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affection need not to be displayed, exhibited. when one is silent it does not mean that one does not care, but rather one cares too much to show that one cares. any portrayal of this betrays everything. one is immediately caught, unable to overcome his surprise, rather than confront, confess or console another, he backs in shame.

 is this contradictory? to be aloof is to be thoughtful. to say nothing is to say everything. inaction is as deeply damaging/consequential as action. eventually everything is an opposite of its meaning. a paradox. 

as i handed the book to Anthony, him flipping through, noticing some Quran verses, and asks if this is in arabic. i said yes. can you read them. he says he’s learning, persian, so, a bit. i haven’t really the faintest idea about the persian language, except that it can *probably* be transribed to arabic with the addition of some letters, (which wouldn’t otherwise be founded in arabic, making pronunciation hard), which again is very similiar to bahasa melayu’s jawi. there are connections between both empires anyway, so it wouldn’t be a surprise. then he added it was easier and he could teach me some words.

haih. i said, someday, when i have any burning desire to go to there.

 a sigh pregnant with memories.

“what for?”
“saja”.
absence of reason really means it lacks importance.

“why?”
“nothing”
is something else. it reveals concealment. either out of shame (because of absence again, perhaps?), or out of fear of being misunderstood. or perhaps we really haven’t thought about it ourselves. or really don’t feel like revealing to anyone anything, either because it takes the effort of explaining or we do not like to be judged. nothing can mean everything.

alas, one only communicates or shares something if he or she feels it important enough. this is not communicating. this is merely recording. it is not meant to be read. it is not worthy to warrant any response. a mental note, albeit a readable one, something that denotes a passing thought, one should not take these seriously. leave me, leave me be.

and this is why i don’t really use facebook anymore. there is no point in moving if there is no desire/will to communicate. or really, there is nothing ever worthy to be talk about. everything just dissolves into waste. forgotten. as if you could carve a memory/experience out of facebook chats and comment replying. the virtual can never replace the actual. or reading about love can never substitute love itself. heh.

just as darwin’s scribbled ‘i think’ is interpreted as doubt on the whole shakiness of his ideas, in which people begin to dismiss his thoughts, then one shouldn’t be looking into the particular to interpret the whole. ah, all i’m saying is don’t pigeonhole. taking things out of context, and misunderstanding it is the worst thing you can do, dear.

if there is anything that i learned from reading walden, it is reduce things and needs to the only bare essentials.

this includes talking.

the fact that she is no longer alluding to anything simply means that it all straight as a bat, that is, nothing is ever being concealed, nor is there any relevance or importance in concealing, for one who conceals too much is always guilty of something. and of course there is loathing on one part, in fact, she has every right (or merit, reason) to  feel angry, but emotions such as these are useless, temporal as ever, they subside down eventually, until nothing is felt except a vague sense of unfamiliarity. if i do not recall something, it means that i do not feel strongly about it.

if days pass by like this, if life was as fleeting, temporal, lacking color either in form of resentment or happiness, where you have no thought or feeling about anything; just another anonymous who refuses to participate in the world, then what is ever being remembered? if naught is recorded, etched to the mind, written down –  nothing being done, nothing being stirred, then, what is the use of living?

if we dare to take from William James, in his book The Varieties of Religious Experience, in chapter/lecture The Sick Soul;

When such a conquering optimist as Goethe can express himself in this wise, how must it be with less successful men?


“I will say nothing,” writes Goethe in 1824, “against the course of my existence. But at bottom it has been nothing but pain and burden, and I can affirm that during the whole of my 75 years, I have not had four weeks of genuine well-being. It is but the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be raised up again forever.”


What single-handed man was ever on the whole as successful as Luther? Yet when he had grown old, he looked back on his life as if it were an absolute failure.


“I am utterly weary of life. I pray the Lord will come forthwith and carry me hence. Let him come, above all, with his last Judgment: I will stretch out my neck, the thunder will burst forth, and I shall be at rest.”


“Doctor, I wish you may live forty years to come.” “Madam,” replied he, “rather than live forty years more, I would give up my chance of Paradise.”


Failure, then, failure! so the world stamps us at every turn. We strew it with our blunders, our misdeeds, our lost opportunities, with all the memorials of our inadequacy to our vocation. And with what a damning emphasis does it then blot us out! No easy fine, no mere apology or formal expiation, will satisfy the world’s demands, but every pound of flesh exacted is soaked with all its blood. The subtlest forms of suffering known to man are connected with the poisonous humiliations incidental to these results.

so the western mind (german, really), is preoccupied with failure, with all their Sisyphus-ian analogies. even rilke is obsessed with death. ach. by time, verily man is in a state of loss.

it is narrated by the prophet muhammad;

Live in this world as a wayfarer or a stranger


also, this;


“If you live till night, then do not wait for the next day, and if you wake up in the morning do not have hope that you will live till the night. And take (advantage) from your health before your sickness and take advantage of your life before your death”


maybe my mother or father mentioned the above last week, but ah, the very fact is that i always look forward to night because that is actually when everything (i.e domestic, academic activities) does cease, and one can finally begin to contemplate write or read. why not during day time? too many distractions. as shariati says, the day is for acquirement and the night is for reflection. we’ll fashion life to this fashion then.

goodnight.

knowing where the author’s words are exactly coming from, either from his experience, or observation, imaginings, or merely, reading, that does seem to resonate deep within our minds, not because we have just begun to realize it, but because we are suddenly arrested by a feeling of familiarity that is clarified and justified and frankly, aggrandized (to the point of absurdity), is perhaps, one of the many pleasures of reading.

anthony said he has to fast nineteen days, taking on (or really, trying out) the baha’i faith. i’m supposed to give him this shariati book today but somehow did not opportune myself to do it. tomorrow then.

off to half part of part 2, then.

um, finished with labs this week. AVR. TIMS. MATLAB. MATLAB. honestly wrecked, but i suppose doing/learning new things at a whole new level is somewhat interesting. or fun. you’ll never know until you actually try eh? the same goes with cars and the driving i suppose, resistance is futile, sooner or later i’ll give up the idea. i suppose the idea of machinating/operating something that is bigger than yourself, that takes up space on the road, such you are subjected to its condition, that is, a whole new set of rules must be followed, with too many variables and senses to be aware of, or else, death. a heightened sense of visual awareness. the amount of interaction and distraction probably is scary. and scary is not even the word. flustering. i hate being in an, say, open system. or the open world. where your actions or inactions does affect another in real time. there are too many things on the line. it’s something like chess. i gave up chess because i am extremely reluctant of being observed and analysed in a situation where one is required to display skill or intellect, or simply, any form of exertion. all of this, in real time. i’d rather pent my self up and try anything and fail a hundred times by myself than to be seen failing once.

i hate to be examined.

yes yes yes, i’m learning french on my own again.

ah, gila.

at any rate, i have to eat this morning’s half eaten banana, with a surplus of milk, since F apparently braked/stopped(?) the car a little too sudden, propelling the bottle to the car floor, making a nice little puncture, and out pours the milk yay.

also i accidentally held on to a guy’s hand for full five seconds without realizing it after nearly tripping over on the bus. gaaaaah. he said he didn’t recall his wife was on the bus as well.

and we burst into laughter.

as in to record things that wouldn’t otherwise be recorded. writing using the hand *les mains* *la main* is just probably reserved for those who seemingly have a lot of time on their hands *les mains*. maybe it’s the technology, maybe the typewriter is obsolete (also the ribbon has uh, expired/used), maybe we are so used with facing the computer (i.e keyboard) as a means of communications rather than using pen and paper (no one writes letters anymore, except in dire circumstances, in prison perhaps, but maybe inmates too can use the computer). everything changes. our means and tools change but still we are one and the same. which goes to say, when one (apparently) has changed in his or her manners, either in clothing or in speech or rather i don’t know, the general outlook on things – opinions, that seem to conflict with an older version of hers, that doesn’t mean really do, change.

but what change am i speaking of? for this i must consult this typology book, but to briefly explain, as i have to go finish my lab questions before 9.30 this morning, and prepare the whole lot of it (the sheer madness of studying), and with the lack of time to do anything anymore (books await me), a few points may suffice. but i may have explained this before many times, but temperament. the constituent of your being. the mould. that has been conditioned to you from the start, whether you be fickle or feeble or fussy or frantic or frenetic or fanciful or frivolous or a fool, certain words may reach exaggeration here, i am merely exhausting my options now, but essentially, it is up to us to fashion ourselves here or there, and disposition may lead to sharpening to mastering and finally, flaunting, using.

i don’t like to find words. to stop and to ponder takes time, one does bump into one epiphany to another everything takes time and a process of distinguishing meanings filtering out what is good and bad and diminishing words afters words of course i am talking about poetry here but agh, i have no time for that. james was never a poet.

blegh. adler. must find you in the library but you’re not there. try tomorrow then. maybe, darling.

goodmorning.