Embrace Yourself

Back in high school, I had a rather bad habit of trying to someone I wasn’t because we live in a society that labels anyone who isn’t cool, as a crazy person. I had decided to stay away from labels so I tried different ways of being cool, to be more chill person. But (and yes there is ALWAYS a but) Since the start of college, I have come to realization that not everyone will understand my passion, my sensitivity or even my overzealous reaction to even the rather mundane things.

And I have also heard a lot of phrases from “my friend circle”, pharses like:

1. You can’t survive with that sort of attitude

2. You need to change yourself

3. You need to bring a change in your personality… etc etc etc

I have to come a realization that the truth is I’d rather be passionate, sensitive and ‘crazy’ and be me than try to be someone else. I’d rather not to be cool, chill and calm if it’s going to bring me temporary people, fleeting happiness and attract a bunch of people who don’t really like me for who I am.

Because I’ve had people who loved and accepted me all my life, I’ve had people who loved my passion, understood my sensitivity and appreciated my overzealous nature. People who are still in my life. Friends who think my heart is the reason why they stayed in my life.

And maybe we don’t need to change something if we don’t think it’s wrong. Maybe we don’t need to change it if it’s serving us well. Maybe we don’t need to be part of the majority to feel like we belong. Maybe all we really need is to be better versions of ourselves and the right people will find us and love us for all the right reasons.

And at the end of the day, If you want to change, change because you want to, because you feel like you need to, because it’s going to make your life better but please don’t ever change for people, don’t ever let people sway you into believing that there’s something wrong with you just because you feel things differently. Please don’t ever apologize for your feelings. Embrace Yourself.

Alpha and Omega

The Universal Will is beyond pain and pleasure, and it is beyond any one human life.

We are all instruments bringing reality together, essential parts of the time in history which we were born in, and each death is just as important and significant as each life. When we realize that death is such a great motivator for keeping us on track we can no longer despise it. When we no longer despise death we come to realize that death is precious. If we had no death we might fall into such deep meaninglessness that we can no longer summon the energy to do anything at all. This is not to meant we no longer suffer during death, this suffering is natural. But we must understand that beyond our sense of loss, our pain due to that part of our heart which is now missing, there is a greater plan, and that death is not annihilation, since there is an eternal godly spark within us that can never die. Humanity continues to search for cures for all kinds of diseases in order to prolong life, but it only really matters to us when it becomes a reality for us or those we love. As long as tragedy doesn’t affect us, we go on living as if it doesn’t exist at all anywhere else in the world. We complain that we are bored, that we have to spend time at school or at work, that we have to accompany our mother to the grocery store, that we have to help our younger siblings with their homework. Everything is a reason for complaint. Since we have nothing worthwhile to do with our time we simply spend it complaining, stressing ourselves out. Stress is a slow killer but a killer nonetheless. Complaining might seem like a form of venting and letting our frustration out, but it actually drags us further into misery and affects those who surround us as well. When death or disease strike we are all of a sudden so compelled to do whatever it takes to prolong the same existence we were just complaining about a moment ago. We have become ungrateful. What we need is to strengthen our core as human beings, by understanding that our mind and body are simply vehicles for a much higher power, an indestructible power. We cannot strengthen our willpower. Willpower comes from Spirit and it is always as strong as it can be. When I speak of willpower I speak of the Divine will which is inherent in man. Any desire which does not arise from this will does not arise from willpower at all, but from the animal instincts which man carries within himself, from the raw emotion and thought that binds us to a merely physical experience of pain and petty pleasures. We can chase pleasure to the farthest extremes of this earth and we will end up disappointed and disillusioned no matter how high we climb. Confusion will strike like that inflicted upon the builders of Babel as we are humbled for having attempted to reach God status by elevating ourselves and putting others down, by letting our worldly desires drag us through the mud, all the while in a state of pure ecstasy. After all, ignorance is bliss. Ignorance of our truly divine nature is the cause of all needless human suffering, so there’s no wonder there’s so much of both nowadays. We spend too much time in our comfort zones, chasing pleasure or avoiding all pain. We become attached to our own perceptions of who we are, which are also affected by others’ perceptions with who we are. After so many days of the same routine, the same things bothering us, the same things making us feel a bit satisfied with life, we think we know ourselves. We think we know what we really think about certain topics, we think we mean things which we don’t mean, we think we are a thousand things, when in reality, at the highest level, we are all one in being, all of us being, one being. This is why we know what is right and what is wrong, yet we try to remain in ignorance, because it feels great. We lie to ourselves, as if we could, and indeed we can. We can lie to our perceived self, our self-imposed identity of ourselves, but we can never, under any circumstances, succeed in lying to our higher Self, to God within us. The source of all love and wisdom knows nothing else, and when we act out of accordance with these attributes we face unnecessary suffering, self-inflicted suffering. This is because the real Self always knows where we are screwing up. It knows when we are not aligned with our true nature. That’s why so many of us chase the drink I think, because it allows us to be who we think we want to be without that voice of reason dragging us down. We want to experience all the things we know we shouldn’t, we just need to lower our sense of judgement in order to enjoy them for a sweet second, in order to avoid any reflection whatsoever about what we have in our our own minds, about how we can enrich them and use life as a blessing, to bless ourselves and many others. We all feel inspired by such an idea, and even great criminals have helped the needy. It’s obvious that, as the phrase goes, sharing is caring. This is part of the love and wisdom of God, yet some of us choose to ignore this, and instead we choose to nurture the rotten ideas of selfishness which we’ve slowly began developing in our brains. Explain it in whatever way, but selfishness needs to be forgotten if we are to follow a spiritual life. Jesus advised against considering any earthly thing as treasure, and recommended to focus on the treasures of the spirit instead, while the Buddha taught complete non-attachment to all worldly things, rooted in the reality beyond all suffering. He also preached balance, the middle way, something else which could be thought of as a divine attribute of the One Being.

No Participation Trophies

You either win or you lose, you get the medal or you don’t. The philosophy behind a medal or trophy is simple, it belongs to the winner, and winner only.

In my own opinion, this is important because a child needs to learn that in the long run to be good at something requires a lot of hard-work and it is time consuming. This constant focus on giving medals, giving public praise … I think over time, this is giving this message that failure is so terrible we can’t let you experience it. We can’t even address it. We have to pretend that you always win. Supporters of participation trophies argue they serve as mementos of the time and effort children put into certain activities. In addition, they boost involvement among children and build their self-esteem, causing them to be bolder and achieve more.

While that sentiment sounds nice, my argument is that participation awards actually has an opposite effect. The adults tend to overpraise children who struggle, are shy or have low self-esteem, which has been proven to cause those children to withdraw because they can’t live up to their own hype.

As for those with high self-esteem (in the words of few of my friends, Yours truly included), participation trophies help create narcissistic children because they view the awards as vindication that they’re truly as great as they see themselves. I think what does for me, create anger because I don’t want to be appreciated for losing, If I have lost, I have lost. I don’t need a constant reminder of that. Like in all honesty, why would I need it.

What I want is my friends who really take pride in their pansy ass participation letters is to realize it takes a long time to get good at something, and that’s OK, nobody expects perfection from the get go. We don’t expect them to be constantly winning. If you lose, that’s fine. If they win, that’s fine. But we should not be interested in results. As a person who is driven by competition (actual competitions and not self created in the mind competition to beat someone in the class in grades, cause that is JUST PETTY), my goal is always to come to this conclusion how much have I grown from this experience and have I learned enough to fare better the next time around.

Once children master a skill, they won’t need manufactured praise to tell them they did a good job because they’ll know it and feel a great sense of accomplishment.

A Letter to My Friend

A thought burst in my head And I need to tell you

Dear Holden,

Today is 22nd July, 2015, I just finished reading about you. I was always scared I might not like you. I thought you were a whiny bastard, to be frank. But now, I just want to thank you for taking me along for the ride; Because a lot of the things you’ve said ring true even if hardly anyone bothers to listen to you. I think I’d like to have an actual conversation with you, but I’m not sure if I could be quick enough to catch up with your train of thought, and I would be very sorry if I couldn’t understand you. Because I really want to. I think and I hope we would make very good friends, but a part of me is also very scared that you will think of as another phony, I like to believe I am not, but sometimes, it is very difficult to distinguish at times.

The more I read about you, the more I found similarities between you and me. Beginning with the way we see other people. Sometimes I can’t really help myself and am under the impression that everyone around me is a phony. I think you will be wondering, if it includes my parents, I want to say Yes. But there is another section I can’t help but adore, these are the people who are actually excited about what is to come, people who are laughing like no one is watching, very genuine people. As I was writing this last line, I could only think of one individual, my sister, which also makes me wonder how similar we both are. I can’t really explain it that well. I guess that is another trait we both share, Our inability to explain our opinions. Maybe we were having a conversation, things would’ve been easier. But Holden, what I guess I am trying to say is people aren’t so simple, you see. Human beings are complex that way, we can’t really categorize them because each one of is uniquely different the other.

I don’t want to be someone who doesn’t notice things. I don’t want to believe that life is a game. I want to be able to say goodbye, and not regret doing something when I start missing it. I want to be able to make a lasting connection. I don’t want to grow up and forget how it was like to be a kid. I don’t want to disappear. I don’t want to be just a tombstone littered with dead flowers. I don’t want to be stuck in depression and not be able to think right. I am sure we both know at this point that I have to make stand and not end up quitting, I have to get out of it.

Holden, I love how you always want to pick people up, it is such an admirable thing, but what if you fell? who will be your catcher? who will be there to save you? I know that you wish you could’ve caught your brother, but that wasn’t you fault. It wasn’t like he jumped off the cliff while you weren’t looking. You couldn’t have stopped it. I am hopeful that you will actually find strength within yourself to move and finally be happy and thankful for the life.

You gotta be scared before you can be brave. You gotta open up if you want to have a connection. Now that’s life. Spend time with Phoebe, with Jane, with anyone whose company you truly crave. Spend time with people who will be good to you. Because after all the hell you’ve been through? I think you deserve it.

Your Friend,

Kamran

PS : I am really looking forward to meeting you, maybe when we both are doing better mentally.

Eleanor Rigby Died …

(This is a post that has been in my draft since July 2017.)

A few years ago I loved The Beatles, I still do but you know. As the years have gone by I’ve moved away from them, turning to other genres and artists, and I’ve never really gone back. The Beatles’s place in my “favorite band of all time” slot has been replaced with Nirvana and The Smiths

Regardless, while talking to a friend of mine who happens to be a fellow music lover, The Beatles were brought up in our conversation. He happened to be a huge Beatles fan, going so far as to say that Sgt. Pepper’s is one of the best albums of all time.

(Just a side note, I do believe that Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is a good album. A great one actually, but I don’t believe it is one of the best. Its not even the best The Beatles album for me (Revolver) …Sorry.)

I had a special love for some of their songs, namely Eleanor Rigby, All You Need is Love, Good Morning, Hey Jude and Paperback Writer. Of all the songs the Beatles ever produced, Eleanor Rigby still stands as one of my favorites…. I guess it can be because of the amazing orchestra play in the back because I never understood the lyrics for a very long ….

When I chose to write this piece, I decided to pick a song I hadn’t listened to in a very long time and write about it. Write about how it made me feel, what it meant to me, or how it affected me. The Beatles immediately came to mind, and I quickly decided on Eleanor Rigby as my song of choice. That got me wondering what it was about this song that resonated with me so much that I knew I had to write about it without any hesitation.

To be honest, it was the lyrics. When I first heard the song I was 15, the lyrics always confused and intrigued me. I didn’t understand what half of them were portraying, but they always fascinated me. I couldn’t stop thinking about them. The slice of life, vignette style portrayal of “all the lonely people” was captivating.

A lot of the metaphors of the song were lost on me. Eleanor “wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door” wasn’t symbolic of anything: I thought it was a mask of some kind. Regardless, that became one of my favorite lines in the entire song. It was poetic and strange. The wonderful mixture of strange people, euphemisms, and symbolism had me listening to the song on repeat (I am listening to it on repeat right now as I write this..), totally pulled into the drab, gray, and lonely world that had been created.

The sad, almost longing tone of the song pulled me in as well. Up to that point in my life, most of the songs I had listened to had been happy, I wasn’t exposed to the harsh reality of life as yet. Eleanor Rigby was different. It painted a picture of lonely, sad people whose lives were intertwined. The whole song felt gray to me, as if the world I was hearing was perpetually cloudy.

That’s why it really stayed with me, even though I didn’t know it. It showed me that all songs didn’t have to be happy or joyous. They didn’t even have to use conventional “rock and roll” instruments. (Eleanor Rigby consists of nothing but The Beatles’ voices, and a small orchestra). It showed me that songs could be used as storytelling devices, and could portray characters and situations, real or fictitious. It really broadened my idea of what music can be, and what it can portray.

While I may not be as crazy about The Beatles as I used to, I still have a love for this song many years later. I listened to it many times while writing this, and haven’t grown tired of it yet. I really do attribute this song to broadening my view of music, and how it’s more than just fun things to play on the radio. Music is an art form: a way of expressing oneself. Music is a way to tell stories, and share the human experience. It transcends cultures and times. Truly, it is one of the most powerful forces that can be created, and that’s why it demands to be made.

Where is My Mind?

Distorted the image becomes like the windows of a forgotten church…

Fragmented in different shades of red…

I am lost Seized by the God of Oblivions

Wrapped grimly to the dimness of his frigid skies

Rotting subconsciously in an aborted abyss

Failure becomes the forever that sorrow has prepared for me…

Brewing slowly in its cauldron of reality

As a discolored painful stain I remain in time

Never to awaken from its clouds of unconsciousness…

My mind weathered and torn from this dementia storm..

Obscuring my thoughts allowing me to become nothing again

As its rain of void splashes upon my skin like cold steel

I surrender to the streams on the windows of time

It mutates my reflection like a rippled portrait through glass

Shattering me like a mirror splitting my soul which now falls like severed rain…..

shimmering with staccato rhythms

A liquid astral projection of myself gathering as a destitute puddle underneath the world now releasing the roaring waves of my oceaned grave

As a human broken;

And as a God forsaken

So into this black I haunt with mournful memories

Death is the only door

It shall remain closed

Forever becomes my name

Broken Souls

The most broken souls,

make the best art,

Heart so dark,

yet from it emerges rainbows.

In the unpicked pieces of our souls

come out the most,

each time we let go.

Like a breath of fresh air,

and a new beginning,

before the next exit,

to a new start and a new end.

On the dead ends,

we paint miracles,

all over walls,

with our hopes,

and dance on cliff edges,

beneath stormy skies,

seeking comfort in the beauty of sorrow,

and the art of life,

by embracing fate with open arms,

into the new era to come,

filled with stories to be told,

with countless more changes,

and new walls to be painted.

Beautiful

When you met me, I was a dream.
Confusing, yet enjoyable.
The break from reality you needed.

Now here we are.
I’m not quite a nightmare, but you sense the scene has changed.
Still more confusing.
Am I good or bad?

I know I can’t keep up the charade.
The peace you enjoyed so much.
I enjoyed it too.
Now we both wake.

Can you see what I really am now?
A flame that longs to touch without harming…
But I can’t.
I have been damaged, and I wear the scars all over my face.

Now you can’t go back to sleep.
Can you look me in the face?
You touch my ripped flesh and still utter the word beautiful
What are you?
What is this?

This is new to me.
I am lost now….
Every move I make feels wrong.
She utters the word beautiful.
Don’t look at me, I scream
BEAUTIFUL, she says

Is it my turn to dream now?
I wanna see you at your nightmare.
Let me wake.
Opening my eyes now….
So many scars on your face.

BEAUTIFUL.

When I was Lost

When I think of that moment

I think of your touch

The way you caress my face

Like I was the most cherishable thing in the place

Making a boy

Who feels so lost

Feel so found

A boy who felt so lonely all the time

Feel so loved

You were mine

Just knowing that moment I spend with you

I never imagined it to end so soon

But the moment I think of when I’m with you

Was something special even though it did end

Too soon

A moment won’t last

But my heart will not stop

Call this a love letter if you will. But I know deep down

I have the greatest love for you

That not even I can explain

But just know it will not change

Because my love for you will ALWAYS remain the same