Of Love and War
June 14th, 2009 RaVPup | Bookmark
Hi, just a short update this time. I haven’t gotten to the stage in my projects that I’m ready to write about it in my blog. Save to say there’s a lot of stuff happening in my life now and I’m keeping rather busy. I wanted to talk today about something a little bit more substantial, so, “I’ll knock this one on the head,” as they say in Australia.
When you’re young and life is beaming there is not a lot you think about. The past is the past and that’s where it should stay. Someday, however, you get old and your death looks you in the face. Most people don’t question the purpose of their lives until they get to this stage. By then I’m afraid, you are what you were, and nothing can change that.
I managed to have a significant crisis in my mid-twenties that resulted in me asking many of the same questions that people ask when they’re nearing the end of their stint. I came to a lot of realisations very early and I’m thankful for the forces that be for the opportunity to resolve my issues while my parents were still alive.
If you don’t harness the opportunity to ask your parents about those questions that you have before they have passed away, you have lost your chance forever. It’s the punishment for not appreciating their struggles in life before they left you on your own.
I understand that my childhood was not picture perfect. In fact, it is a fallacy to expect your parents to live up to the ideals of the Brady Bunch. There is no parent in the world that has ever raised their child to such a standard that they can be considered the perfect parent. You can never be the perfect parent, so you should not feel that at the end of your life you’ve made some horrible error that has robbed your child of his or her future.
You can only do so much. The rest is up to the heavens and stars. Thinking that you can move it all for that one person that you value the most is succumbing to the fallacy of control. This piece is not really for the people that read my blog. It’s for an older audience. I’m hoping that someone will read this at those twilight moments and feel reassured that they have lived their lives to the fullest.
The journey of life is a complex and rewarding one, something that should be cherished when the full spectrum of your experiences are taken into account. I am not done with my life just yet but I feel very grateful that my parents chose to have me. Whatever issues I have with my parents, they don’t get in the way of appreciating what they went through to give me better opportunities. It’s not just my parents, but also my grandparents and their parents.
My last remaining grandparent died this year. She was a very old woman, but not disabled by her age in any way. She passed away with a quadruple heart attack. As she was lying in that hospital bed, a hundred miles away I was lying in my bed. I was thinking about things, when a voice from nowhere said, “Alright son, I’ll see you some other time.”
I heard it as clear as day, and 10 minutes after, the phone rang and sure enough the news was delivered that my grandmother had passed away. I wasn’t that surprised. You see, I have accepted long ago that religion might not be the outmoded relic that many people think it is.
I was struggling in my life, overcome by depression and despondency, when out of the goodness of my heart I donated my last $200 to a woman called Mary Stone who I barely even knew, for future earnings. That is to say, I paid my Zakat in advance to an American woman.
I’m Muslim, but the religion of Islam has been distorted in so many ways that what people practise and preach is so far removed from the core of Islam that it’s not even Islam anymore. Muslims are allowed to drink. They just cannot be intoxicated at a Mosque. Islam respects Judaism, far from what you’ve been led to believe. In fact, if things work out, I would like to marry a certain Jewish woman. The hate between Muslims and Jews is very unfathomable for so many reasons. The cultures are almost identical and the faiths are inter-related.
I thoroughly detest anti-Semitism in all its forms and would never take up arms against a Jew or a Muslim if given the opportunity. I am not a terrorist. My aim in life is to live to the best of my ability, respect my fellow man and make some lasting change in the world that benefits the human race. I strive to do this in my everyday existence, not just by focussing on things that I can control, but by extending my scope to the wider world and taking a view of what is happening in the long term.
These are my goals. I felt I should clarify for the people who know me on a personal level. Sometimes they involve questionable ethics. Peace sometimes comes at the end of a barrel, and I’m not afraid to fire the gun and let Allah guide my aim.
Posted in Philosophy, Religion, Social | 3 Comments »