until his escape. He soon learnt that the shadows he perceived as real had not been real but an illusion. For, at the realisation of the world beyond the mere shadows, he finally grasped the understanding what he had observed and experienced. This new experience of his had probably dawned upon him that there were more than what he had seen when he was chained to watch only what laid before him.

With this form of knowledge and understanding, he returned to the cave in compassion towards his fellow prison mates for the state of misery they were in, though they did not perceive themselves as miserable due to lack of knowledge of what laid beyond their world of shadows. He then explained to the remaining prisoners who were still chained and imprisoned of what he had been through, what he had found out and learnt, to convince them that their world is all an illusion and that the real world is something much greater and more interesting. Unfortunately, being brought up to believe the shadows as real and never seen what was beyond their reality, they grew sceptical of him. Despite all those years in the cave but after the experiences in the world than mere shadows, his eyes could no longer be adjusted to the gloom of the cave. He could no longer bring himself up to identify the shadows on the wall after all that he had learnt in the real world. Thus, his failure in identifying the shadows led his claimed knowledge of a greater reality to be believed by the other prisoners as falsehood –probably a bogus. If they could reach their hands on him, they would kill him.

Having said, my understanding of Plato’s cave is regarding people belonging to a society or masses whose beliefs have been instilled upon them since at the very young age and grow up into believing them to be a sense of truth. At one point of time, a person goes on a journey in the quest of understanding the world and learns that there are greater truths beyond his perception of truth, which he has been raised with. Thus having undertaking such a journey, he returns to where he comes from and begins to share with the people. Unfortunately because the people are obsessed with their beliefs, they refuse and reject him. In certain cultures and norms, people may go as far as to persecute such a person who has found a greater truth than what he initially thought it was. Whether such persecution is motivated by a covering of truth so as to confine the people in their delusions or failure in putting themselves in the shoes of the person is unknown –people could be motivated by all sorts of reasons to perform certain actions. God knows what their intentions are.

In my opinion, not that everything we are being brought up with is false. However, undertaking such a journey is to take a step back and watch and scrutinise our beliefs or what we used to believe so as to reaffirm the things we have been clinging on. Only one with a sincere and earnest heart will be able to discover the truth which he has been searching like one whose memory is lost and trying to remember the events of his life prior to his loss of memory.

Possibly, that is the journey that I am still undertaking so far, though I do not denounce the religion which I have been brought up with since young. Not that I am afraid to do so, which is partially true, but due to the fact that I have once again reaffirmed with myself that there is God. And because I do not know which way or belief is the truth, I will believe and worship Him in the ways that are taught to me until I found a belief which is an absolute truth.

So far, I have arrived to a point where either I have misunderstood people or they misunderstood me –and could be both. I remember the times whereby I spewed bad languages at others due to different in beliefs, not necessarily different religions. Those were the days before I faced a doubt in my own faith especially people belonging to another faith who have claimed to have divine experiences. I do not truly wish to repeat that again since I have already mentioned it before. I remember those days whereby I believed pieces and bits of information from here and there without piecing and connecting them together so as to understand the whole context of the information. This happens whenever I studied Hadiths with my teacher. During those days, I took the lessons for granted and believed all the things what he said, assuming that he knew what he was saying. I do not say he was wrong (I still attend for his lessons) but whatever I have been through has opened my eyes to comprehend the world better instead of just believing what is been fed to me. I do not see the whole picture of information but I will continue trusting my teacher because of his religious background in the aspect of studies which he is teaching. However should I come to discover on my own what certain information means and thus differing from opinions or have been often taken as truth by others, I will be keen to clarify it with the people who are knowledgeable in that field of study.

I remember coming back to my secondary school to share my experiences and how I attained good results in my studies with the students who would be sitting for their major examinations soon. My former Design and Technology teacher, Mr Lim, told me of it which reminded me of a statement by one of Prophet Muhammad’s companions. And somehow I am beginning to see things that way too, which goes, “The more I learn, the more I feel there are knowledge which I do not know”. Those lines are not taken directly or remembered accurately; those lines are what I could comprehend from what my former teacher and the companion said. All praises be upon God for all His guidance. By the way, I feel bad for regarding Mr Lim as my former teacher. I think I will still stick to calling him a teacher even though he no longer teaches me. But it does not change the fact that he has once taught me which I did not know and no doubt that even if I were to possess an amount of knowledge more than him in the field of what he taught me, I would never have done so without him being one of those who gave me the push, not to mention introducing me to such knowledge.

In my search for the truth, I have often been misunderstood. But I couldn’t help but wish to console myself that I was once like them. Thanks to the mercy of God that my way of thinking has improved. However, that is not due to the studies in philosophy. Rather, such ability has been blessed to me as far as I can remember in undertaking the Anthropological Studies in the second-year of my polytechnic. Well, obviously that module does not have anything got to do with theories in philosophy. In addition, I had never encountered any names of philosophers during that time, saved probably Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, those of whom I found the names familiar but never actually knew who they were. I did not know who Rene Descartes was, not to mention a few others such as Immanuel Kant, Isaiah Berlin, Popper, John Locke, Sigmund Freud, Stuart Mill, Hume and others whom either I cannot recall or do not know at all. Of course, I did not know the theories they brought. However the Anthropological Studies module did benefit me in ways of how we studied about others especially their behaviours and possibly used these methods into studying other issues too.

I remember having taking that module; we went to the fast food restaurants in shopping malls, park and boarding the trains so as to observe the behaviours of people in certain places and certain times, not to mention interviewing them. It is because we wanted to extract the most accurate studies of certain issues that we were motivated to think critically. Thus, those who thought I have yet to accept certain things in religions due to the influence of philosophy should not blame on either me or the studies of philosophy itself. In fact, I already asked myself questions which I later found out that there were people who asked those same questions as I did when I stepped into classes in philosophy.

Perhaps I have learnt and should always remind myself never to react according to my instinct when I first receive certain information that differs from my opinions and beliefs. I should constantly remind myself to calm down and think and ponder so as to comprehend this information and at the same time make comparisons, not to mention understanding the purpose of it.

May God allow me to have peace of mind
All praises be upon Him and glory be unto His holy Name
May God guides us all
May God forgives our sins and melt our hearts and cleanse them from stains of filth of ignorance and arrogance
May He make us better people, for we are all His slaves who are in debt to Him

Ameen

And yes, probably another special treat;

CHAPTER 18: P_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Drives Me Mad; The Creator

2010-10-15T17:27:00.000-07:00

Welcome

By this point of my life, I am truly in need of help to get rid of my cravings towards certain things such as food and other vicious habits which have been taking place in nearly my entire life.

I am not saying that food is such a threat to my life. However, I acknowledge that certain food does give benefits and certain ones do not. Rather, the latter often causes harm. There are other kinds of things and acts which will eventually ruin me. Yet the cause and effect notion does not only exist in the idea of cravings alone. Literally, it means I will face the outcome of what I do. I hit myself with a stick and thus, I feel hurt (or when somebody throws a blow at me); I feel the pain. I walk in an open space with the heat of the sun blazing over me and I feel its heat.

However, I could be wrong in my experiences because I could still probably be living in a dream in a state of “waking up”. My five senses could still be deceiving me and I do not have the knowledge if I could ever trust in any of them. Furthermore as I said above, I am tired and weary of all my cravings and desires. Realising how much they affect my time, I want to go for a change. At the same time, I am uncertain if returning to my vicious habits is ever right of me. What I am certain is how much damage they have caused upon me even if I exist only as a mind.

In any case, I cannot deny that there’s still a creator who created me. And I would like to know who this creator is especially after what I have done so as to find a direction in my life and acknowledging my purpose of existence.

Demon as the creator

In my previous entries, I talked about what if all my life there is a demon that is pulling the strings on me as suggested by Descartes. What if he, the demon, could be my creator? Well, I have no doubt in my mind that the term “demon” is used to describe a living entity with attributes opposed to “God” whose term is used to describe a living entity who is all-powerful, all-knowledgeable, the most greatest, the most loving and merciful and the one who possess all good attributes. In short, God is good in nature. Thus the term “demon” is a name of the entity of the opposite attributes of the term “God”. It is not surprising that such a living entity to be given the name “demon” creates me with the purpose to deceive me because of his evil-nature. These two terms are what have been taught to me while I am in this world. Hence, it does seem to make more sense if the “puppets” around me exist with a sole purpose to deceive and hinder me from finding the truth i.e. what everything is, like a hamster in a box where around it are hamster-dummies that look like the real one.

The explanation above may be a self-defeating argument. It is because on one hand, I doubt if everything is merely an illusion. At the same time, I brought up about what I have been taught in this world to make a comparison between two entities that either of them could be my creator. I should be aware and even reminded that I am relating my worldly experiences to distinguish between the two. The case here could be contradicting because in the first place, I detached myself from the world I thought was the truth. However in one of my earlier entries, I made the following statement; “Interestingly, if I have a thought that all my life I have been deceived by a demon all along, would that not logically prove there are good and evil?”

Somehow, my experiences in this world taught me about languages and meanings of words in certain language to give descriptions to a particular entity. What is me should I not know any way of communication? At least, the idea is there; there is good and evil; and in this case, I will say that the act of deceiving me from achieving what I need or ought to know belongs to an evil act. Needless to say, what I need or ought to know so as to lead my life better in which I may be able to overcome every deception of life is good.

The act of deception puts my life at stake and thus, I couldn’t be more wrong than to declare that the demon is evil; after learning what the word “demon” and its meaning, I couldn’t be more wrong about my description of the attributes of a demon. A demon with a sole purpose to deceive me should have known that I am about to wake up from my sleep i.e. gaining consciousness from the deceiving world. After all, all my experiences have causes and effects in every action or path I have taken so far, and some hurts me and some do not. I feel pain as a price of committing certain acts and I feel relieved or joyful as a price for some acts. So, I would like to know what is basically going on. Why do I have to go through such experiences? What is the meaning of all these? It is as though I have been designed to think that I should not take all that happened to me for granted.

Assuming that the demon created such thoughts in me so as to continue deceiving me into coming to this stage, then what could my thought-process mean when everything that I have been talking seems to no avail i.e. not getting closer to truth? I cannot comprehend how much I will be deceived especially after coming to a realisation that the incidents in my life were due to the idea of cause and effect. It is as though the time is now that I begin to break away from the chains of deception and live a new life, a life in disciplining myself from succumbing to temptations and work for probably an inner joy. Despite having to live my life with the “puppets”, I will live to the fullest as much as I can.

Having said, there are two flaws should the demon be my creator.

Firstly, if I do still believe I live among the “puppets” and that I am the only one exist, then it should have occurred to me as to why I still decided to live –I could have chosen to end my life now by, say, suicide as I will often face frustration. After all, it is pointless for me to live in this world where I have no real people to communicate but billions of dummies.

Secondly, as I have come to a thought whereby all around me could be an illusion and strive to live my life to the fullest by acknowledging the presence of cause and effect, I am probably at the same time fighting against my creator. In other words, my creator created me as a form of “entertainment" for himself but yet I realise what he is up to and thus, I decided to do my utmost best so as not to fall into his trap and live as long as what he has created for my mind to take or exist. I cannot simply accept that idea because it is too unbearable of me to take it to the purpose of my existence. After all, it is not all the incidents in my life which have negative outcomes i.e. causing me too much pain. However, there have been good outcomes and I am somehow pleased or grateful for such occurrences. And if I could defeat the demon through the means of living to the fullest, then I might probably be proving the lack of intellectual of my creator, again assuming he is the demon. He created me and even “programmed” me with such thoughts, only to be defeated by his own creation by waking up from his deceit when he should have anticipated or foreseen what could have happened.

Even if there is an all-powerful being, say the god, whose place of authority over me (because he created me) is usurped by the demon, I cannot possibly accept such a possibility too as in this case the demon is also part of god’s creations. The fact that an all-powerful being could create such an intangible entity as my mind should have proven me that he too not only possesses a great power which not even I could have but a great intelligence which mine can never match his. Because of such intelligence, god would have known and foreseen the coming of his supposed demise. But why do I really have to go that far when I acknowledged him to be an all-powerful entity? Because he is all-powerful, he is thus capable of defeating the demon himself since the latter is also his creation. The demon would have gotten owned by god before the former could even reach him.

But because I acknowledge god as not only being all-powerful but as well as all-knowledgeable, what if I am created by my future self or anyone like me yet comes from a distant future? The reason behind me bringing up this is because if I could acknowledge that god is all-knowledgeable in creating an intangible entity such as my mind which provides me with the idea of my existence (I think, therefore I am), then I need to consider the possibility of someone from the future to have possessed such knowledge i.e. who too can create a mind.

Someone from future as the creator –ontological paradox

In the world I live, I have “seen” and witnessed the so-called progression in science and advancement of technologies to have created so many things to benefit our lives –the lives of mine and the “puppets”. Because of the rapid changes throughout time, I consider the probability how much advancement in all these could go. Is it possible that the world I am supposedly to be living today be in a more comfortable state than what I am now? Thus, is it possible that I was created by someone from a distant future? In the first place, I mentioned that I acknowledged my creator to be all-powerful and all-knowledgeable because of his capabilities and abilities to create my mind, which is intangible and cannot even be seen.

But if there is someone who creates my mind to be me and puts me into the present, which happens to be before his time, then the question is; who created him? How can he exist without me, who needs to live so as to continue the timeline for him to create me?

What if that someone is a rather different being, though having the same properties as I do i.e. a mind that creates me yet different in some ways from in which I can never be able to create another mind? Moreover, he comes from the future. Firstly, I do not understand why I should accept that notion. He is different from me in terms of capabilities yet he is as same as I am in regards of having a mind (and probably a body). It is not necessarily that he could have created me but there could be others whom he created before me and live through the timeline for me to be born or exist. If that is the case, then the people around me are not “puppets” but real people –persons like myself with minds too. That someone could have created those like me before his time and suddenly because there is a change in time flow, the era he lives in is suddenly full of people. That probably reminds me of the plot in both novel and film titled Andromeda Strain –what an ontological paradox.

Here are some questions; where does he come from? Which time does he belong to? Who created him? And what is the point of him appearing in the distant future just to create entities like myself? More importantly, why should I be bothered about the second question of this paragraph in this case? I am as good as accepting only that there is a creator and he creates me.

But coming to this far gives me something to consider about; time.

I acknowledge that my creator is an all-powerful and all-knowledgeable being for having able to create a mind such as mine for me to identify and ponder about my existence. It would be a good question that I should ask who created my creator. Well, pursuing for an answer to this question will lead to never ending questions. Thus, all I could acknowledge is; there is something far greater than I am to have not only live such a long time but never born and never die; it is eternal. Unlike me who am bound by time, that something probably is not. Why could I not accept other incomprehensible attributes that are not given to me if I already acknowledge that something is all-powerful and all-knowledgeable? And why could I not accept that my creator is possibly eternal, seeming that he has the attributes which I described above? My mind is the evidence of his knowledge and power and because how it (my mind) is created is beyond my understanding, then he is possibly eternal. After all that is been shared, he cannot have been sharing the same attributes as I am since I cannot even duplicate my own mind. Because my creator is eternal, for all I know even time could be part of his creation.

Creator’s Attributes

Up to now, the only attributes I recognise in my creator are omnipotence, omniscience and eternal. Of course, he is unseen –but that does not necessarily mean he is invisible or the whole concept of my creator is just an idea. It is because he could probably be far away from where I am, yet at the same time he knows all about me as he is watching me. The attribute of omnipresence is probably applied between us for now since I have yet to be sure if the people around me are real i.e. possess a mind as I do.

I thought about the creator, whom I probably know him by god now, to share the same attributes as the demon. In other words, he is the god who is evil. But since I brought up the issue about the demon as my creator, then I should know that there is not a difference between god and demon in attributes. In the first place the moment I raised the question regarding the demon as my creator, I should be aware that I was assuming the creator to be evil. And that is already discussed; if god is evil i.e. deceiving me all the time, then either the solution of my life is to resort to suicide (as I no longer see any meaning to live) or strive to defeat him by living to my utmost best.

Now I turn to my creator and declare that he exists and I truly acknowledge his existence. But I have yet to find the purpose of my existence. And only he can provide me with the answer because he is the one who designed and created me and has been watching over me. Because I acknowledge he is the cause that I exist, because I acknowledge the notion of cause and effect, then all the experiences I had in life could not have possibly happened by chance. And the causes of these experiences could not have possibly been taken place on their own. Someone must have set all the other entities i.e. the sun and the “puppets” and etc., even if I have yet to acknowledge if they are ever real, to be in motion. There is no doubt in mind that the person who is possibly responsible for all these causes is my creator. It is only him now whom I am thinking of. It is only one of him. Thus I cannot be so sure if there are other entities such as him to do the tasks of setting or “programming” the other entities to behave according to what I see. I cannot be so sure if there is more than one creator. All I know is; I know there has got to be a creator who designed me.

And I ask again; what is the purpose of my existence? I will not expect him to appear before me as because I already doubt if my surrounding is real, then his appearance may not convince me at all. In a nutshell, I will still doubt if that is god himself who decided to approach and engage me directly.

And I want to know more about the cause and effect notion. All this while, I have been given knowledge as to what hurts or pleases me. Due to that, I am able to avoid what hurts me most and strive towards the objectives that benefit me. Say, I am hungry and I have been given with food. But understanding the nature of the food i.e. what it will cause and lead me to and what happens if I indulge too much in etc. will allow me to work in disciplining myself from too much consumption of it. In this way, the statement “ignorance is bliss” is no longer applicable no matter how tempting or delicious the food is. It is because I already understand what the food will do to me. I should never forget the notion between desires and reasons; to adopt the former would mean I am accepting being ignorant is bliss while adopting the latter would mean to avoid some inevitable dark destiny which lies ahead of me –more suffering, probably. Therefore due to the knowledge I am given, I could not be helped but thankful to my creator for having created me with such capability in order to avoid unnecessary pain to myself.

As I acknowledge that the ability to think is not the only gift by my creator, I should have also acknowledged that up to now I have been given with things to survive on, and needless to say the examples of these are food, water and air. These are essential for my survival, for without them no matter how much I believe that the world I live in is only an illusion I will still suffer to death. Once again if I could feel pain, then there is no doubt that death is real. But even if I still refuse to believe as such, do I really have to wait for it so as to see what lies ahead when that is probably a point of no return i.e. to live again?

And again and again the question lingers; what is the purpose of my existence? At this point, I should now decide to ponder again upon my surroundings. Maybe the “puppets” are not what I thought; they are probably as real as I am. Maybe I should acknowledge too that god has not created me without a purpose moreover when he has given me knowledge and the needs to sustain myself in this world. Probably he wants to guide me so as to find the purpose of my life which I have been searching all the while. But by now, I should acknowledge that god is not only all the attributes which I have explained above but he happens to be all-merciful and all-loving; my mistakes and errs are probably of him to guide me so as to reach to this far. Because I am now certain my creator is god, I shall now resume to my usage of addressing the Supreme Being i.e. “God” instead of “god” and “He” instead of “he”.

Because I acknowledge up to this far is the guidance by God, then I acknowledge too that my surroundings are as real as I am. “Returning” to the world that I once had doubts on, I realise that it is fraught with all sorts of contradictions in beliefs and faiths that I am clueless. Up to this point, I am beginning to acknowledge there is a purpose that God wants me to fulfil before my death. Thus despite all the contradictions, I believe God has a message for me in order of me to complete my journey in life. The obvious solution now is to study each of these ideologies and beliefs.

I remember mentioning in one of my previous entries that God cannot be the deceiver even if He wishes to guide me through His “puppets”. Thus, I have decided to acknowledge all around me is real. Yet because of the contradictions in beliefs, I am probably warned never to rely on my senses too much as what I sense may not be true i.e. having some forms of deceptions in it. Yet, I am probably advised not to entirely disregard my senses either as I may need them to determine the validity of the truth in certain things.

All praises be upon God!

CHAPTER 17: P_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Drives Me Mad; Cause & Effect

2010-10-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

Welcome

Originally, this entry was not as what you would be reading now. I thought it was alright of me to share what my vicious habits were. However, I decided that I did not want any confession of sexual activity. As much as I would want to share so as to get help from you readers, at the same time I do not want anyone to bear thoughts of me regarding how bad I am. God knows better, and He does.

And I think it is even wise of me not to confess because some of you who have already bear an animosity or sense of dislike towards me or my thought-processes (especially being philosophical, though I will not say that is the right word). Some of you might not already forgive me the misdeeds that I had done. Personally, I do not want anyone to pile up their dislike towards me by using what they know more about me so as to continue in their acts of ostracism on me.

Coming back to where we last stopped, I was as though confident to declare that there I have a creator and it’s God. In addition, I claimed that because, like Descartes, God is good in nature and thus, He will not deceive me. And therefore, the “puppets” around me are as real as I am. In a nutshell, they exist as I do with their individual minds, if you get my meaning.

I was caught by surprise that actually Descartes and I shared the same view of certain things. It is not that I am influenced by his thoughts, though you know that I was bugged so much when he raised an issue what if I am living in an illusion e.g. there is a demon deceiving me in my senses to experience empirically. The continuation of my thought-process below was written two days ago (today is 15th October) and I only stopped about Descartes coming to point which he claimed to feel pain to his body only yesterday. Of course, experiencing myself beforehand gives me an advantage to understand better of his message. Despite coming to views parallel to his however, I came through a different experience and thus may slightly differ in terms of opinions.

Now, I cannot deny that I have desires and cravings towards certain things in this world. And if the objects of my cravings are as illusionary as the “puppets”, then all the satisfactions and pleasures I attained all these years in my life are in vain. In a nutshell, I have been deceived into believing these things do give me happiness. If now I doubt whether such experiences in satisfying my desires are real, if I am ever tempted again, and if I chose to satisfy my desires for the sake of being in a state of pleasurable, then I guess the appropriate statement for my deeds are as the probably-famous statement in this world I live, “Ignorance is bliss”.

At this point, I realise I do have a creator but have yet to understand the purpose of my life. Needless to say, I have yet to understand who my creator is and what qualities he has. At the same time, I have desires. Because ignorance is bliss, should I return to where I first lived and resume to my normal life?

We went through about God in my previous entries. As abovementioned, I am still pondering about who exactly my creator is. I acknowledge that if I think, therefore I exist. And since I exist, I acknowledge there is a mysterious creator –and I don’t know him at all. If all this while I’ve come to known that the world is an illusion for me i.e. all around me does not exist including the people whom I consider them as “puppets”, it seems irony that I could easily be lured into a trap of my own desires. It’s like playing with a doll and talking to it, thinking it has a life but it’s all made of plastic. And then I acknowledge there’s a pleasure in falling into the trap.

But one thing for sure, despite the pleasures and satisfaction I earned through the fulfilment of my cravings, I felt physically and mentally pain. While I feel there is a sense of logic that I should now find means to avoid submitting to my temptations, the happiness however motivates me into rushing towards my desires. It is as though the happiness weighs more importance than the pain.

At this point, I come to a notion which I feel a need to acknowledge it; cause and effect. I did that and now I paid the price i.e. physically and mentally agonised. Yet at the same time, in the process of it I couldn’t deny how pleasurable it can be. So, what is the price should I choose to continue such habits? Somehow even if I know all around me is merely an illusion, I still find pleasure in doing it.

I came across sites that explain the side effects of what such behaviours and habits would lead to. Somehow, I do not have to continue doing it and then later coming to the stage where I am in a state of what these information had told me. It is because I already felt its pain even if I find it – I beg your pardon – enjoyable. Moreover, the information I came across mentioned how it was like to carry out such acts was nearly entirely parallel to my experiences. Could this information be telling the truth? Or is my creator who controls me toying with me?

At this point, I have to realise of two notions; desires and reasons.

In addition, I have two options now; either I can choose to be a slave to my desires and go back to where I came from so as to enjoy until I do suffer from the side effects or choose to reflect and contemplate how it will eventually destroy me (and thus, learn to avoid it).

Because I acknowledge the pain I incurred, I feel it is best if I were to strive to quit so as avoiding a probably inevitable destiny. But because my temptation is powerful, I am inclined in submitting to my desires, disregarding the danger of the outcome of me, empirically and mentally. And now, I am in a dilemma. Because I acknowledge the effects that take place in me yet hunger for the pleasures, so I wonder what I should do.

Even if I do not fear pain, is it still right of me to pursue my desire? I wish I could –and I want to. But is it the right thing to do?

Now, I suppose the argument is becoming incoherent. That particular desire is not the only thing which I am facing in my life. Rather, I am somehow being put into this world and go through obstacles as what some “puppets” do i.e. finding a job, studying in schools, living to an old age and die. If I continue this desire, even if I do not fear pain, there will be other consequences. Failing to restrain myself may result me in losing concentrations in my daily tasks. Surprisingly, there will be a consequence if I do not fulfil them. If I am student and need to study so as to obtain good results in school and graduate to find a job, it is only logical that I should refrain from succumbing to my desire so that I can give a full attention to my studies. Succumbing to my habits will waste precious time which can be used for other important tasks. Imagine if I stick to those habits and lose focus in my studies. There are chances that I may not do well in my grades and thus, I may even have to repeat a semester or year in school. There goes a bit of my future! I could have disciplined myself in holding back my horse but I choose not to. Can I thus acknowledge that as cause-and-effect?

As a person, there were some points in my life whereby I questioned what the meanings of doing certain things –and that happened whenever I did not have any motivation in them because I did not find the reason why I should be doing so. Assuming I have restrained my horse completely with a new direction in life and now doing other things, I would always be wondering what the purpose of whatever I am doing is. After all at this point, I have yet to acknowledge that the “puppets” around me do exist as I do. I am tired about life because I do not have any meaning in all the things that I do moreover knowing that you could be a “puppet” to hinder me from searching for the truth.

There I go again! What is truth? After acknowledging there is a creator, after being tired of my berserk horse as I will lose direction in life, after walking a new path from my useless steed (I am referring to my horse), I still find life absolutely meaningless because I do not know exactly what I want. I could be as rich as Donald Trump or Bill Gates. I can work towards the path of wealth. Yet coming to this far even if those around me are merely “puppets” which also happened to be used by me in achieving my goals, I still have not found the purpose of my life yet.

I do not know exactly what I want –if I could work so hard to accumulate wealth, then I must anticipate too that the world I live in has faced economic downfall before. The wealth I attained may no longer be valuable to me. It is because even currencies may be as worthless as dried leaves. I could get all the fame I want –but I must realise that I can lose them too.

Anticipating outcomes of certain paths in life, I now concede defeat that I do not have any real and absolute meaning in life. All I am aware is; I think, therefore I am. I am because of a creator. If this world that I live in is full of falsehood (i.e. everything I hear, see, smell, taste and touch may not necessarily be true as what my five senses tell me are merely electric signals interpreted by my brain or I myself am a puppet for the entertainment of a demon), then I should realise that all the things I have done in my life and in this world has been futile and pointless all along. More important since I brought up the issue about economic downfall, how can I be so sure of what has been provided for me, which is probably I know as history? What is the meaning of all these? What is the meaning of my life? What is the purpose of my existence? How can I be convinced that everyone exists?

Because I do not know anything, because I’ve been through the outcomes of certain actions either committed by me or the “puppets”, I want to know; what is the purpose of my existence?

With to that, only my creator can provide me with an answer. It is because he is the one who creates me. He designed me and gave me the ability to think –and he still does!

But the problem is; I do not know who he truly is!

[To be continued…]

CHAPTER 16: P_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Drives Me Mad; Cogito ergo sum

2010-10-13T16:29:00.000-07:00

Evening, readers

It is still 2nd October 2010 as I am typing this. Apparently, I should continue pouring my thoughts because I do not wish to grow insane over my doubts. Life is set on wheels to be turned.

Here is the brief summary of the previous entry; even if the world and the people around me are not real, still I exist because of my thoughts; I think, therefore I am. Because I have the ability to think, I exist. Because I exist, that explains there must be a Creator who designed me.

But it isn’t fair of us to say that those who are mentally handicapped do not exist simply because they do not have the ability to think. They do exist.

Thinking provides us with reasoning, not to mention to plan for an execution of actions in our daily life. And that is probably a gift entrusted to us so that we can reason with ourselves; therefore hopefully with reason, we can understand the world better. Is it fair then to say that knowledge comes with understanding and comprehension of the nature of things? Because we are blessed with the capability to think and reason, therefore we are responsible for what the world is moreover our treatment towards the ones who are not given the ability to do so.

But before that even becomes a practice, how do we know for sure that these people do exist? How can I even be so sure that the people around me do exist and they are talking to me, not puppets sent as means of deception and hindrance to prevent me from seeking what God wants me to believe?

At this point, I don’t think I have much a choice but to believe God is good in nature. Even if I were to think that there is a demon who has control over my life, deceiving me all along, the fact or having faith that God is good grants me a notion that there are aspects of truth in which will allow me to reach Him and obey His Commandments so as to fulfil the existence of my life. Certainly, if I can accept the fact that there is a Creator, is it undeniable that the Creator who designed me knows about the nature of me? Interestingly, if I have a thought that all my life I have been deceived by a demon all along, would that not logically prove there are good and evil?

God still wants me to reach Him. I am still given the ability to think, therefore I exist. If a demon is more powerful than my Creator, then probably the ability to think would have been destroyed by the former. I don’t really suppose the demon would ever want me to “wake up” –he would probably be having fun to watch me facing hardships. It seems to me that life would then be something like placing a pet, say a hamster, into a box and watch it wanders aimlessly.

Imagine we are the ones who are responsible for placing the hamster into such “cage” and then we place hamster-dummies –non-living dolls in shapes of that same animal – and watch how the living hamster communicates with them. What if life was that way for us, to communicate with others when we do not even know that they may not exist but been programmed to entertain us and react according to our actions? Are we been fooled around and therefore we are the only ones in the world, like the hamster being the only living being in the box?

But since I am a thinking object, God does exist because I must be created in order for me to be given the ability to think. I would acknowledge there is an all Powerful and Supreme Being and thus even the demon is created by Him. Because He is All-Powerful, there is no way the demon could have defeated Him. God can never be defeated by His own creations. One way to rationally prove it is that; I do still think and again therefore I exist. So, I was wondering; if I happened to be the only one who exists in this world whereas everyone does not, is it alright of me to live by my own laws? Truly, there are plenty of girls out there who are tempting –it pretty seems to me that should I be the only one who exist, I should rush for them and rub my palms and fingers against their fleshes because of the nature which I feel it exists and resides within me. Or I could even rob the bank without having a fear of getting caught –because I know despite the police officers could touch and handcuff me, I know they do not exist but puppets programmed to “entertain” my actions.

But honestly, it is very frustrating to live in such a life whereby you think you are not bound by rules enforced by the “puppets” around you simply because you can break them owing the fact they do not exist. Using the example of robbing the bank, you know you’ll get caught and be thrown into prison. Other examples include having yourself bruised and punched all over your body by group of bullies or even as simply as facing heartbreak after being hurt by someone whom you love (especially if she walks out of your life yet you still yearn for her).

More importantly of you getting hurt and tormented, be it physically or mentally. At this point, I may choose to continue neglect those around me and treat them in whatever ways I want. I can be rude towards my parents; I can even choose not to be caring or compassionate towards others just because they do not exist. In fact, there seems to be nothing that can stop me from losing my temper –I am then allowed to scold anyone. Not omitting the issue of food, I can choose to eat whatever I desire. Interestingly, you can even point out because I believe only my mind exist, I can choose not to eat. But is that a good idea –not to eat at all i.e. starving myself?

At some point of time, I should be aware that I am affected by the things I do. After all the hurt and pain, will it not seem obvious of me to turn to my Creator and question of my purpose of my existence after failing to endure the hardships I am going through? If it is true the objects around me are “puppets”, why then could I not tolerate or endure all the pain they give me? Constant submission to sexual desires will lead me to empirical pains such as what we know today as HIV or AIDS. Not considering the types of food I eat may result in loads of health issues. It is not like I will not feel the pain of having too much intake of certain food. We know it for sure the types of food that cause diabetes or high blood pressure –and we do feel the pain when facing these illnesses.

Thus, is life still a game in the eyes of the Creator? The demon is out of picture because I already acknowledge that no matter how much he deceives me, my Creator will still protect me from deceptions. Good point! For, I just thought of something.

It does not make any sense to me that toying with one’s life is considered part of God’s nature of good moreover when He has protecting me from the sneaky demon. Who can then tell me what is the purpose of my life should I choose to question, assuming I could no longer endure all sorts of pain in this world? I mean –some of us might now turn to Him and ask “God, why have You given me this and that etc.?

I would have gladly accepted that God wants me to worship Him –and thus, that is my purpose of existence. However, I want to be sure of things. Because God is good in nature, He will provide me with guidance. Because God will provide me with guidance, then I am supposed to be looking into different beliefs and faiths. God cannot possibly approach me because I will still be questioning if that is Him. Even if He approaches me in His true form, how am I supposed to believe that is God after all my doubts? For all we know, it could be the demon in disguise. Oh –I made a mistake! God is All Powerful, so not even the demon has the capability to disguise as Him. But probably he could approach and say, “I am God; worship me”. Do you not think we have such things today e.g. Satanism or even people resorting to what we call black magic? And yes, some of us do take them as gods.

Because I am supposed to be looking into different beliefs and faiths, is it still possible of me to be the only one who exists in this world? The “puppets” coming from all sorts of religious or philosophical backgrounds can approach me and proclaim this or that is the truth. So how do I differentiate between falsehood and truth? I mean –in a truth, there cannot be two theories that contradict each other such as the example of believing in monotheism and polytheism at the same time which I brought up in one of my previous entries. The most I can do is to rely on my rationality. Yet, I may be wrong! I may not be well-equipped with the necessary knowledge for me to do my research. Moreover, sometimes our common sense or rationality derives from our upbringings. So, what now?

It is at this stage that we can be reminded by games or stories that have the supporting characters that are full of help to the protagonists e.g. we may find supporting characters being an influence to the protagonist to do the right thing such as how Merlin was to King Arthur, Gandalf the Grey to Frodo or Dumbledore to Harry Potter (or it could be as funny as a supporting character giving a powerful or magical sword to the protagonist to slay the nearly invincible antagonist in some games). But if we are playing those games, we must bear in mind that it is us who are the players and therefore, it is us and us alone as players who benefit from these supporting characters –and undeniably because some of the supporting characters are non-playable, they too are “puppets” programmed to serve you.

But if I were to continue believing the people around me are “puppets”, then I’d probably not find any reason why I should continue finding. What is the point of searching when I know everyone doesn’t “exist”?

At this point, I am probably offered two choices; to believe or not to believe.

It is because we often hear people converting from one faith to another –it cannot be possible God made them “puppets” to be witnessed by me as those who are being programmed even if they are a form of help in aiding me to discover the truth. Besides, for God to do that would take away the description of Him being good in nature. Then the blame is unto God –He is the deceiver if the converted people are “puppets”.

But because He is good in nature, these people are not possibly what I used to think of them –they do exist as I do. Because I know God is not deceiving me, I can thus communicate with them and ask about their stories of conversions or as simple as experiences in life. At the end of the day, if they are “puppets” not created by God but the demon, then what am I left with to believe? It is never possible of me to live all on my own, believing they are those been programmed to deceive me. So long as God is by my side, the demon can never fool me.

And in this case, I decided to believe you all exist. And because you exist, then I must find and study as much as I can.

After all, coming to all this way is determined on whether you choose to believe or not. I understand how complicated this thought process of mine can go. Like I said, I just want to fair to myself if I were to either accept or refuse Descartes’ way of thinking.

And in this case, I do not wish to discredit the value of another human being. Therefore, I choose to do my best in putting myself in his shoes.

O Lord, I truly believe You exist
Make not me among a disbeliever
Make not me among those who doubt in Your Signs
Show me the light and the way
Of those whom You bestow the Grace of Yours upon
Not those who incurred Your Wrath
Not those who have led themselves astray

Ameen

P.S: At the same time, if I do not decide to believe in something, as mentioned life is set on wheels to be turned. For an instance, if I continue thinking the world is an illusion with me being the only living soul and thus leading me to do nothing such as not getting a job but do whatever I please, I will suffer the consequence. E.g. if I do not find a job, I cannot even satisfy my daily needs such as food and starving myself will lead me to lose my consciousness –if you know what I mean. Well, because death is real. And I know that my mind/soul will have to return to God.

CHAPTER 15: P_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Drives Me Mad; A Genesis?

2010-10-12T19:38:00.000-07:00

Hey, aliens!

Pardon me for such a greeting. If you wouldn’t mind, I’ll explain to you why I gave you such a greeting.

Right –it’s 2nd October 2010 as I am typing this. However, I will probably not publish this so soon because I want a period of contemplating, reflecting and pondering what I am about to share later. I just want a certainty and firmness that what I have been thinking and the conclusions I have made is real.

Meanwhile as I am typing this down, I am waiting for a friend who is now in a meeting. So, I’d better write things down before I forget.

It was a day before that I read sort of a guidebook for Descartes’ Meditations –yes, I am referring to Rene Descartes, the French philosopher of the famous quote “I think, therefore I am” (cogito ergo sum). I have been reading it but where I last stopped did put my mind to a new form of doubt –everything. Initially, I felt compelled to brush his thoughts aside merely because I’d named his thought process as ridiculous. He questioned about the origin of himself –and I have a suspicion that his thoughts became an inspiration for the production of films The Matrix trilogy (probably everybody knows that already; so I am just citing in hopes that readers would have something to refer). I will do my best to summarise what his doubts are. And I hope I am not biased.

So, certainly some of you here believe the world is real through empirical findings i.e. you rely on your experiences of the world or your life through your five senses (and emotions).

But what if someone approaches you and claims that that belief of yours still does not prove that reality is? What if someone tells you that all that you have experienced with your five senses are simply interpreted by the electric signals in your brain? For all you know, you could be dreaming. Imagine yourself to be dreaming while you’re sleeping. Until you wake up, you never know you are dreaming, aren’t you?

This is more or less what Descartes been through. He questioned; what if he was actually nothing? What if he could only be a mind and that the body did not exist? This notion is similar to the idea of brain in a vat (but we must bear in mind that Descartes is a dualist). However for his case, he thought he could possibly be deceived by a demon.

If I remember correctly, because he believes that God is good by nature, it is not possible for God to hide the truth from him. In a nutshell, God wouldn’t let him been deceived all the time. Therefore, there are some parts or aspects of reality that exist –probably for him to know the world and possibly about his existence.

Now, if I ever misquote Descartes, please do correct me. And because I may not be accurate in what I have said above, I suggest you to read Meditations by Descartes.

I won’t deny that if we doubt about everything, life is then pointless and meaningless. The people around us may not seem even to exist to us. Therefore, is it alright of me to suggest that we are free to hurt everyone and live in our own way simply because everyone does not seem real to us?

At this point, I hope you have raised a question; what is reality? Or at least, what is my definition of real?

What Descartes brought up somehow becomes an issue which I feel I should delve upon. Despite that I was inclined to brush off his thought process I just wanted to be fair to myself. You see –if I were to reject his ideas without being reasonable i.e. go back to my life and believe what I choose to believe, probably I am no different from being an ignorant. At the very least, I want an explanation to convince myself why I choose to reject or accept his thoughts.

I understand how crazy this sounds especially to some of you exposed to religious beliefs (and probably already have faith in them). But it is not my wish to reject an idea of someone and then discredit him, say, labelling him mad. So, I guess if we were to do otherwise, probably that shows of our lack of respect towards another human being?

I could not deny that I did have a thought that I might not exist but my thoughts –in short, mind. But I simply brushed that issue aside, convinced that because I believe there is God, therefore He would not make so difficult upon us to search for the truth in which He wants us to believe.

I think last night was when I decided to think of it again. I was asking myself; why did I not think of this? How come I did not think as much as this person? And because I was so obsessed with all that I believed in, I questioned why someone would ask himself such a question –why did Descartes trouble himself (and the world) in questioning with regards to whatever I have shared above.

For some reason, I still believe there is God –because I exist since I think. I cannot think if I am not alive, if I am nothingness. Yet, it is possible of me being nothingness with the ability to think, therefore there is a mind. Because I think, it is possible that someone must have created me –someone must have created my mind. In order for me to think, I must exist. In order for me to exist, I must be created. Thus, possibly my mind is created for me to think –and since I think, I exist.

I think, therefore I am.

Is this what Descartes exactly been through? Somehow, I happened to utter the same thing as him.

But after that, I came to question myself further. Is it possible for only me to exist? What if all those around me are puppets, instruments as means of deception or hindrance in preventing me from finding what God wants of me?

No –such powerful being as God cannot possibly created me without a purpose. How could I be merely an instrument of fun for Him i.e. to watch me facing the ups and downs of –in what we called – life?

Having said all that is above, I do not say that God creates me out of mind before putting it into a body for me have experiences in this world. Rather, I am merely on a thought process to convince myself what reality or truth is. At the end of the day, the definition of truth or real is undeniably being either subjective or vague. I am merely on a thought process to convince of myself and all that is around me. Yet, I do not say I am created out of mind although as a Muslim, I am ought to believe that we all come as souls and witness His existence before we are all tried into this world.

I do really want to be certain of things, at least before I confront a sadistic part of my life, which will dawn next month.

O Lord, should I have gone astray in my thoughts
I beg Your Forgiveness and Guidance
And make me among those who believe You

Ameen

P.S: I do not greet you all by calling you “aliens” with the intention to be rude –but I hope the explanation of my doubts above render you to have something to ponder about

CHAPTER 14: P_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Drives Me Mad; My Stand

2010-10-11T20:34:00.000-07:00

Welcome and enter

Sometimes having written all the entries, I felt my heart hardened. I seek refuge in God so that my heart would shed a tear even at the sight of moving clouds. Correct me if I am wrong but a hardened heart will learn nothing but ignorance. And its arrogance itself is a disease upon the heart. All praises unto God and glory be unto His Holy Name, Ameen (I’m tempted to put “Amen” instead).

So, readers, please supplicate so that I will become a better person, your brother in humanity.

Continuing to where we last stopped, I mentioned that I detached myself from religious ideas but yet still to practice it.

I believe I am different compared to who I was back then.

Back then, I held strongly upon religious ideas and merely overlooked others. Now, I am truly glad all I have to do is to be myself if I were truly sincere upon searching God and be part of Him

People with religious notions merely brush off philosophy as heresy. But I am truly glad I no longer have to come to that conclusion.

The above is just another entry in my Wall of my Facebook account. I do not know how to begin with. I always wanted to talk about why I am suddenly obsessed into philosophy. I always wanted to refute a friend of mine who said, based on what he heard; philosophy is deviant (in the religion). Should I begin with the last statement?

Let’s begin with, why did I choose to study philosophy? Well, I never knew I would be studying in depth about it until I took the elective module in my polytechnic as mentioned in one of my previous entries. But I already had the issues which were discussed in philosophy such as regarding the existence of oneself and what is the purpose of life. The module probably aided me more in aspect of critical thinking. Although theories were brought up, we did not explain in full details. I was only curious about them some time later.

I did not know how to start my journey back then. I only had a gist of it. Yet, everything in my world was still in a mess and I did not know where to start cleaning up. However as I studied philosophy, I began to appreciate some of the thinkers moreover I often thought of them as growing up since young and raised such questions which might not seem appreciated to those around them but probably to those of generations to come. Of course, that is not to say why I prefer them over religious scholars. The main issue here is; the questions they raised seem fundamental to everyone from all walks of life –it does not matter which religion or ideology you belong but they do play a part in considering how we should act or ought to live. At times you may be the ones who have these questions all by yourself. You sought an advice from a friend and got a reply which goes, “Don’t think too much about it.”

Well, the problem is; if we already have those questions in our mind, how could we not think too about them? Am I supposed to assume that my mind is playing tricks on me and I should live how I am supposed to live? The last words raise another question; how am I supposed to live? We may have different choices such as we should live according to our needs and desires or based on religious doctrines and so forth. So, who is exactly telling the truth?

For those of us who belong to certain religions and moreover you hold onto their teachings, some of you might probably have said, “We should believe what God tells us to do”.

Because I believe there’s God, I cannot be in disagreement to that. Logically, when someone has given you a help, isn’t it appropriate of you to thank him? And with God given us His blessings, isn’t it our part to be grateful by obeying what He tells us to do as a form of gratitude? Here you may want to raise a couple of questions such as, “Is God good (please define what good is)?” or “is it alright if I do not thank God and choose to live in any way I want?” and so forth. We can always come up with countless of questions but that is not the issue for now, though it is good that we ponder and contemplate about them so as to be certain with ourselves. If religions prohibited us from doing so, how then can we be sure of what we believe in?

Thus, I do not understand why anyone would mention that philosophy I deviant. And I hope you all are already asking, “What is philosophy?”

Based on my experience, anything could be part of philosophy. And somehow, the study of it is always traced back to the early Greeks who questioned nearly everything –this is what I found while reading a book called Introducing Philosophy book (yes, it is part of the Introducing series, which has Introducing Psychology, Introducing Aesthetics, Introducing Romanticism and so on). And during the time of Socrates, probably he was the philosopher who made ethics as an important study in philosophy. I did not have the book with me as I borrowed it from a library and thus, I would appreciate if any of you who are students of philosophy to correct what I said especially regarding Socrates. Yet again, philosophy is still a general study of issues such as truth, science, languages, metaphysics, epistemology and many others. Simply said, it is concerning everything under the sun –or probably anything in the universe. I cannot give an absolute definition what philosophy is but I hope I have done my part in explaining to you.

And some of you who are students of philosophy are already aware that some the theories suggested by philosophers throughout time can be contradicting when compared to each other. An example would be the case of Plato and Descartes who emphasised in reason over desires, e.g. I am thirsty and I come across a cup of drink which has been added with poison –if I value my life, it is logical that I do not drink it even though I am thirsty. However, other thinkers such as Hume mentioned reason is only a slave to desires, e.g. it is because sexual desire is part of us, and therefore it is logical that we fulfil our desires.

Thus, if one is saying that philosophy is deviant, those who are exposed to it already knows that we cannot believe entirely in it due to contradicting theories if anyone assumes that philosophy is like another ‘form of religion’. We could only rely on certain theories but not everything. Don’t you think we ought not to have contradictions in our lives so as to be certain in what we believe in? Digressing a little bit, I do not know what his intention was when he brought up that statement as shortly during the discussion, an old friend of mine joined us and because we hadn’t met quite a while, the subject of our conversation was changed.

Well, of course after sharing with another friend (not the same old friend mentioned earlier) regarding what the first friend said i.e. philosophy is deviant (or heresy, maybe), the statement “philosophy is deviant” is ambiguous. In what way is it deviant? Probably one aspect which I have mentioned above is contradictions. But could there be any other possible reasons? Possibly yes but I do not have the answer.

And knowing that I am bound to be prejudice and biased if I were to solely rely on religious beliefs, this is one reason why I choose to read more on philosophy (and that happens to be some time after my graduation). And religious ideologies are part of philosophy as well. As a matter of fact, every single action or thought is part of philosophy. We cannot run away from it because that is how philosophy in general has been said to have been described. The best possible description I could share, using Dictionary.com as my reference is; philosophy is the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.

I detach myself from religion only for the sole purpose of searching for the truth, which is also another philosophical issue –how do we know what truth is? It is because I acknowledge there are other forms of beliefs in the world and I feel it is best if I were to study them.

In fact, I always question myself; assuming religion B is the truth i.e. as declared by God, then how does one who is not exposed to that religion can come to know about it if he is in religion A, or even born with no knowledge of any particular religion at all? Well, we may argue that God will give guidance to the poor soul. But the question is; how would he know? It is this sort of journey that he will to go through. In fact, it is a journey that we are all going through by coming to certain things on our own and not merely relying on all the information instilled within us since young. I can always rely on the statements of clerics and assume that they have more knowledge than I do –I won’t deny that. But is it not fair of me to walk through the path in doing my homework so as to come to my own conclusion if what these clerics claimed is true or otherwise?

And if people among my religion were to say; “Your faith isn’t strong enough –you shouldn’t study (about certain things, say, other religions)”, well such statements can be quite ambiguous at times. What does the term strong mean? In my understanding, it is not literally or physically strong in this context. Probably what the statement means; “You are not ready yet”.

But how ready are we? To say that we are ready because of the knowledge we accumulated over the years would sound inappropriate –it is saying that you have sufficient knowledge to study about another belief. Well, that may sound true as we need what we know based on our experiences to investigate another belief. But if one is curious is searching for the truth, how will he know if he is ready? Yet, at the same time such statements could have a very deep and profound meaning. I may discuss about it in the future or not at all.

Personally, it is not about how much one knows but rather how he is going to deal with the information he is about to receive upon stumbling into another belief different from his. Isn’t that then a form of test to our faiths and beliefs? And I urge all of you so as not to believe explicitly in the information given you no matter how much you trust the ones who deliver it. It is a reminder for you and me so that we can all do our homework first before jumping to a conclusion because of what others have said so.

P.S: I’m only doing my best to be whom I am or who I ought to be. Please supplicate so that I will be guided to straight and right path. O God, You hear my prayer. Grant me Your Guidance and Protection. I seek refuge in You from all the evil and malice which dwell within me and my surroundings. And I seek refuge in You from the accursed devil, Ameen.

CHAPTER 13: P_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _; Detachment

2010-10-09T23:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome and enter

And good morning (it was morning when I typed this)

I was greatly annoyed when I caught ants in my cereals when I was about to have my breakfast earlier. Thanks to mum for placing the cereals onto a metal plate and heated it in the kitchen. Either the ants ran away or soon we would have barbecued bugs. Thankfully, it was the former and this time I kept the cereals in the refrigerator so that no bugs would enter unless they wanted to be frozen to death.

Excuse me –did I make any of you laugh? I hope so.

Well, I thought today’s breakfast was supposed to be another journey in my thoughts i.e. of me to reflect myself until to my horror I caught those six-legged tiny midgets as shared above. Probably it’s a gift from God for them and a test for us (since we, different species, had difficulty that morning –I had to get rid of the ants and they had to run away from the fire, if they hadn’t thought of it when they came to my food). Let’s get back to the present, shall we?

I felt different over the past few days. Somehow, the beast within me was hungry and wanted me to feed it by the thoughts of smooth flesh with masochistic actions (and all praise unto God that I did not –I still want to get rid of such habits). As if that wasn’t enough, I was incoherent in my thoughts –I could feel as though I was inclined to anger swiftly. I felt none of my prayers were done with a focus mind. Yet I tried my utmost best in doing so, at least in my supplications.

So I thought I was probably listening to music too much that my inner self got strayed from reality as the songs injected certain emotions within me. Somehow I felt even today that musical instruments cause some psychological problems that a person began to dwell into fantasies if he has no control or discipline over his emotions. Or probably, I was rushing into things because I had loads of tasks to be done moreover my schedule is not done yet.

And because of my obsession in philosophy, I was ready to gun down anyone who came up to me and said it was a false notion.

But I realise deep within me that debating or refuting one’s argument in an immediate response with no thoughts about the issue involved is as good as losing control of my own temper. You may say it is an instinctive behaviour of someone returning a blow in revenge to one who punched him without asking why the latter did so.

So, probably now is also a good time of me to ponder about most of my beliefs which are mostly derived from philosophy since the ants ruined my time a while ago.

After all the confusions about this world i.e. so many different ideologies and beliefs, I thought I understood why I used to defend my own faith so much. It was probably because I was brought up with it and thus, I couldn’t see anything wrong with it. Some of the Muslims may be ready to condemn what I’ve just said and what I am going to say. But I would appreciate if we could first sit down and discuss, pushing aside our prejudice and biasness and put yourselves in my shoes. And I will my best to put mine into yours. Even if I would, how could I do so? Please let me explain.

The religion has never taught me selfishness and egotism. But personally even based on my experience, I felt some of us were staunch, at least I did (and probably with no knowledge). So I thought the beliefs and faith I had all the while were the cause of my behaviour moreover quite some time after I watched the videos of the divine experiences by people.

But it is probably natural for people to be staunch in their beliefs especially when they are brought up to believe them. After all, life is meaningless without holding onto something, isn’t it? After such experiences, I began to realise there were things which I knew not of even today. And they are still waiting for me to find and learn about them.

Was I still closer to truth? I don’t think so.

I was confused –I did not know what to believe in. I reasoned with myself that the only reason why I prayed was because of my fear in the Hellfire –for that is what Muslims believe in. And so I prayed, probably half-wondering if I was doing the right thing especially if I were the one leading a congregational prayer during the days in my polytechnic. I wasn’t religious (and please define “religious”) but an ego testicle maniac as brother Nouman Ali Khan would put it in one of his lectures. Maybe now I feel quite a relief of not having a need to lead any prayer but perform it on my own. Why would you need an agnostic to be a leader when he is unsure of what he is doing?

So I decided to detach myself from religion, though I do still pray so as to remind myself there’s God –that’s the only absolute belief which I have (and because I am aware of His presence, I could only pray according to how I was brought up with because that is the only way I know; I don’t know anything). Besides that, I would regard the others of my beliefs as me having brought up with them. Why do you think I quoted what Isaiah Berlin said in one of my previous entries?

"I wish my life and decisions to depend on myself, not on external forces of whatever kind. I wish to be the instrument of my own, no of other men's, acts of will. I wish to be a subject, not an object; to be moved by reasons, by conscious purposes, which are my own, not by causes which affect me, as it were, from outside…”

I remember posting something on my Wall in Facebook account months ago;

I wish I was born without religion so as to be unbiased towards people's faiths and beliefs and hence find my way in true sincerity with deep pondering

I'm afraid of being in Plato's Cave

A friend asked if I did mean it. I replied;

Yup, I truly mean it. How I wish I can explain it to you how I feel all this while but the problem is; you'll have to think like someone who's without religion and how it's like to be in skepticism and quandary about finding the truth, something to believe in all aspects e.g. morality etc. It's because I'm kinda "inside the box", that's why at times I'm biased i.e. only looking from the perception of my own faith. It's kinda hard to convince, really.

I am as good as copying the whole entry on my Wall and paste it here. I wish I could so as to avoid any watering down or omit any parts. But I guess I need to seek permission of those who responded to what I wrote. In addition, there were some misunderstandings. Thus, it is best if I avoid it –putting someone in a bad spotlight is the last thing I would ever want to do, or not at all. But I hope you understand what I was trying to express.

CHAPTER 12: P_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _; Fundamental Questions

2010-10-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

Welcome and enter

You know –it sounds as though like a show off of me if I were to start with praising God for all the blessings He has given me. In fact, I want to do that –and therefore; all praises unto God for all the love and mercy He has bestowed upon me; glory is unto His Holy Name. At the same time, I seek refuge in Him should my heart be inclined towards desires moreover in this case such as egotism and arrogance. I seek His protection from the accursed devil.

It is probably normal for Muslims to begin anything with a prayer to the Lord of the worlds. Yet at the same time, it is undeniable for those who have faith in God that we should be thankful to Him and seek His protection so that we are not blinded away from the truth; it does not matter even if you belong to other faiths. So long as you believe in God, I suppose you may want to give praises to Him for all the good and bad tidings.

The abovementioned of probably a short prayer is important because what I am about to share is with regards to my experience –and I hope you too pray for my well-being in this world and the next. Everyone wants to be good but we are at times blinded by things around us.

I am a student of philosophy. However, philosophy isn’t the cause to my curiosity about myself i.e. who I am, what is the purpose of my existence and all sorts of questions which have been raised throughout the history of mankind. I was only exposed to philosophy at the start of my second semester of my final year in Republic Polytechnic when I took a module named Reasoning through the Ages. The importance of that module, if I remember correctly, was/is to develop a critical thinking within ourselves. Still, I took this opportunity as part of my soul-searching.

However, it began a way long before that. It all started halfway in my first year of my secondary school, thanks to this anime called Digimon where in one season a villain felt a void in his heart and wondered why he was in the world. I know how childish and silly it seems to be influenced by a cartoon but we cannot deny that there are sublime messages within such platforms of plots.

Of course over the years, I took my religion as an answer to the simple question as what I am in this world or what is the purpose of my existence.

Reality struck me harder as I grew older. Sometimes, I refused to ponder more about this, using religion to convince myself. Moreover, some of these issues could even be taboo to be discussed within the perception of the religion itself. Of course, I do not say I am the only one, for there could be many others coming from all sorts of backgrounds and faiths. Thus, Islam isn’t the only religion. But yet again, it is not necessarily the religions to be at fault. Rather, this problem arises usually by the way how we are been brought up i.e. the people we mix with along with the social influence. Judging by what I have said, probably you could say I was sort of one of the prisoners in the allegory of Plato’s cave.

Yet I wouldn’t say that I have freed myself –I have yet to do so! It is like I am being chased by other released prisoners who probably find it difficult to be in my shoes, refuting me using theories. Surprisingly, I asked a friend of the same faith as me if he would persecute me should I apostate. I am not giving a bad light to my own faith because I do not understand it all by myself but what has been fed to me all these years.

I might probably have mentioned in one of my previous entries that I began to doubt about my faith when I stumbled upon some videos that claimed of people (supposedly from my own faith) having divine experiences such as visions.

Since then, my scepticism grew and needless to say, I became furious at times. But that is not what to be discussed. Besides, I believe I have already talked on that.

Gradually, I began not only to doubt my faith but nearly everything about myself. Like everything else, there are pros and cons to this experience of my life. The cons are as simple as having nearly nothing to hold onto because of doubts. Yet, the pros are as simple as the beginning to appreciate life and learning how it is like to face the world, to face the fact you do exist.

I stared at my hands and was awed with myself. I could stand with my legs. I could see. I could feel, just like everybody else.

I was curious.

I wanted meaning in my life and I still do. I cannot afford to live with an empty purpose of existence. Back then, I was not exposed to philosophy. In fact, I knew entirely nothing of it until I sat for the module Reasoning through the Ages. It is since then I began to understand fully that some of the questions we asked within ourselves had long been raised even centuries or millenniums ago. Read about Plato. Read about Socrates to the modern day philosophers such as Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant. Although Sigmund Freud was a founding father of psychoanalysis, he was probably regarded as a philosopher (since I caught his name in a book regarding philosophy). It sounds crazy but the things discussed in philosophy are nearly regarding anything under the sun –and even the question of the universe can be a discussion.

You know –people curious about science probably seek knowledge regarding something small in something big e.g. cells in the body. Meanwhile, people curious about philosophy probably ask questions regarding something big in something small. What I am saying is; they could raise questions such as if we ever know anything. They could even be asking if what we perceive now as real –you’d understand better if you were to peep into Descartes’ Meditations. You’d probably be surprised. Thus as you can see, philosophy involves even simple questions in which we take for granted such as have been living all these years in relying only on our five senses without questioning if what we see, taste, touch, smell or hear is ever real. As Morpheus said in film The Matrix, if that is how we define what real is, then we are saying real is something interpreted by electric signals in our brain.

At first, it seems crazy to even ponder what is been said. But to some of us, it cannot help. To some of us, we ask ourselves; what is ethic? What is more, we do ask; what is knowledge? What is science? Does God exist? And the list goes on and on that we call them “fundamental questions” –but it cannot be helped if these questions are raised by sincere individuals. Are we supposed to brush these aside without then understanding what these people are going through?

If you choose to reject one’s scepticism or doubt, by all means please provide yourself a convincing answer after contemplation instead of putting it at the back of your mind.

CHAPTER 11: P_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Drives Me Mad; To Begin With

2010-10-03T19:12:00.000-07:00

A wishing of peace to all readers

Before I begin, I would like to express what I felt when I heard the news of the wife of MM Lee Kuan Yew moreover after reading an article about it. Because I do not wish digress from the main topic which I would to discuss, I will simply take what I have posted in my Facebook account under my “Wall”.

After all, politicians are humans. Like everybody else, they do shed tears. Probably for the first time, I can understand how painful and agonising it is for MM Lee Kuan Yew to lose a loving companion of 61 years.

Whoever we are, it's never easy to be ourselves. RIP, Mrs Lee.

Upon reading what MM Lee wrote about her wife, I feel deeply touched for all her sacrifices not only towards Singapore but in supporting her husband, just as a saying goes; behind every successful man is a woman. At the same time, I must admit how awe I am as MM Lee mentioned that he sat by her bedside each day the days she had been bedridden.

“She understands when I talk to her, which I do every night,” he said. “She keeps awake for me; I tell her about my day’s work, read her favourite poems.”

Even being a politician, at the end of the day we cannot deny whoever we are, it does not change the fact we are all humans, a flawed creations of God yet with a sense of love and compassion instilled within us.

“I told her, ‘I would try and keep you company for as long as I can,” before adding, “I’m not sure who’s going first, whether she or me.”

I have to admit that I yearn for a life companion as loyal as Mrs Lee and wish that I can be a good and caring husband MM Lee. This is true love; be there for each other at all times as no one in this world can ever live all by his own.

Sources: http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2010/10/02/mrs-lee-kuan-yew-dies-aged-89/

“I wanted someone my equal, not someone who needed looking after,” the elder Lee later explained in his autobiography.

Pardon me for the digression which took more than half the page of my Word Document. Right, I just want to make things clear, hoping that I am not desiring for fame or praise, let alone a title. After what I will be sharing in my next few entries, it is not my wish or intention to be given names such as “philosopher” or whatever names, although I came across people doing that to me (but personally, my instinct told me such names were only a form of mockery –I knew what their perceptions were towards what I was reading during those times). In the Hereafter, I do not want to bear a responsibility for what people shall do to my works after my death. Let me live as Leonardo Da Vinci, not knowing he would be famous in time to come after his death yet possessed a great curiosity about the world while he lived.

So correct me of my flaw in knowledge.

Speaking of praises and titles given to men, I cannot help but add how swayed the mind of many men today who yearn for power and fame. By the way, I am not referring to any politician in particular here since I mentioned about MM Lee above. I am referring to all of us collectively –or rather those among us who have such selfish wants. May God protect me from all these. This is probably a form of corruption occurring in the world among the hearts of men.

For the very first time, I would like to give a pause to my entry for now and begin with the following words with hopes I utter them with utmost sincerity and honesty without any hopes of rewards;

In the Name of God
The Most Gracious, Most Merciful
And I seek refuge in Him from the accursed devil
And I seek refuge from all sorts of evil
That dwells within me and all around me

Ameen

I am about to share about what I probably “begin” in seeking to hold onto a belief. At the same time, should I be right as what God wants me to believe in, I hope to die having faith in it. I feel there is a need for us to reach the stage of self-actualisation as stated in Maslow’s Hierarchy.

This entry is a so-called introduction to my current set of beliefs or thought process.

Therefore as I am about to open the door of my mind for those of you who wish to enter, there are couple of things which I would like to say, firstly quoting from Descartes;

“I would advise none to read this work to read this work, unless such as are able and willing to meditate with me in earnest, to detach their minds from commerce with the senses, and likewise to deliver themselves from all prejudice.”

Source: Meditations, p. 122 (Meditation III) –see also A Beginner’s Guide to Descartes’ Meditations by Gareth Southwell, p. 11

I must add that I am probably in the shoes of Descartes when he mentioned;

“Everything I have accepted up to now as being absolutely true and assured, I have learned from or through my senses.” (See Meditations p. 96)

But like Descartes, I am not an empiricist but a rationalist. He did not probably even mean that the only way we receive our ideas is through our five senses. I would to add on that all this while, I have been relying on the definition of truth through my upbringing but have yet to take a step back and watch all what I believe in and validate them.

And being a rationalist does not mean trusting in science alone but rejects what cannot be proven empirically e.g. rejecting the notion of God simply because He cannot be seen and therefore cannot be proven. No, I do believe in God because of the connections in my thoughts to link to Him and thus conclude about His existence. Is it proper to use the word “metaphysics” in this case? By the way, being a rationalist enables me even to accept empiricism.

In any case, the next entry will not specifically about my thought process. Instead, it is with regards to philosophy in which I hope people do not regard it as though it is a form of theology. As a student of such subject, I will drop my comments regarding it especially in hopes of explaining why I feel it is advisable of us to learn before making judgements.

Before I end this entry, allow me to share something;

"I wish my life and decisions to depend on myself, not on external forces of whatever kind. I wish to be the instrument of my own, no of other men's, acts of will. I wish to be a subject, not an object; to be moved by reasons, by conscious purposes, which are my own, not by causes which affect me, as it were, from outside…”

By Isaiah Berlin (see Philosophy Goes to the Movies: An Introduction to Philosophy)

CHAPTER 10: My Expression; In a Mess

2010-09-30T18:29:00.000-07:00

Greetings and peace to all of you passing by here

Thank God it’s Friday –one of the days which I permit myself intakes of caffeine (once I drink a cup of either coffee or tea, I’m likely to continue have more cups for that day). By the way, I read some articles whereby caffeine reduces your immune system (although it does provide other health benefits) across the internet. So, it’s something to be investigated and researched upon.

Coffee + milo = mocha

This was what I got after the experiment a couple of minutes ago as I am typing this. I guess you’re bound to know how weird I am, turning complexity into simplicity.

Let’s get the purpose of today’s entry straight. Right, I’ve been wanting to share loads and loads of things and failure to do so probably result me in imagining conversations between me and people and sometimes either incur anger or a light chuckle upon myself, depending the person whom I imagine to have a dialogue with. These imaginations are terribly irritating that I can hardly concentrate in my prayers, often forgetting God in most parts of the day and subconsciously neglecting my responsibility upon those around me. Right, you’ll never people when they are alone in their room –in fact, you don’t even know who they are even if they’re your friends.

But today’s entry is not about imagination, so pardon me for the digression. Rather, it’s about the mess we live in today.

It was only a week ago that I dropped by the nearest Times bookstore from my home, hoping to purchase a copy of a book which I found in a library (but it costs $50). Strangely, I turned next to me shortly after arriving at the shelf where the book was placed.

And there was another shelf with some of the books about… the Mayan 2012 Prophecy.

I thought I’d brushed the notion that the world would be at end in the year 2012 or sort of that. But it was a return of an old wound within as I flipped those books. There were so many theories in what contributed to the “prophesised” change in the abovementioned year. I’d probably brushed them aside if they had got to do with religious ideologies (and somehow, I came across somewhere that today Mayans do not know anything about the 2012 thingy predicted by their ancestors –yet what I said may be debatable; so please shed me some light, readers).

But as some of these theories involved scientific explanations, I couldn’t help but admitting myself how little the knowledge I had –and have. Praise to God that I am writing all these down so as to remind me that I –I mean, we – don’t have much time in this world as death does not come knocking on the door; it may come whenever God wants it to appear before you and me.

And I hope it’d remind you (and myself) too to use every second of your life wisely –I’m avoiding the word “spend” as it sounds like a parallel word of “waste” (and I’m referring to the verbs, not nouns or adjectives).

If it was the past, I’d have been psychologically disturbed by such theories of people. But today, I’d probably decided to do my utmost best in life. Yet, even those words are subjective as youths probably use them as a reason to accumulate as much happiness as possible. But I wouldn’t put it that way because I always believe there’s a purpose of existence; whoever and wherever you are, you do have a purpose of life. Think logically, do you want your life to be laid to waste? Am I really supposed to think we live as though we’re living eternally whenever we are in the moments of enjoyment without a thought of death? I won’t deny that sometimes we forget how limited our age because sometimes I do and it’s just about a matter of being conscious of who we are (I don’t want to say how difficult to be conscious of ourselves because that may just discourage me, which I don’t wish to instil that upon any of you).

And I am not addressing to anyone specifically. The message is for everyone who passes by here including me.

Talk is cheap; I can see that especially if we’re down with illness or have our wealth taken away. That is when the true obstacle of life comes in; it is then the time to watch if our beliefs are practical than mere talks. This is what philosophy is truly about –not mere debates or criticisms to prove one’s intellectuality.

As for now, I will do my best to live. Because I realise I do have a purpose in life, I need to fulfil it before I leave this world. My cousin Fadhil made a good point the last time we met for workout –it’s sad to die without achieving our goals. I truly want to lead a meaningful life in which I define it as having a good relationship with people especially those around me, not forgetting my personal relationship with my Lord. Because I believe there is God, it is then undeniable that there are ethics to be followed. There is then morality and humanity.

It is because if we – humans coming from different backgrounds, cultures and norms and so on – were to decide our own set of rules and laws, probably all of us could imagine what if everyone has different perception from each other moreover if we all have the power to exercise those rules. Imagine one society perceives cannibalism as immoral whereas and another perceives it as way of life. God knows what will happen if these societies were at each other’s throat.

Because there is God, there could only be the same message for everyone. And probably we cannot deny that what we think is good (if we are slaves to our desires) for us may not necessarily be beneficial to us –even so, the term good is subjective. Yet, we too cannot deny what we think is bad (if we have an instinct in disagreeing with God’s commandments) may not necessarily be less beneficial to us. In fact, because it comes from God everything has a reason for its own actions and thus, hopefully be something helpful to ourselves so long as we obey Him.

Somehow, I feel it is easier said than done; an action speaks louder than words. That is why I said; talk is cheap. Moreover, I believe some of you are already wondering what exactly we are supposed to believe in since there are too many religions, philosophical theories and beliefs out there. Well, I am not in the position to tell you what’s right and ought to be –it’s because I am finding it myself. The notion of death and what lies beyond it bugs me a lot.

But what I can share with you is; because there are loads of faiths and beliefs, there’s no doubt some of these contradict with each other. Certainly, how can you believe in one belief that encourages you to do some acts and another which discourages those same acts? It is like you believe in monotheism and polytheism; you said there is only one god and yet at the same time, you believe there are many gods; so if you said there is one supreme god with many lesser gods under him… that sounds like polytheism to me. Yet, if you believe in monotheism at the same time, what are you exactly talking or having faith about, owing the fact god tells you to worship only him and not enjoin partners with him? Monotheistic religions exist –you need to know that. They are right before our very eyes –Judaism, Christianity and Islam (and probably some other faiths such as Baha’i faith and others that I do not know of). Those of you who are exposed to such religions will understand how wrathful God, as described in their holy scriptures, would be should we call some other things as gods.

You may correct me if I’m wrong. I hope I do shed some light with the given example. My point is not about what you should believe in especially the contrast between monotheism and polytheism. Rather, I am hoping that we do not own any contradiction in our lives or otherwise we may end up believing in anything. And I don’t think we should cease searching for what we ought to believe. I am brought up with Islam. But as a human, I should take a step back and watch what I believe in so as to validate whether what I have believed all along is truth. Once again, the definition of truth is subjective, depending exactly what aspect we’re talking about here. I don’t want to go into detail about that because I guess this entry is nearly lengthy as the ones before.

See how messed-up the world is? At the end of the day, I guess we are down with two choices; first, to neglect all sorts of doubts as though they never exist and believe whatever we want to believe; second, to reflect and ponder over our beliefs and doubts that we have and strive to find an answer.

Well, if I am as assured with what I believe as how Morpheus is in the film The Matrix, I’d probably be glad to say; “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

Unfortunately, I am still learning and moreover, the beast residing within me is yet to be fully constrained and chained. Until then, I am not the right person to give advice but suggestions. Yet again, talk is cheap –doing the talk is expensive.

CHAPTER 9: My E_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _; The Quandary

2010-09-28T08:22:00.000-07:00

Hey, Peace to you all

(I don’t think this entry has got to do anything with the main topic of E _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ –so sorry for the digression if it doesn’t match with the title of the main topic)

First and foremost, I must express how grateful I am to receive a comment from a friend in my previous entry. At the very least, I will begin to realise that someone acknowledges the purpose of my blog. In addition, I would also like to express my gratitude to firstly, my parents, my brother and friends for the wishes of happy birthday. I’d enjoy my own humour with “21st Birthday in the 21st Century”.

In any case, I’ll proceed with today’s entry as I’m left with 56 minutes of the first day of being 21 of age as I’m typing this. Besides, I need a rest due to another trip to the gym with my cousin Fadhil tomorrow. Moreover, I’m down with a mild headache. I hope it isn’t a sign of another attack of HFMD (please, God! I don’t wish for those torturous days again).

So, I think I’ll concede to the world that I’d once commented on something on a particular YouTube video. Alright –it’s about one of the episodes in The Deen Show where how a less-practicing Muslim became convinced with the religion of Islam. And by the way, I’m not here to promote any religion. This blog is like a diary; a sharing of my own experience to the world as how Descartes asked for readers to lay aside biasness and prejudices and put themselves in his shoes to understand his conviction of reality (and probably truth) in his book Meditations. It is because in the very first place, I mentioned should any of you feel offended, you may stop reading and leave my blog –yes, you are more than welcome to correct me on anything (and I need to know if I do need a tag-board for readers without Google account to drop their comments).

Returning to the issue, I posted a comment which goes, “Masya’Allah… The brother’s struggle is as similar as how I am facing now…”

That was three months ago. The title of the episode is Omar Challenges Islam. I may add the video for any of you to watch at the end of this post. If you cannot wait, then here’s the link; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6e0yLHrXTY.

So, a brother sent me a personal email to my YouTube account, offering me help i.e. to fix my dilemma and quandaries. Of course upon learning he was a former Christian who is now a Muslim, I gladly shared the doubts I had (and I do still have these doubts today). As a matter of fact, I am inclined to hear the stories of the conversions of others from one religion to another, not necessarily to Islam alone –and once in a while, I would like to understand why some Muslims leave the religion for another faith, say, Christianity or others. I am keen to understand how they come to a conclusion of certain things being the truth from God.

But I won’t be happy if you leave for the sake of your friends or due to what you hear from the media instead of doing your homework and thorough research. Once in a while, I hope I don’t have to explain why, hoping you readers would think for yourself. What do you have to do if you’re truly seeking the truth? Search for it, isn’t it?

Coming back to the brother whom I befriended with through YouTube, we did exchange emails, sharing about how we lived in the different parts of the world –if I remember correctly, he was from UK. It is amazing to once in a while communicate with someone from another part of the world –I even wish once I’m studying overseas, doing my best to adapt to a different environment. Well, in the end, I shared a probably lengthy email with the brother. Here is goes –by the way, should I make any changes to the original email, it is only in the aspect of grammar;

Waalaikumusalam wr wb

Thank you, brother. I'm truly grateful for your concern. At the same time, I'm terribly sorry for such a late reply. Well, I'm a Singaporean, probably from the smallest country in the globe with only a dot on the map. It's a multi-racial harmony nation and based on my experience of living there, we're quite sensitive with regards of religious issues to a point one is not allowed to criticise another person's faith due to respect (this can be seen as both good and bad way). There was a case whereby a pastor criticised about the practices of Taoism and this issue became hoo-ha and even publicised due to the lack of respect given by the speaker. Of course, the pastor did apologise but judging from the incident, I hope I'm shedding some lights how religious issues can be very sensitive here.

In any case, I'm sorry to have strayed away from our discussion. If you wouldn't mind, I'll explain to you from the start i.e. how my doubts came about. As you mentioned, some people lost faith in God mainly out of emotional reasons. At times, I faced that too and I'm still facing that. However, that wouldn't have become a big issue if there's nothing in between the period of me being a believing Muslim to a sceptical one. In fact, I'm not pretty sure if I'm still a Muslim –I merely say I'm a Muslim because I do still have some fear in God seeded in me since young along with my upbringing, Really, I do still perform my prayers and fast.

From another Muslim's perspective, that would be a good thing i.e. not straying from the religion. But on the contrary, I felt I was like one of the prisoners of Plato's Cave, which I hope you've heard of it before. I had so much fear about studying about other people's religion from their point of view out of so much fear that I could only afford to learn about it in the Islamic perspective.

It all started when a particular religion –and sadly, a monotheistic one – propagated about miracles etc. That was more than enough to shake my beliefs. People claiming to see this and that and I started searching for an argument which refuted most of these claims but could hardly find any, though I did including making my own thoughts simply because some of these propaganda were not convincing enough. I was frustrated that I started losing patience at certain point of time.

Life was all beautiful prior to that turning point of my life. But it was only because I relied on only what I was taught and attended. I never considered learning other faiths from their perspectives. So, I was only viewing them through the windows of my "box". As I said before, life was beautiful back then, able to pursue for my dreams and ambitions because I had certainty.

But I could hardly be ambitious these days. Quoting from the lecturer Nouman Ali Khan during one of the episodes of The Deen Show, before we could talk about wealth or what kind of house or car we want, we've to solve the issue of survival. Truth is the safest platform to stand on; I believe with truth along with true and full conviction, I need not fear even the most tyrannical person on the surface of the earth because I know that God is with me.

Of course, having a "beautiful" life back then was not exactly a perfect one for me either. I was ignorant especially when in the times of argument. I'm not exactly sure if you've confronted some of these Muslims who debated out of egotism, using their knowledge as a weapon to bring others down rather than being humble to ourselves. I was that kind of person. Moreover I'd probably become worse due to learning only from the perspective of my own faith.

I've come across various videos, debates and lectures by certain scholars such as one of the most respected scholars Sheikh Ahmad Deedat, Dr Zakir Naik and many more including reading articles and books written by certain Muslim(s) who were once people of other religions, particularly Dr Jerald F. Dirks. It's not out my intention to criticise them or any of these scholars. Rather, I truly appreciate their efforts.

However, I cannot believe their words as an absolute truth. No, I do not find criticism in anyone and I do not wish to find fault as that would only lead to frustration. I mean –scholars are humans too and whatever background they're from, they may have made unintentional mistakes or even worst, own biasness. Once again, I hope you understand that I'm not criticising any of the abovementioned scholars as anyone could possibly make these mistakes regardless of their backgrounds, be it Muslims, Christians or any other faiths.

"Seeing is as though believing" is probably one of a well-known quote and I believe it –but to a certain extent. Arguments could at times be objective i.e. a lecturer might have prejudice and attempted to obscure the truth by steering us into believing his or her perceptions and ideologies. Due to that, I personally would rather take the path in studying different theories on my own while relying on the arguments brought up by scholars –any scholars from all over the world and all faiths – as opinions are meant to be revisited and studied with an unbiased mind. Again, I'm not criticising anyone or his work pertaining to this matter. But at the same time, I must admit that I could no longer continue the habit of swallowing others' words and then making assumptions that I'm on the right path. What if what we're given is exactly what we want to hear? Why Islam? Why not Christianity... or other religions? Why do I feel so hurtful about how other faiths describing theirs as the truth, the light and the way of life? My agony isn't based on any misconceptions that others might have brought up about the religion I am born into. In fact, I believe all religions teach us good conducts.

So, what kinds of discomforts were I having back then when I first watched preachers of other faiths speaking confidently out of conviction? Were they aware of the information brought up by scholars of other faiths about theirs? How did they react to it? Obviously there were refutations about this and that, here and there... But how convincing could these arguments be?

Life was a total messed-up for me and even now. But thank God it isn't as worst as those days. Maybe we could argue with others with the available resources and information. Unfortunately, I personally think if people were to resort to taking others' opinions or arguments and use them as tools, then it'd be good if I were to raise this question; what exactly are we arguing about? Why are we protecting our beliefs through the knowledge of others as weapons? How sure are we as we argue? How sure are we?

More importantly, how can we rely on them when we've never studied as much as these scholars? There are other factors to be considered such as, have we known truth? Have we read exactly what's written on the side of the other faiths i.e. reading the Bible or Torah? We keep relying on Sheikh Ahmad Deedat's arguments and keep reusing them over again and again but how far can we go since most of us have never even touch the Bible? Is it safe then for me to say we're only viewing the beliefs of others "inside" the box we're in without revisiting and examining ours to confirm if these are the truth i.e. what and how we ought to be etc.?

Having saying that, I must admit how much I admire people of other faiths who converted to another religion after doing their homework out of sincerity –and as I don't want to be biased, I've to find out too why people switch beliefs and what exactly is the journey they been through to come to a conclusion that this or that is the truth. Whether a Christian comes to Islam or vice versa, I feel it's worth learning from their stories in what religious journey they've been through.

It's because at the end of the day, I want to be sincere to myself. Undeniably, I'm a human and as one, it's not surprising of me to question about the purpose of my existence. I'm deeply hurt with the emptiness and anxiety residing in me. Maybe back then I couldn't find a reason behind these discomforts but maybe now I have. It's a sensation whereby I've seen this but I've not seen that and I'm forced to live by what I know and ignore what I don't. Strangely enough, I brushed those feelings aside as though they aren't worth pondering about. But isn't that a sign of ignorant as well?

I hope I've explained to you regarding my problem. I'm truly sorry if it's too long but I really don't have anyone to share. Really, if I were to talk about this to most of my Muslim friends, because we live in the same country (and hence, having a gist how similar are their lives and mine), I think they're not able to understand. Even if they could point out whereby some scientists have proven there are miracles in the Quran which are proven scientifically, am I supposed to believe them explicitly? Or should I study more? After all, this is not the only religion that's preaching the truth. It goes back to what I've mentioned above –about us using the same arguments but not revisiting them on our own.

Every faith on the surface of the earth would want to propagate their beliefs. I can't possibly talk to non-Muslims either because it's uncomfortable when you're searching for the truth yet at the same time someone's not only explaining to you about his faith (e.g. the foundation of his beliefs and various practices) but as well as hoping you'd be converted to the religion he's preaching.

I hope I'm sincere in this journey and not have strayed too far. I fear about the loss of my humanity and somehow, I feel that whatever Plato said about reason, passion and desires are all real. Even if they cannot be empirically proven, I believe we feel these entities in ourselves. Yet at the same time, we know too the consequences should we fail to attain self-control.

Yours Sincerely
'Izuddin

I think I’m done for now. Pardon me for such a lengthy entry. It seems every entry starts to get longer and longer –I’ll do my best to shorten the next ones. And yes, it is five minutes before the first day of me being 21 is over –but I don’t know what time will it be after I put this up.

Once again, I’m done for now.

And oh -before I forgot;

CHAPTER 8: My E_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _; A Confession & I'm Sorry :(

2010-09-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

Hey, all

I thought it might something to try –a new way of greeting. But obviously, I prefer greeting you all with ‘Peace’. Well, I thought of trying that out because the previous greetings have always been a template. I prefer typing the greeting out myself in hopes that I’d be sincere and mean what the word supposed to mean.

I think I’m spared with 45 minutes before I need to go to bed especially I plan of doing some workout with my cousin Fadhil tomorrow morning. I’d in mind about expressing my doubts a couple of days back after my visit to a bookstore. But I believe I’ve missed out some things in sharing about my past.

And I was reminded when a friend who told me some of his friends were not happy with something which went “somewhere along that line” during Saturday’s outing in celebrating the Eid-Fitri festival with some friends.

It all started with me asking another friend if his parents had religious background. I did not intend to insult anyone with the question but he seemed to be practically religious to me. Probably I was misunderstood by asking that kind of question because it seemed rather vague. There isn’t any range or rank in piousness –so, that’s probably why the first friend said some of his friends were not happy due to “somewhere along that line”.

Because we were friends since our days in polytechnic, I assumed exactly who were the people after mixing around with people.

I want to make things short. So, I think I first begin with an apology.

I was inclined towards religious knowledge. I used to think my faith was the absolute truth and nothing could surpass Islam. I am truly sorry to disappoint any of you should I say that I no longer have such certainty. And I know that fingers have pointed at me with words spewed out of mouths about me.

To such people, for I believe they have been those whom I know for years, I need to tell you I am completely different from whom the Izuddin whom you know. I no longer belong to my old self. I was probably a childish and immature maniac. It was probably due to my inclination of religious ideologies that separated us especially in my opinions about Tariqah, being on a side which disagreed with its practices.

I no longer have the same comments as I used to have but doubts. Safe to say, that isn’t the only issue.

In terms of personality and characteristic, I am different now, though I have nothing to prove. Back during the days in my polytechnic, I was so religiously inclined that I started to be influenced by a friend who came from a Tabligh group. From then, having the zeal to preach, I was responsible for holding students up after prayers in the praying room of the campus and read to them passages or stories of the companions of Prophet Muhammad from some book which I heard to be questionable of its authenticity.

I never criticised anyone for their faiths and I regarded anyone inferior in faith. That would not make any sense to do such a thing having understood that the religion preached about humility and modesty etc.

So I don’t really understand what exactly I have done which incurred people’s displeasure upon me. I did not call anyone by names. So much as I believed the world was in a terrible state (and I do still believe), I never and ever regarded anyone inferior.

I remember a friend whom I later learnt that she was my distant relative approached me via MSN and requested me to take over her position in taking a good care of the prayer room as she would soon be graduating. Initially, I felt it was a heavy responsibility. But after she explained how it was to be done, which was only keeping an eye of things (if I remember correctly) such as cleanliness and items not to be taken out of place et cetera, I reluctantly accepted the request (it is because originally, the existence of the prayer room was proposed by some group in the school and I was part of it –probably that was why that friend asked me that favour?). At the same time, I added a bit of task for myself by correcting any discrepancies around. I do not say I did all these things because I am proud of doing so. What is it to be proud of when although you did such things yet now you have become a sceptical person?

So, the question remains; what exactly have I done that made people so much displeased about me?

Alright, if they were unhappy because I had a different opinion towards certain practices or religious sects or groups, I am willing to apologise for that. At the bottom of my heart, I am truly sorry because those were the days of my ignorance. I used to debate with a classmate and ended up insulting him and to this day, I am not proud of what I have done. See exactly what an inclination and been influenced to certain things have led me into. I need to honest that I’d even spewed things at a cousin of mine via MSN years ago.

And I am not proud of those things.

There is nothing what I said that could ever and ever make people think differently of me now especially after all those mistakes of mine in any aspect, be it from “love” issue to religious ones or even simply because of different opinions –or as simple as my manners towards others.

I used to think such and such things were heretic. Probably some of these people who found out I was in disagreement with them were displeased with what I said. Nevertheless, is there a need to badmouth about me? I have met people who agree that the world is in such a big mess due to declination in morality or corruption among the society etc. Some of these people even believe that the world is moving towards materialistic success that they forget about satisfying oneself in terms of spirituality. I believed that too –and I still do. But none of these ever mentioned a specific person in mind whom they knew were practicing such wrongdoings.

So, do I really see a reason why fingers should be pointing at me and things are spewed about me? Do I really have to catch a glance of a friend who had his finger pointing at me as he is talking to another friend in a mosque? Have we not forgotten we too were once those who were ignorant? And now when we had knowledge, we spewed about things and breaking of ties?

I am sorry –not because it is a lip service. But it is because I truly mean it. I learn my lesson through the hard way. God sent me a decent Christian girl and I got infatuated over her to this day and thus the born of doubts –but those doubts were easily dealt with until the media got hold of me with stories about Muslims having dreams and visions of Jesus Christ as Lord.

Life was extremely agonising, hurtful, contradicting and conflicting during those moments onwards. It was the end of my first semester of my second year in polytechnic and the month of Ramadan was around the corner. Just as I was hoping to devote myself in more time towards spirituality and then those incredible tales occurred?

I am truly sorry to any Christian readers but other than sharing what got me into scepticism, I was hoping if any of you could validate and authenticate those stories. I have watched debates between my faith and other religions and so as refutations about any misconception of my religion. But I do not see any sense for such stories to appear in the internet. Yes, I appreciate the effort put by my friend in discrediting these stories (and they happened to be named as “More than Dreams”) but I wish I can hear from the crews of the productions behind such stories or dramas that everything is all a fabrication –a propaganda.

I am not saying this because I choose not to believe. I am saying this because I want to make sense of things. So, if everyone ought to believe others who claimed to have a divine experience to be true, then what is the point of having research in the field of theology? Where gone the rationality of things should we believe in people who claimed such and such while research may have proven such beliefs to be questionable in some other aspects, say the credibility of a holy book or scientific discrepancies?

No, I am not pointing out any religion –neither Christianity nor Islam. I have given my word to a teacher who is a Catholic that I will respect his religion –and so I will keep that promise. Moreover, I do still have affection to the abovementioned Christian girl. I am now respecting the beliefs of others not out of friendship but compassion as a human being.

I learn my lesson in being respectful and having a sense of open-mindedness. I was so angry whenever I was inflicted by doubts during those days. But all praise to God that He has given my Guidance what I should do now, which is to seek knowledge.

I am truly sorry to have digressed so much. Being selfish in accepting and studying others’ opinions is probably the reason why some you are still displeased with me to this very day. I understand how much anger you have that probably you start to think of people in certain ways. I do as well. And for that reason, I’ve learnt to appreciate the worth each one of us has a human being and never to criticise the beliefs of others without knowledge. Let me be frank with you all; I learnt through what I heard and inquired through people whom I respected for their knowledge such as religious teachers or clerics. And that explains why I perceived things in such a biased way –it is because I never did any research but trusted the words of people whom I respected to be wise. But knowledge itself, like power, can be abused.

So if you ask me how I seek knowledge, I’ll probably share with you 101 reasons but trusting the words of people isn’t really an absolute truth to me now. For that matter, not all books too are absolutely right or factual in any aspect i.e. historically or scientifically etc. I am a rationalist –and I believe you all too come to a conclusion for something to be true by your own means of rationality.

If being egoistic and not open-minded is the reason why you are displeased with me, I want to apologise for my past deeds. If you think I did not do my job as a “caretaker” of the prayer room, my only defence is; I did all I could. You must realise that I was a student and being one, I did not have any authority at all, though entrusted with such a heavy responsibility. Let bygones be bygones. If you are displeased over my ignorance, I will not deny but admit my mistakes and immaturity. And once again, I will apologise to you all. I am truly sorry. That is the purpose of me having this blog; to share my experiences so that others can benefit from my mistakes. I used to be angry some friends when I had suspicion they were mocking behind my back. These were assumptions. I’ve gotten well with them again. I am sorry for such things and I will do my best to restrain myself from such habitual misdeeds.

I am seeking the absolute truth which God wants us to believe, just like all of you. Therefore, you have the rights upon me in which I am ought to apologise for my shortcomings. All good things emanate from God while the bad ones are mine and mine alone. Let’s just forget about the past and move on with things.

If you still do not trust my words, then let us make a deal.

I will beseech you (and you too, N_ _ _) to clear my name. In exchange, I will do my utmost best to defend God’s commands. How I am going to do so is not the question; what matters is what are His commandments, laws and the signs He has bestowed upon. In a nutshell, it is the matter of which beliefs to be relied, which religion to be believed and regarded as truth. I will do my best to argue constructively and never to resort to insults.

I am not baptised to be a new person. But I choose to be one the moment when I decided to step out of my comfort zone and watch world with my senses. The allegory of Plato’s cave has given me the words to describe that.

And yes, it’s nearly early morning –nearly 2am (or probably more by the time I posted this).

CHAPTER 7: My E_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _; Recovering from HFMD

2010-09-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

Peace and greetings

It’s pretty funny that as I am typing this blog entry, the background is white but you readers read this blog, you’re reading the words with a background colour of the blog. Due to this, I am just afraid I may get bored over being a blogger –or even a writer or novelist since readers get the privilege to glance at the design of a book cover.

Nah, I’m not complaining. It’s just that I find it pretty amusing, not sarcasm.

In any case, let me start officially about today’s entry. Well, initially I thought of typing about gratitude, something which I owe everyone especially my parents, my brother who asked about my well-being, my friends who wished me well through SMS service and most important Person in my life, God.

I don’t want to make this like a grand ceremony because the struggles I had over the past few days when I was down with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease were nearly beyond all that I could bear to endure. The most important Person in my life happened to be the one whom I verbally abused during those nights. I do still feel guilty and remorseful for that especially after He had healed me, probably through my dad when he asked me to wash my hands and feet into a basin full of Dettol liquid soap.

Well, I didn’t really want to blog about that especially with the mention of God because my relationship with Him is deeply personal, just like everyone else. So, I feel it isn’t proper to express one’s gratitude to in a platform where everyone can read especially when the Person whom you’re referring is Him. Having said that, I was reminded the tearful confession of the televangelist Jimmy Swaggart who cried before the masses in the year 1988 for committing “some sin”. Alright, let’s cut that out. I just find it quite reminiscing, that’s all. After all, I have to keep my word in respecting everyone from all various backgrounds including religions, have I not?

In any case, let’s get going.

I am not pretty sure myself either. For some reason, I need a space to pour out my feelings. Yet at the same time, the space which I am blessed with can be seen by thousand eyes. It is like on one hand, I need somewhere to pour everything out yet at the same time, I ought to be careful. It is possibly because if I choose to pour things out here, I will never dare to solve things especially any interpersonal problems in the real world. You know –it’s so much easier to apologise to someone in here than approaching him or her directly. To be honest, I’d prefer practising the latter. But if I were to resort to this kind of approach where I will only rely on my blog as a medium to get my emotions out, things will never be solved. I don’t wish to go that extreme. Really, my mother and I were in tears as I apologised to her for that heated argument.

I am proud of myself for stepping out of my room to confront her, making an apology.

But I do not say I am proud of what I did. I am still remorseful and guilty of doing that to a point my father said the HFMD was a punishment upon me for such insolence. See the difference between confronting someone and apologise to her in a real world and expressing in a blog about how remorseful you are? Virtual reality is lacked of so many elements. Those faces of expressions –they called it emoticons – may not even be what the person behind the screen is expressing. It could be a plain sarcasm. It’s pretty different when you cracked a joke in a real world and a virtual world. In the former, people you could observe you tone, expression of emotions on your face and even your body language. At the same time, you being an entertainer could observe the reactions of your audiences especially how hard they laugh or please with your –I am truly sorry to use the word – nonsenses. However do you see that in, say, a conversation in MSN? Your recipient could reply to you with “Ha! Ha! Ha!” but you might never know if s/he could only be sarcastic or even laughing in a form of text just to please or acknowledge whatever you said.

It is easy said than done. Confronting people is never easy especially if it isn’t your habit. If people were to ask whether I am an introvert or an extrovert, my only answer is; I am only doing my best to be true to my feelings. If I feel I’ve wronged you, then I’m truly sorry. I don’t mean it. It’s just that I don’t know how to say. No matter how much I want to shed tears before everyone, I believe it’s my egotism that makes me fight to hold back my tears. Probably that’s what happened to some of you who happened to watch a very touching drama or advertisement in the living room with your parents –it’s so funny that you’re touched by such plots yet you don’t want to cry without being seen by your parents.

Getting back to the topic, I will just shrug and say… I don’t know.

I owe my parents a big time for taking a good care of me when I was sick especially waking me up at night and gave me medicines to swallow. I wanted to thank them. I felt even the urge to do so. Come to think about it, there’s no use if I utter such things.

Thanking someone isn’t a lip service, so as apologising to another person by saying sorry. Whenever I wanted to thank my parents, I felt that I could never repay them no matter how much I thanked them. It’s so hard of me now to put in effort in being caring and loving towards them, not to mention chaining my anger from being unleashed if I feel mistreated whenever they scold me unnecessarily –if you get what I mean. Yet strangely, that is part of my commitment to change for a better self.

If thanking and apologising isn’t a lip service, I don’t see any point of saying “thank you” to God either. I can’t seem to find the right word to thank God. May God protect me from any boastfulness but whenever I said “thank you”, I felt amiss. It’s like –He deserves more than a mere thanks. Even after praising and glorifying His Holy name, I still felt that wasn’t enough.

Because I was unable to repay Him in any way, I ended up asking for more; His Guidance. It’s strange because I can never repay my Creator. Tell me –how do you repay someone who’s been giving you things yet you know you cannot repay him because you yourself come from him?

I’m done… because I’m hurt
Hurt by my own feelings of conscience
The conscience in being conscious
To be earnest and true to myself at all times
In striving for the better part of me

Could this be… gratitude?

CHAPTER 6: The Typical Life; The Word Revealed

2010-09-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

Peace and greetings

I guess it is time for me to actually end the stories behind my past in this very Chapter. First and foremost, I don’t want anyone to get an idea that I am writing all these simply to gain sympathy or attention, which I’d have probably thought someone stalking me would use that as an argument against me –as usual if someone doesn’t like you. A friend of mine understood me by saying that sometimes we need some space where we can pour out our thoughts. Secondly, despite that this blog is all about me, I don’t wish all the updates here to be only about my problems which might have deeply hurt me, like any other blogs –as in the term which you all coin as “personal”. My personal problems do not lie within my relationship with people but with everything in this universe and that includes God Himself. Whether I’m with or against Him (of course, I am not). In short, it is a philosophical problem(s).

Like I said in my PROLOGUE, a heated argument with my mother actually led me into blogging. Initially, it was about a short write-up of how I grew up. It was probably a blog of one of my friends who reverted to Islam from Buddhism that encouraged me to begin writing.

And here I am.

I had in mind, as a closing for the stories of my past, as to why I wrote about them. I was unsure if I ever told my father that neither he nor my mother understood what I’d been through. Inevitably, I was wrong to have said such and such. After all, we’re God’s creations. We have been through the cradles and like those before us we’ll leave this world and rot. Due to that, what gives me the right to utter to my elders that they never understood me when they too were once as young as I am?

During that time when I thought for a conclusion for this Chapter, somehow I’d know there will come a day when my child will cry to me that I’ve never understood him. At this, I can then share my journal of my life with him, that I was once him going through the obstacles of life on my own and felt frustrations, rejections and distrusts.

I understand that the previous two Chapters were probably dull because perhaps some bits here and there did not make any sense. I apologise for that; I was no longer in the mood to write about my past. It is not because I felt ashamed. Rather, the answer is as simple as “I was no longer in the mood” especially when I hadn’t been blogging for quite a while. Therefore, all the stuffs I had in mind were slowly dwindling into nothings or at least at the last row of shelves at the back of my mind. Having the need to access them would mean doing a dull job by traveling a little to retrieve the information I need.

It is more than one-third past two in the morning. To be honest, I am tired of writing. But I want to finish by writing the initial intentions which I had when I first began my first few official chapters in this blog.

As I shared about my past, as I reflected about them, I felt as though I was rewinding a video and watched them again. After all those efforts, I thought I finally understood what made me to become who I am today. So I thought that every tiny past in our lives in which we choose to neglect has in some way contributed to our present, to who we are, unconsciously or subconsciously. It was probably the fact that I used to be alone most of the time that resulted me in jumping to assumptions that I was a dejected one or everyone did not like me. It was probably that I used to harbour things to myself so much I felt emotional very easily. While being emotional proves oneself a human, being too overwhelmed without managing his emotions may lead to the downfall of himself. In this case, I’ve severed ties between me and people rather than making them.

I believe there are important reasons why we here in this world and why we are created individually unique from each other. And I truly believe in what we ought to believe. Even if you choose to reject this, why then should you spend your time in upbringing your kids according to your definition of being morally or ethically good especially if your dream is become a parent? Sharing about my past is probably an answer to that, or at least having some relations.

It is because I do not wish any other kid to grow up and waste his childhood without the understanding of the world. Speaking of it, I do have my own concerns about this world. As we can see, the world is progressing, moving towards advancement in technology. As a result, educations are raised to a higher standard and kids in our time will have to learn more than we did when we were their age. No doubt our descendants will be force to swallow more than what is fed into the kids’ brains today.

As I thought the days when I studied for my GCE ‘O’ Level Examination, I realise I’d made a big mistake by studying for the sake of getting distinction. At the materialistic state, the world views you as a genius with straight ‘A’s in your certificate –alright, probably not the world but majority especially if you’re living in where I am.

As someone who will soon turn 21 in a couple of days to come, I’d probably say that life isn’t simply about scoring distinctions for your academic studies. It is not about being the best. It is not how much fun or happiness you had. It has never even been about revolution or change.

It is about how you want to spend the remaining of your life; it is about how you want to leave this world when you die especially when you realise that you do have a purpose in life.

I failed to understand behind such purpose, thought of enjoying as a kid, always perceiving my views and beliefs as right while seeing others as strange or wrong as a teen.

The unknown letters behind the previous chapters are finally revealed; TYPICAL. Yes, my life is typical when compared to everybody else. I am nobody, just like any of you. Despite that, I have made mistakes in my life in which it is never alright to abandon or be erased from memory unless they are learnt. Yes, my life is typical. But do you even wish your kids to have wasted their childhood and left wandering on their own about their purposes of existence?

If they lose faith in God, it will be tough to steer them back to what we ought to believe. If we do so, we are putting constraints to their thoughts, imprisoning them to what they are required to believe and not what they are ought to believe. A lost soul is a lost soul until he finds himself on track, until he finds himself which route he has taken to.

I truly hope I have made myself clear as to why I decided to write about my past. I do not know when I will ever be inclined in writing about philosophical and theological issues. But I guess I want to end the stories of my past for now.

CHAPTER 5: The T_ _ _ _ _ _ Life; Changes

2010-09-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

Peace and greetings

Graduation from Secondary school probably meant a great satisfaction for me. After all those efforts I put in especially in doing well for my GCE ‘N’ Level Examination as an NT student. Life as a private candidate was tough. First and foremost, I wasn’t equipped with same syllabus of studies as those students in NA and Express streams had. Secondly, due to the first point everything seemed to be a rush for me as I had to learn quick since there were loads for me to catch up especially if I wanted to be on par with those Express students sitting for GCE ‘O’ Level Examination.

I was putting so much effort for the first five months or so… until I got caught up with depression over my love (or possibly infatuation) with a friend whom I knew since I was fifteen. But because I don’t wish to share about that aspect of my life in which it involves others, I will proceed with that I’ve to share.

I used to think learning is fun during my secondary school days. It is simply because everything was so easy for me to understand. Science was simply about applying theories until I came to learn more in depth about several things –and under my Physics textbook, the problem for Moment (Moment = Force x Distance) became complicated. I could hardly understand such technical problems because I did not know that my state of mind was still stuck in the world of textbooks but not beyond the curiosity in searching for answers as to why things occur this or that way. I studied for my GCE ‘O’ Level Examination by doing assessment books, especially the ten-years –series, writing the answers and then immediately double-check them with the books’ answer keys.

The reason why I studied was because I wanted to be one of the top students again. I could now provide a reason as to why I wasn’t able to do the GCE ‘O’ Level standard for English Comprehension –it was because of my lack of understanding. I used to think the answers if the questions asked could simply be found in the passages but however at times critical thinking is needed. Or I should say a proper set of mind is needed. If you treat the English Comprehension like a piece of examination paper, you’ll feel the pressure of passing upon you. If you treat it like an article or any storybook you enjoy reading, you’ll understand it.

I was religiously inclined by then. At the same time, I was motivated in pursuing for my ambition; to be a filmmaker. Yet at this point, I wasn’t even exposed to any skills or techniques. I should have joined the Media Club during my secondary school days if I wanted to pursue my dream that badly. Hence I regarded the GCE ‘O’ Level Examination as a route to polytechnic. And I did get to enrol into one.

Like I said before, I was religiously inclined. I did put trust in God before this but the year after I graduated from my secondary school onwards, I began to read and ponder more into my religion.

Well, I did not really care about other religions because I always thought mine was right and so were my parents simply because they knew better than I did. I did not bother to question the authenticity of certain supplications or religious claims in books because I simply thought at the back of my mind they knew what they were saying. I was still influenced by the screen with four corners and by then, I had a taste of a particular new show; Kamen Rider. During that time, I was also engrossed into GUNDAM SEED DESTINY –just another anime nearly parallel to the real world in terms of wars rising from politics. Life was either like a cartoon or some superhero kicking baddies’ butts.

Of course, I knew the line between what was real and fiction. So, I filter out the fictitious parts and believed in the facts especially as portrayed in these shows and anime. However, I did still fantasise about them. Yet at the same time, I did have realistic ideologies or rather, ideals such as a dream for a peaceful world without discrimination. The word “discrimination” has probably made so much impact on me due to my instincts about how the students from the NT stream were despised upon that I probably began to take it on a global scale.

I think it is time to close the chapter with talking about how I’d lived during the years of my tertiary life.

I pray that I am earnest in this part of this update.

Life has changed me drastically since then. The start of my enrolment into polytechnic was joyful. The end, however, was sad, not merely because I’d be parted with some of my friends. Rather, I was sadden by the ties severed by me unintentionally (yes, it’d probably be you if you ever come to stalk me if I do still have your blog address, though I still have it somewhere). I watched myself leaving the school upon the official graduation with Husnah by my side in the bus, both of us lamenting about school days. I guess I’d people whom I’d severed ties with, not by my own force but by the mouth of someone, someone who thought it was the right thing to do by gossiping and backbiting about me and only admitted her faults to a friend of mine instead of apologising directly to me when it was me whom she has wronged.

Yes, I did have affection towards that someone and still do. But I am doing my best to forgive her. I am recovering from a disease and it has been the past few days that I prayed she’d have this disease to go through as a punishment from God for being unjust towards His fellow servant. Let me speak out of my grudge; how could someone speak about love when she mistreats her own brother in humanity, at least her brother through the veins of sons of Adam moreover we’re both from the same reason?

So in the end when she said I wasn’t practising what I preached, wasn’t she being the same as me too?

Pardon me to have digressed a little. I believe that someone was one of the reasons behind my change and part of my perception of the world. In fact come to think about it, there are so many factors that have contributed to changes in me and my perception towards my surrounding. I can’t seem to decide whether if I am an optimistic or pessimistic person. Either I am in between or the latter. But being both is being realistic, isn’t it? Happiness is short-lived but a silent joy remains eternal. However, what remains is; I am what the world has shaped me today.

That neither sounds good nor bad. The bad things which I saw in my past must have shaped me to a point that these things are probably now my habits in which I must fight to breakaway. Likewise, the good things I met from the past till now too have probably preserved some of my humanity so as to overcome the bad habits of mine.

Yes, I do have bad habits such as making assumptions deep within me towards other people and this often arises out of depression or rejection. Yet for every good deed, I try to understand and comprehend it why it is ought to be practised.

Another change that I had is probably doing critical thinking or reflection. But I must say that I want to end this Chapter here because I don’t feel like writing anymore.

To be honest ever since the long delay, I’ve nearly forgotten what I should write down. And after my latest encounter with a disease, I couldn’t help but bear a conflict within me with regards to the purpose of me writing all these.

I wish to remain as true to myself as much as possible.

CHAPTER 4: The T_ _ _ _ _ _ Life; Growing Up

2010-09-22T08:03:00.000-07:00

Peace and greetings

(If anyone has been longing for an update, I would like to apologise for such a late one. Initially the delay was due to a need of time for recovery after what a former friend did to me, which hurt me so much I felt mistreated when she wrote things about me in her blog, indirectly referring to me. I felt worst when she told her friends –and possibly family members or relatives – about me, calling me a stalker and everything. I felt out of place and been heavily judged without anyone hearing my side of the story. Another couple of reasons why I delayed updating my blog are because due to the last minute of preparation for the Eid-Fitri festival, the auspicious day itself and then something came up without any of us expecting it would happen –I was down with Coxsackievirus A16 aka Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. But I am recovering from that by the Grace of Lord. Unfortunately, I felt guilty for not able to hold onto patience during the duration of the test. Pardon me, God)

Previously, I shared about my life when I was still a Primary School boy. As for now, I’ll talk about my life as a teenager.

I was still twelve when I enrolled into Pasir Ris Secondary School. Needless to say, I was still behaving like a kid back then especially during the times I first joined the National Cadet Corps (NCC). I was a talkative and a childish one –an empty vessel. Subconsciously I was aware of some of my peers who disliked me, somewhat often casting me looks of disgust. I wasn’t spared from class bullies either, though mercifully I was only verbally abused. My first year in the Secondary School was probably the last year I cried in public. However because I do not intend to exaggerate matters especially if my secondary schoolmates were reading this, I feel the urge to inform that the word “bully” is rather a powerful word. Moreover, I faced it only less than half a year in school. Of course, that does not mean I did not get mistreated for the next three years in the school.

One horrifying fact which I did not tell anyone is that I was a bully too outside school. Probably because of the way how I was mistreated in school, I treated others the same way especially during tuition lessons. Luckily I did not have any history of throwing blows onto another person. But it is pretty upset as I typed down about it –an oppressed became the oppressor. An innocent kid with a pair of innocent glasses got oppressed and then turned into an oppressor towards other. Yes, if I remember correctly, I wore glasses only in school but not outside –probably a darker version of Clark Kent. I was probably a bully as well in the neighbourhood playground.

Despite such an unfortunate fate, these years were the years of glory, I should say. My duration of being a “bully” was only a few months in my first year. I think I probably started changing when I could not believe with my eyes and ears that I was ranked as second in class (and among the first-year of Normal Technical stream) in my academic achievements for half the year. That motivated me to be the first at the end of the year, which I did every single year in my Secondary school life.

I’d my own PlayStation back then, purchased with my own pocket money which I “earned” through collections during the Eid-Fitri of that year (or rather, shortly after I received my PSLE results). Hence the idea of me being second in class yet spending some time playing video games was undeniably surprising moreover when I had little focus on studies. I was still watching cartoons, though most of these were anime such as Digimon Adventures. My life was both like a game and cartoon. I was as though a main character in an RPG game since Final Fantasy IX was one of my favourites back then. Those were the days…

Tween could be a word to describe me back then; while I enjoyed fantasising myself as a protagonist of some stories –a big thanks to adventurous anime – however, I became someone else in the school, a student councillor aka school prefect.

I was as an empty vessel as how I was when I first came into the school, though I became strangely quiet in class yet childish during CCAs. This was something strange of me –different personalities and I was unconscious of that. I was a quiet and decent in class probably because I was a member of the student council and at the same time, had nearly no one to talk to especially with half the boys in class enjoyed teasing others. Most of the classmates whom I enjoyed talking to were Chinese. I’d no racial discrimination at all. For sure, we were all motivated towards our academic studies.

I would like to ask myself a question; what became of me? At the start of my third-year in Secondary school, I grew very egoistic. I mistreated a girl who sat beside me for nearly the entire year without at times having a shed of remorse. I felt guilty sometimes but it was a guilt best described as easily brushed off. I remember faming her to the class that she liked me –obviously, it would have been a weird couple for the two us if anyone had known how me from school. I remember talking to her harshly most of the time.

I’d no explanation behind such contempt I had for people. I’d no explanation why my emotions grew so strong in a negative way, so negative that I remember telling myself nobody liked me before the start of my third year of secondary school. I even harboured thoughts within myself that perhaps I didn’t get along so well with other students simply because I was a student from the Normal Technical (NT) stream while others were the ones everyone favoured upon such as the Normal Academic (NA) and the Express streams, the latter being probably classified as the clever ones. Such thoughts began growing in me at the age of fourteen.

During those years, I was obsessed with my studies and surprisingly, I became an avid reader. Of course, I wasn’t really into history or facts but novels such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy and J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Goblet of Fire being my first ever novel to be read by me. I probably thought I was living up to the lives of some of these protagonists in those books especially Harry himself who had a crush on Cho Chang –I’d a crush on a Chinese girl too after the one I’d on my Student Council President. I probably thought I was living up-to-date with the latest trends and technology such as buying myself a large red sweater, Walkman and mp3 players. And I must include that I learnt how to download songs illegally. Those were the days, depressing and getting emotional and awkward about certain things. And I thought I was living my life up as though it was good to be an adolescent.

Ignorance is bliss moreover when the year I turned fifteen was the period I was exposed to not only fantasies from novels but songs and movies. These things did make an impact upon my life. In fact, they influenced me especially music. Little I knew that they were spoiling me my interest in studies e.g. instead of reading books on my way to tuition lessons, I listened to music until covering half the distance. Well, how would I know they were when I still had the desire to maintain my position as the top student in studies among the NT students in my batch? That desire was a burning passion of my strong urge to prove the NA and Express students that an NT student could succeed as much as they do yet at the same time motivated by the self-determination and courage of protagonists in novels and anime. Yu-Gi-Oh and Medabots were my favourites during that time.

I grew up to be influenced by the things around me and more dangerously, my own instincts. Sometimes till today, I tend to get obsessed with my ideas that I abandon the advices of others merely because of listening to my instincts. Probably instincts are innocent if egotism is to be blamed should the former have become accustomed to their ways. I was like a kid learning from all over the place as though a slum living among bins and self-taught to adapt to the surrounding. I would say I wasn’t properly brought up, though this might sound ungrateful of me. Probably what failed me in growing up was myself but come to think about it, was I still at fault if I hadn’t woken up to be conscious to the world around back then, even if I thought I had?

I tried living my life as an adolescent through novels and even literature –I began reading about poetries and even Shakespeare’s plays when I was in my third year of my secondary school life. And I was an NT student, which probably explains that literature wasn’t part of academic studies in NT stream. I thought what I felt must be real, thus so as the discrimination against NT students I felt during those days. So I assumed whatever I read could be trusted. This is exactly what would happen should kids be told to search knowledge through their textbooks only.

I did not have a proper conscience. All I had back then were based on religion (I started believing and praying again by the end of my first year of secondary school), media and needless to say, school etiquettes. Probably all these shaped my instincts and all the ideas developed in my mind. I was like one of those prisoners in Plato’s Cave; deciding things based only on what I had but never thought of exploring. Like the Truman Show, I thought everything was provided for me so I needed not have to search or even bothered about doing so. Probably, even the word “exploration” seemed a lot of work for me back then.

I graduated from my secondary school days and continued pursuing my dream in polytechnic, but not without getting through the hassles of the GCE ‘O’ Level Examination. I took the papers as a private candidate and my life began to change drastically.

CHAPTER 3: The T_ _ _ _ _ _ Life; Influences

2010-08-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

Peace and greetings

(Again, I do not feel like typing but the legacy must go on. It is so easy to let go of a task and roll over in bed, assuming everything will be fine. After all the agonies, I do not want to underestimate the chances of occurrence of events, be it high or lower the chances are)

I do not really want to discuss about the matter of stealing –sometimes I just feel a strong remorse lingering within me. For the very first time, I confess the crime which I did –I am not proud of it and I don’t want to do it again. I stole my brother’s money, only to buy a Gameboy to entertain myself with virtual Pokémon adventures. Probably I’d never revealed this to anyone. I even lied back then. Of course, my family knew about that incident. But I don’t think I’d ever plucked up some courage in revealing this sin. Needless to say, my brother was very furious when he counted his savings. It was meant for school and to think about this as I am typing about it agonises me further. I did this when I was a Primary five kid.

I just hope anyone could see how the stage of my state when I was ten-years old onwards had led me into doing these stuffs. I got what I initially wanted as a kid, beginning from Digimon devices –I got the money through the collections I “naturally earned” from visiting of houses during Eid-Fitri and even lied to people for money or claimants of belongings to get more of those. I was ten when I did all these –and these were what my parents did not know, saved probably for the fact I spent my collections on these worthless toys. Visits to the arcade had probably led me into desiring more entertainments for myself. I wasn’t really satisfied with games out pixels on the Gameboy screen but yearned for coloured and 3D graphics as I was introduced into the undesirable youths’ games. And yes, I was addicted to computer games as well back then. But because I was exposed by something of a better quality in arcades, my hunger for all these entertainments escalated that I began to lie to some of my classmates I’d this video game console called PlayStation. Who could deny how popular it was when it first came?

I was deprived of all these, as a matter of fact. Yet, I still entertained myself by visiting the game shop at the void deck and tried out some of their latest games including Mega Man X5, Final Fantasy IX, Capcom vs. SNK and some others.

I thank God I’ve never drowned myself in alcoholic drinks or drugged myself (except for Panadol whenever I’d fever –I always used that as a humour), not to mention having a cigarette to smoke –I never smoke, really.

But I was influenced by my peers into watching wrestling shows too. It was WWF –World Wrestling Federation for those of you who thought the abbreviation was related to the preservation of wild and near-extinction wildlife. I don’t know what these wrestling entertainments have become –WWE or whatever. They don’t matter to me anymore –all these are purely entertainments acted out by actors with portrayals of bad manners, judging by their usages of vulgarities and cheats in wrestling matches (you don’t find true wrestlers behaving such ways as seen in the screen –true wrestlers are like any other practitioners of martial arts). Well, my brother would stay late at night during weekends to watch. So I joined as well.

My friends had their pencil cases slashed, so was mine. They wrote names of the WWF wrestlers on their pencil cases, so I did the same –the only difference was; I’d names of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 characters while they had well-known WWF wrestlers such as The Rock, Triple H, and Chris Jericho and so on –you-name-it. Oh wait –they’d printouts of some of the images of these wrestlers at cover their files too, so did I. They’d worms as pets, and I had mine. They owned toy guns (famously known as King Cobra), I owned one. You may want to say I was like a sheep following its herd –wherever they go, I would follow. Stupid fellow… I don’t know if I should say this but these friends of mine were boys –hey, I’m not a female!

I wasn’t really popular among the girls either, probably due to one of my thoughtless jokes of the phrase “I love you”. Probably I was rebellious towards my parents back then, behaving like a spoilt brat but was a coward towards my teachers (my class teacher was fierce and stern, mind you). I did not even attempt to defend myself at the accusation of me being a molester. The same girl that I joked about “I love you” had her mother came to school and questioned me if I ever molested her daughter. I said yes, although I didn’t.

I was brave with my friends but fearful when came to defend myself. I hope I’ll still able to defend my rights upon enlisting into National Service.

Yes, for the LAST TIME, I DID NOT MOLEST ANYONE –NOT EVEN ONCE IN MY LIFE, EVEN NOW!

(And I’d a female classmate during that year –a talkative one – telling me that so-and-so girl from my class said I sort of held up her skirt and looked or peeping underneath. Fine –I’ll clarify this again; I’ve never done that in my entire life. Probably that’s a stepping stone to why I cannot control my anger whenever people accuse me of what I am not today)

Be realistic! I was a nerd, following others blindly! What did this bunch of morons think during those days? That I was some kind of a peeping tom? When this news reached my parents, my mum thought I touched someone’s… private part? Really, if the same girl who put me into this accusation ever told her kids or anybody else that I did these stuffs she’s not getting away with this in the hereafter. I could hardly forgive her –I want my name cleared entirely. I want to go to paradise.

Hmm… that was probably a stepping stone of me having a bad relationship with girls –I’d a hard time talking to them. Hence, confessing my feelings towards any particular girl that I’d affection with often ended up in a disaster to a point a girl probably thought so high of herself called me a stalker recently –or some time ago (someone older than me had probably never checked the dictionary when she used the word me in her blog).

I did not have anyone to talk to back then. Despite those friends whom I hanged around with in school, I still did not have anyone close to me.

Finally, Primary-School-Leaving-Examinations (PSLE) arrived and somehow, I was into studying. Looking forward into studying was half-and-half, although the interest was there. But at the same time, I made a deal with my elder sister that should I ever score an aggregate to enrol in the Normal Academic stream, she should buy me a video console PlayStation –I was always making deals with her because I was probably been pampered by her often when I was younger.

Normal Technical stream was probably seen as a bad route –already, in Primary schools during those days, we’d three streams; the EM1, EM2 and the less-capable EM3. The latter was always the minority. So, I thought Normal Technical stream was a bad one too because of people telling me this and that about it (but I turned out to be one of top Malay students for GCE ‘N’ Level Examinations 2005 in the nation, anyway –LOL).

I had a nightmare during post-PSLE. Examinations were long over and we were waiting for the results. I dreamt that I got into the Normal Technical stream. I sort of cried about it during my visit to the hospital as my father was hospitalised. If I remember correctly, it was during the fasting month. When I got the PSLE result, needless to say I got into that undesired stream. My hopes of getting the PlayStation went crashing before my very eyes.

While I began to repent when I was in Primary six shortly after the incident of September 11 2010 where the twin towers in America got hijacked by planes, began performing my five daily prayers lest the end-of-world and the Antichrist (Al-Masih Ad-Dajjal) would come, I somehow apostate the moment I got back my PSLE results. Probably I couldn’t really accept the fact that God abandoned me during that time (funny for a partying kid to lose faith easily simply over bad results).

Ignorance was bliss. Life became beautiful without and then with faith. That was how my life became for the next couple of years.

In any case, I feel like sharing that despite the peers I had even when I was in both Primary Five and Six, I was still lonely. Probably I did not have any important problems to discuss. And sometimes, my peers had this strange habit in alienating one of us from the group because of some mistakes or habit of that particular person. Whenever it was my turn, life was dark for me and I did not even share anything about it with my family. I mingled with some other students from other classes and yet, I wasn’t close to anyone.

Somehow, a line occurred in my head. It was given by my Primary Six form teacher; “attitude not aptitude determines altitude”.

Come to think about it, probably who I am right now is the by-product of all those events happened in the past.

But had the coming years been pleasant for me? Before I could answer that question, please go to sleep and await the next chapter.

CHAPTER 2: The T_ _ _ _ _ _ Life; Childhood

2010-08-25T11:57:00.000-07:00

Peace and greetings

(Actually, I’m kind of lazy to type and wish I could listen to Sami Yusuf’s Mu’Allim but I need to keep my promise –better get started or I won’t feel like doing in time to come)

Somehow, this was what had been my mind hours before I began pouring in here i.e. Chapter 2.

It was probably towards the end of the first semester of my second year in Republic Polytechnic or after the end of it that I remember what I did before going for a birthday party of one of my facilitators of my tertiary. Whatever problem I had back then was totally complicated –and what if I were to add that it was escalated by my infatuation towards a classmate of mine, a Christian?

It was the moment that I started pondering over my life as a Muslim and doubts were then coming in that I could no longer hold anymore. Explanations over such scepticisms were the best medicines. During that day before I left my house for the birthday party, I was reading about arguments and debates about science in the view of Islam and Christianity (you are advised to stop reading if you’re beginning to feel uncomfortable). Both sides made good claims, explanations, rebuttals and refutations especially when the speaker/presenter representing the Muslims was Dr Zakir Naik. I mean –probably half the Muslim world knew this man.

Perhaps it was hard of me to determine who was truthful and factual, probably because of my strong desire in seeing the faith I held on dearly to triumph over the other. Because I was lacked of knowledge in science –moreover I was not a science but an art student during that time – I did not feel convinced at all. Not that there was some discrepancy in the debate. But even if there was, I could not recognise any as I nearly had no idea what these “scientists” were throwing at each other. It was like, “these science gigs know their stuffs –so, just leave the talks to them” –I wanted to use the case of “chicken and duck” to shed more understanding about how I felt but it probably did not fit in to what I said.

The duration of the evening prayer entered and probably as I was performing my prayer, I started feeling remorse about my childhood.

I was probably beginning to understand the importance of knowledge –to cover the doubts of a soul. And I truly regret to this day for not doing well during my Primary school days. I did not even realise or anticipate such remorse would come.

I began to cry within myself –why hadn’t I done so well back then? I felt as though I’d wasted my childhood, which I believe (now) I did. And I do not wish for another child to suffer the same pain as I do now. Parents, I truly hope that the day when you decided to have a child, you’d do your best in fulfilling your responsibilities as a parent. I do not say that my parents did not –they did. I was the notorious one. I even lied frequently when I was in my fourth year of Primary School.

I was easily influenced by the trends during my time. For those of you who were around my age, you could probably recall ten years ago when Digimon rampaged virtually and Pokémon running and scurrying around. Power Rangers were still kids’ favourites. Those were the days but I was not only exposed to that. I wanted to exaggerate in my description of events –I wish I could but firstly, doing that would mean I was telling a lie and secondly, although I regard it as a horrible moment of my life, some of you might consider it as not a big deal.

Okay. I went to the arcade at the age of ten –on my own. I first knew about it when I was only at the age of either seven or eight but never came back for some time as I was brought by my sister. That would have been the first and the last time I went to the arcade, if it was not of me being in the wrong company of friends.

I met this friend. I’d named him E. I don’t want to expose anyone. God and I know who exactly this fellow is and hence, the name only a letter E (having said all these, obviously I know his real name, duh). Oh –I felt as though I’d a companion. You know –I was probably one of the most stupid kids around since Primary One and perhaps I got bullied for my low grades. But I wasn’t the only “stupidest” kid around –in a nutshell, I wasn’t the only one who got bullied. Guess who were my bullies? We’d a kid from China and he was a couple of years older than any of us in the class despite being Primary One. I am not trying to discriminate anyone but he is from China. I’d to admit –he’s smart. And I got bullied, most of the time verbally. Did I get bullied physically? I couldn’t remember any of that, though I knew I did beat him when I was Primary Two once. Was it out of retaliation or been badly influenced by cartoon shows such as Power Rangers? God knows the truth –but it was true that I did hurt him physically. That kid was such a big brute. Oh, if I remember correctly, he’d cronies. I remember one of them had a name started with the letter D. Again, I did not want to expose anyone –he wore a thin pair of glasses and he was probably a clever kid too.

So, in short I got bullied sometimes for the first four years in my Primary School. I was ten and I knew E, who was from another Primary School. First, we spent time in the library –I was there on my own because I was probably fascinated by books (you know how colourful kids’ books are). Then I met that E guy and gradually, we started spending time not only in the library (by this time, we were already having series of Digimon battles through our respective devices –for those of you who do not know what Digimon devices are, I believe there’s such engine search called “Google”) but having fun in the playgrounds, especially the one at Sun Plaza Park, Tampines.

I wasn’t really into religion during that time despite I was brought up as a Muslim and having to attend for weekend classes. But E was probably a either a Buddhist or Taoist because during that time, we would act as characters from the story Journey to the West and I always played the monk’s role while E wanted a heroic one, mainly Sun Wukong. Did I actually forget to mention I was influenced by Chinese shows too? My siblings watched them and I started to follow as well, beginning with Singapore’s version of The Return of Condor Heroes with the Dragon Girl acted by Fann Wong. Then, somehow I began to be exposed to some of these shows such as the Eight Immortals and Journey to the West and surprisingly, I did know these shows had to do with religions, either Buddhism or Taoism because both had Buddha in them. Action-packed shows were sort of my favourites during that time.

Life was very childish back then. I had little regard for studies and examinations –I scrapped through the papers in the end and got what I wanted to achieve. Needless to say, I did pretty badly for the first few papers every year before coming to the end-of-year examinations, which I managed somehow. Probably because I took life for granted during that time, I still continued to dwell in my ignorance and by sometime during my fourth year in Primary School, E brought me to the arcade.

Life was paradise.

I was exposed to loads of games. E’s favourite was probably King of Fighters series whereas I would go for Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter and then its successors Marvel vs. Capcom and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. We were thrilled by the players of the House of the Dead 2 and always imagined ourselves shooting zombies around wherever we went even in the shopping malls.

I learnt bad habits too such as lying to my parents with regards to my whereabouts. I’d give them excuses I went to the library and would always carry a Power Ranger bag wherever I went probably to give an impression to them I did go to the library. As if that wasn’t enough, I remember lying to my mum once that I requested for a dollar to purchase a keychain. Instead, I used it to by two tokens. After all, one token would cost fifty-cents back then. You could at most play two games or one game that would require two tokens but who cares when you’d all the fun yourself, right? I’d say that arcade was a kid’s pub?

Sadly enough, I learnt to steal from malls, again probably influenced by E and another two friends, F and T. Yes, I should add those were the early days which I started using and spewing vulgarities especially what the bidding farewell of a hen (it’s a vulgar word in Chinese language –I don’t want to state exactly what it sounds) and four letter word beginning with the letter “F”. Yes! It’s Fish! Yes, it’s Fish… What the Fish… if you get what I mean.

Those were the days…

But how did I end up regretting all these? I think I’ve poured my memories too much… too much for any of you to consume. Hey –go to sleep!

To be continued in Chapter 3.

GO TO SLEEP!!!!

CHAPTER 1: The T_ _ _ _ _ _ Life; The Company of Myself

2010-08-23T00:41:00.000-07:00

Peace and greetings

I believe I have not given a proper introduction of myself other than what is stated in the content of About Me on the right of this page.

Full Name: Muhammad ‘Izuddin Sufian Sujai
Religion: Islam
Race: Malay (personally disputable)
Year of Birth: 1989
Occupation: A Diploma holder awaiting the enlistment of National Service
Ambition(s): Freelance designer, minister, someone genius as Leonardo Da Vinci, a novelist
Favourite quote(s): “I think, therefore I am”, “I am just stranger, just a wanderer”

Before I jump more into the details of myself, I feel an urge to share what exactly I am now striving to achieve within myself. I do not wish to talk about the details with regards what I believe in especially when comes to philosophical and theological issues –I may want to apologise in advance should any of you who stumbled upon this blog feel offended, I would like to apologise in advance. It is because this blog is a sharing platform for me to discuss what I’ve found and may find through time.

I may sound general when I said “…to discuss what I’ve found and may find through time…” but I need to emphasise that this involves of the studies and research I may have made in due time especially the study of Holy Scriptures such as the Quran, the Gospels or the Bible and others including the practices of people of other religions. But rest assured I will do my utmost best in presenting my thoughts with an utmost respect so as to seek opinions from any of you who may find certain of ideas of mine to as misunderstandings. Wait –I should have said all these things in my PRELUDE: BEGINS NIGHT.

Let’s get back to the main subject; what exactly I am now striving for currently. I hope to make things short and simple.

You may want to include that I desire wealth in the aspect of materialism, a healthy mind and body and probably and good family i.e. having a good wife and kids and everything. But that is not just it –in fact, I am not even ready for marriage and I don’t think any of you too are as well. It is not simply about being financially stable but spiritually and mentally as well. You and I can agree that hardships and obstacles are inevitable in life especially as you settle down to start a family but there are other issues that I feel should be considered as well.

I do not intend to digress from the main subject which I am sharing. As much as I wanted to say the abovementioned wants as wants, i.e. having materialistic wealth and health, they turn out to be needs. I need wealth to sustain family especially my parents, myself and the people around especially in feeding my soul by doing acts of charity so as to benefit my humanity –probably our humanity. Moreover, I do not want to be bound by the taxes and debts imposed by the government (and please do not get the wrong idea that I am against the authorities –no, I am not as I believe this happens not only in Singapore but other first-world nations such as America as well).

In any case, what I wish now is accumulating knowledge from all sorts of aspects such as theology, science, philosophy, religions, psychology and the list goes on and on.

I will share with you what briefly what I need for the soul and what I am practising;

As most of you should have known by now, we are in the fasting month of Ramadan where we, Muslims, of all over the globe are not only to abstain ourselves from food and drink from dawn to dusk but as well as our whims and desires. Needless to say, I am doing my best to fight and suppress the beast within me –and I can never describe precisely what it is for now out of personal reasons.

Yet at the same time, I want you to understand I have been through and hence learn from all the mistakes I made in life. It is so much easier to say everybody does make a mistake. I need to add my own words in it; it is depending how we appreciate that temporary remorse and learn from it so as to progress to achieve the best for our humanity.

I do have a bad anger management and for quite some time, I will be quiet most of the time. But because I am always harbouring so many problems within myself, brushing them off aside and ignoring them, thinking everything will be fine, I may vent my frustration upon others especially when they either begin to throw accusations or unreasonably raise their voices at me.

Probably this is something psychological that you and I should learn. Probably this is why this blog exist; for me to yearn for an understanding and at the same time, spreading to the world about myself as probably one of those who are psychologically disturbed. I won’t deny I am unsound –probably you are as well. Will you dare to confess that you do not speak to yourself whenever you’re alone?

Having said all these things above, I hope I have truly made clear as to what exactly I am trying to achieve in life. What is life without a purpose? Am I really deceiving myself by trying to create a meaning in life? How then I ought to live?

There is a reason why the title of this chapter has such an unknown word in between; A T_ _ _ _ _ _ Life. So, what’s the “T” word here? As a matter of fact, I would want to share about my childhood before beginning with a discussion about possibly philosophical issues or what I have come across now.

I apologise for the misleading title about this one in my previous entry. I said today would be about my Childhood but instead, turned out to be The Company of Myself.

PRELUDE: BEGINS NIGHT

2010-08-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

Peace and greetings

I would probably want to start a new OFFICIAL post despite my previous entries, which I might be either clearing or posting them at a later date. As for now, I think I’ve finally decided what is to be done with this blog of mine; it is now turned into my own traveller’s diary.

Should I make a design to describe visually about myself? That’s not the issue for now.

Anyway, this virtual diary of mine will be a record of my journey in life which probably includes how the world and the people around has shaped me to become who I am today, be it good or bad, mentally liberal or neurotic ( and probably, psychologically disturbed).

I probably never think thoroughly if I should ever be doing this even as I intended to do so couple of days ago.

Just to share with you a little secret; this post was originally done at night and it was even put up. However because I disliked the way how I expressed myself and desperation in yearning for someone to understand me, I could not help but retype the entry with hopes of organising my words in maturity terms. Because the official entry was initially written at night, hence the title of the entry, PRELUDE: BEGINS NIGHT. I apologise if it sounds familiar –you might have probably heard it somewhere but please keep it to yourself if you do.

Let me begin with a horrendous fact which probably led me into blogging. It started with me having a heated argument with my mother a few weeks ago. Probably those who have me as your friend in Facebook account would probably know that.

At that point of my life, I felt deeply remorseful, not with what I had done by hurting someone whom is still dear to me. But I was truly remorseful of all the things that occurred to me in my life, so agonising where these experiences that I kept only to myself.

But I think everything should put be to an end, a good end.

That is why I’ve decided to write again, to write about my journey in life as I watched my pasts, never wanting to vent my frustrations on anyone any longer.

Yet at the same time, I truly hope to focus more towards philosophies and theological issues as I cannot help but admit that I am pretty much an agnostic these days, with the exception I do still believe in the existence of God and worship Him as how I was taught since young.

Let’s not get into the details, for I’ll save that for future entries of this Blog. Before I officially end this post, I hope you too would supplicate to God that I may receive His Guidance.

“I’ve been living as an ignorant all these years. I’ve been living to feed my desires all the while. But no matter how hard I tried to fight against the beast in me, I kept failing and stumbled. I climbed the mountain high, only to fall on my back and landed on its foot.

“I craned my neck to catch a glance of the mountain’s peak –it was beyond my sight. My desires had led me to go through once again the torture and agony of life to reach the mountain’s top. Where I’d once nearly reached the top, my desperation and impatience rendered me my downfall.

“As I write, I want to emphasise that I want to be sincere, calm, patient and determined to discover the truth about the world, about the universe, about nature and everything that is in all that is mentioned… all for the sake of understanding myself.”

Please enjoy.

Next entry will probably be named CHAPTER 1: The T------ Life; Childhood

Purpose of Actions

2009-06-19T23:45:00.000-07:00

It is pointless to prove anyone wrong
Even so what if we are in love
Even so what we have naught to prove our dearest one(s)
But the agony strikes within, for we graze with nothingness
Wandering in emptiness

In the end even if we do have (something) to prove to anyone
The question is; why are we doing this?
What exactly are we trying to prove?
Is it our worthiness so as to gain acceptance?
Is it our love for someone whom we assume thinks of us as valueless?
Is it for the same latter reason when we think we are far from him or her?

For a million years, we will have naught to prove to anyone
Who are we proving? Will the people or person accept us?
What is then sincerity? Still what are we trying to prove?

Our beliefs flare as they meet others’
What are we trying to prove by gunning them down?
What if questions are raised due to doubts and hope for certainty and knowledge?

With something, we will still prove nothing
People still see us different ways
They see we are trying

Yet in the end,
What are we trying to prove?
Who are we proving?
Will the people or particular person accept us?
What is then sincerity?

Still, what are we trying to prove?

With the best of True Sincerity
Just a stranger, just a wanderer; remember that

save the world; save the souls