Pre-Martial Bliss

Yes, people, it’s true: I am now officially engaged to longtime friend and future husband-to-be.

Last night our families finally went face to face in a formal setting and got to meet each other and formally “engage” us, so to speak.

More later on pre-marital activities.

A fresh start

The fact that things word out (dare I say miraculously) may be proof of a higher power watching over us. But then again, the fact that there are so many other more deserving candidates for these miracles than I throws this into further doubt than ever.

Confused? You’re not the only one.

evolution

Evolution is fact. I know it beyond a shadow of doubt now.

To grow and to change, to improve to adapt to our surroundings (after we attempt to make them change to adapt to us), it is only natural.

I can feel my own personal evolution, as I mentally map my physical and spiritual journey across the decades. The change I can feel at the tip of my nerve endings each day, that should be proof enough of a personal evolutionary process that governs our lives?

Yesterday, I would have risen to this bait. Today, I am immune to it, the part of my brain that made every casual challenge a matter of life and death is gone.

I am renewed and surpass my own shadow every day. Is this not evolving?

the walker

When you’re walking, the city pulses beneath you. As your feet (separated from the rough stones that make up the pavement only by a thin layer of cowhide that passes for women’s shoes) steadily chew up feet after feet of distance, you can feel the energy of the world at large slowly enveloping you. 

If you walk long enough… you become one with the city and fear becomes irrelevant.

Others, as you know, will not understand the urge to walk. Once accustomed to vehicles that get you from point A to point B at your pace, often within minutes, spoil us, give us theillusion of safety. When you are a part of the streets, you do not these security because you have no possessions. 

When you walk, you are forced to move at the pace of the city. You can no longer barge through a tide of people, you must bend, circumvent, move in less than the path desired because you are now one cell in a much larger organism and you walk accordingly.

Thus, I walk. I am a faceless dot in the larger canvas of the population. As a dot, I take the time to register other fellow dots making their way through the same path. Each one has a strange story to tell and I only wish I could hear them all.

torch

She gazed into my eyes and cackled “I know your kind. No one will ever understand you and you will always be alone. I should know…”

Leaning back, she then laughed till she cried. Or cried till she laughed, for the life of me I cannot remember which.

“happy?”

You know you’re having a weird weekend when you’re stuck sitting in class on a Sunday morning staring at the tops of trees rhythmically waving in the wind and humming depressing Iron and Wine songs to yourself as a teacher fervently tries to stuff some appreciation of the beauty of standard deviation into your sleep numbed skull.

Naturally, I retained focus on my train of thought i.e. whether I was happy instead of statistics. I was forced to conclude that I was, lack of blogging activity being a clear indicator of little to no internal strife and/or brooding.

Happiness, to me, is a grassy hill at night. Lay on a hill and watch the stars as they stare unblinkingly back at you and the odd shapes clouds form. It’s been too long.

What’s happiness for you? This blog is far too full of me already, please drop a comment about what makes you happy. Be honest, though. Go nuts! And thanks for reading.

black

It is a black day. I am haunted by the smile of the young man to the left, a LUMS Bsc. student who decided on the 22nd of April (coincidently my birthday) to take his life soon after he was expelled from LUMS due to his inability to bring his GPA up to standard in his final year.

No, I did not know this young man. I wish I had. His name was Hashir Munawer and he hung himself in his LUMS hostel room, where he was found by his brother. He was also in his fifth year of what is traditionally a four year degree, I was in the same position less than a year ago.

The reason this seemingly happy young man in the photograph haunts me is because he was like me. In fact, scratch that, he was like me and what I would have aspired to be. Confident, charismatic, a wonderful person [as per those who knew him], extremely talented at his work and making friends wherever he went.

the will

Only one amongst billions that made it and to what end?

Is there anything a single person could achieve that would justify his/her edging out so many others for the privilege of being born? The right to be human?

Whose would be the sadder lot: the one who “won” or the ones who remained and ceased to exist before they had begun?

Angels and demons swirl around me and ask me what is my Will. I remain silent, as always. Soon they will leave me alone. And they do. Always.

mental prostitution

What the heck is all this about, you may be wondering upon reading the title of this post. it’s quite simple, really, and it’s an idea I’ve been toying with for some time, and after all the beating it’s taken, it deserves a chance to be aired on this blog.

Prostitution, of course, consists of people (mostly women and Deuce Bigelow) being made to engage in the activity of having sex with someone to give pleasure to the person on the receiving end, and being subsequently paid to do so.

Now personally, I have difficulty understanding why it is that people have so much issue with sex in itself, much less sex as a means of income. Given the choice, I would not indulge in it myself, but I am fortunate enough to be literate and able to earn a reasonable living without having to resort to blow jobs a la mode. Unfortunately, a lot of women out there aren’t and many of these turn to prostitution. Leaving aside the moral justification for preventing someone from exploiting their talent (when someone is talented with a guitar, we call them rock stars and practically worship them), their looks (when people do this in the mass media, we call them actresses and supermodels and make them walk up and down runways for our viewing pleasure) and their skills (if I can make ugly shapes with metal, people call it art) to make a living if the person wants to and is in no way being forced into it, my post is about mental prostitution.

Honey & Clover

I figured it’s about time for a quick anime series recommendation and review. I’ll start off with a series I’ve been watching every spare moment I get for the past week and a half: Honey and Clover. The creativity put into the series can be seen from the highly quirky and original opening sequence which, for once, features no angsty character shots or clips of the main characters, but clay models of various foods in various states of activity. Gives a whole new meaning to “playing with your food” and is one of the memorable opening sequences I have ever seen, which immediately piqued my interest (check out the opening sequence on youtube here)