The night has this quality to reveal the extent of which my heart has stretched itself across many extremes. And tonight, licked by the darkness which colours the night, i’m trapped, once again, in solitary reflection.

And it’s not as if this moment has been born right now, at this very instance. It has existed, in tiny traces, building and building itself up.

Behind all of this tricky intellectual imagery, there exists something much more primal, more animal. The unrelenting desire to touch someone passionately, to share an intimacy that defies all words and all senses of communication. Isn’t that what we all want?

The past is a sort of guttural stop. The patterns and reasons and significance of all of those encounters have all left me, and i can’t remember them anymore. But what i remember are the intoxicating sensations of smells, sights, caresses. And yet these have long passed their expiry date, the memories raise grotesquely like a rotting, stinking carcass.

And the lack of focus…..if only i could make sense when i wanted to! But all power of mental regulation is thrown out – instead is the unforgiving assault of desire. Might i then step back and wish to be something more? To not yield to shallow feelings and to celebrate something more spiritual and selfless?

No. This is the missing ingredient. This is the little piece of suffering that makes me human.

Extract from the “Preludes”

4th Prelude :

IV

His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

Casting my lens backwards into history, amongst all the bloodshed, torture, greed and misery that forms our time, one particular aspect strikes out at me. And that has chiefly been the role and treatment of women.

What shocks me is the way in which women have had to literally claw their way to the surface of equality. Specifically talking about British history, it was only within the last 100 years or so that women finally had some degree of freedom.

And you know how you have that fundamental layer of childish innocence in you? I’m talking about that voice that cries out when you see something cute, when you play with children joyfully, when you feel a monumental sense of pain when a love is foiled, or when someone watches over you benevolently.

That voice spoke to me. And i, in my childish curiosity, wondered why women had to be subjected to this. Love exists between men and women. Why didn’t this natural force allow equality?

The truth is that i’m simplifying things. I’m not going to bother going into the analysis right now.

Still, that whole bloody history has really hit me, because i still do feel the repercussions. I come from a family, and also a history of a family where there’s more women in the family than men, and yet its the men who dominate, and ruin it for everyone else. As such i’d describe myself as a “male feminist” which makes people laugh, even me, but i’m serious when i mean that.

Nowadays we’ve been fortunate that women have been granted equality in political and humane terms at least where i live. I’m aware that’s not always the case in other parts of the world and, as always, that makes my blood boil.

There’s more subtle forms of sexism however, such as prejudice. It’s always hard to pin down because it pops up and disappears. But i mean simple presumptions such as, the woman stays in the kitchen, or women are just baby factories, or something stupid like that. There’s actually people who still believe this shit! I wonder if you could ever, ever eradicate such line of thought. And it’s the woman who’s in the position to be vunerable, since the man has the power to kick her ass if he wishes. It’s a sad, sad affair and you wish secretly in your mind that the woman would just pull out a gun or devise some sort of clever method to get her own back.

However, i’ve also come to feel the other side of the argument too. The term “masculinist” simply doesn’t exist because it’s been men who have dominated history for the past couple of centuries. But prejudice goes both ways. Things such as men lack intelligence or emotional depth. Or that men take a backseat when it comes to raising children. Again this kind of compartmentalized thinking pisses me off and although i to tend to side with women quite a bit, there’s definitely my times when i stick up for my kind too.

This reflection just came to me because we’re living in a world so complex that the simplicity that gender roles and perceptions used to provide to us is no longer adequate. It’s easy to categorise and live in a world where men do this and women do that. But the fabric is being torn because there’s things such as single mothers, divorced marriages, homosexuality, and gender equality that are being flung around in our world. As a result, gender just disappears. We’re no longer “boy” or “girl” but being examined and forced to practice from our most fundamental, elemental levels. Biological difference isn’t enough.

The world pushes down its finger onto the hearts of men with an unforgiving force. It pushes and squeezes until it yields the souls of men, sucked dry from their shells. The world has no partners in crime. It fights you one on one.

In these moments of isolatory grace, i ask myself where do i find the will to go on?

It is not from the hollow promises of a materially fulfilled life.

It is not from the occasional interference of friends or enemies. Their momentary appearances come and go like lightning from the storm.

It is not from the vague, dust-filled history of mine, coloured and violated by a memory and mind so determined to betray its owner.

Neither do i imagine is it from the child within. Assaulting reality with its innocence.

It is from the inconsequential, spontaenous fragments of love that are shapeless and invisible.

It is from the roots of madness, where when they have emerged from their dark pits, begin to wear the shadow like a cloak, and begin a journey into the ridiculous and the sublime.

It emerges like an endless rapture when abstract ideas wear words as clothes, and merge themselves with the truth. The outdated words of a friend, the bitter words of yourself. All the words you could’ve said and meant.

It is inspired by an inhuman, animal gravity when faced with the prospect of losing its soul to a slow, painful and humiliating death.

Friend, I do not pretend to be a saint. However I do not desire to be the devil either. All i know is that this colourless, boundless freedom is where i exist. It is where i am from.

I’m sure there’s some of you that keep a diary. I could never live without mine. It’s coming close up to its birthday soon. There was just one mistake i did make, and that was reading out my diary aloud to myself.

There’s a reason why that stuff goes on the page in the first place. It’s there so it is locked away safely, never to emerge and threaten you again. The act of re-reading your diary is akin to watching the most dangerous animals on earth from a distance, very safely behind bars in some kind of gigantic zoo.

So here’s a tip to all you diary keepers :

Never read your diary out aloud.

They are the lyrics of a demon.

Lately i haven’t been posting on my blog because so much of what i have been feeling has been so hard to put into actual words. Reading James Joyce has removed that plug from my mind. I wrote a little section entirely from my mind without any tweaking to make it sound “readable” or “rational”.

The following post is a pure distillation of my heart and my soul. Try not to make sense of it, but feel what i have felt when i have written it.

I used sound as my inspiration, so if you’re interested please download/listen to the following track :

Track : Cicatriz Esp
Band : The Mars Volta
Album : De-loused in the Comatorium.

And listen to the track specifically starting from 6:00 to 9:10 or so. Don’t bother searching for it in youtube because the segment i’m referring to has been cut out by many uploaders. Your best bet is searching for the mp3. Anyhoo, it’s not really required but i thought it would help because that is basically where i got my inspiration from. Onward to the text :

-----------------------

--This feeling, do you recall its name?

Faint yearnings for some abstract, vague ideas of someone something when what who where please please, a begging for something to hit you suddenly with the full force of its desire. A suggesting beck and call. This is not the shape of my dreams or of my love, but a dark, rippling pool, sweetened by sugar, oozing out its shadow in awkward languid AWAKE patterns that are so scary dear god I am so scared when I reach that state I may not escape am I alive or am I awake?

--You are very much awake in a box room of mirrors.

It is always so frightfully odd when I look into those jewelled eyes of mine, I almost feel as if there’s a storm, CRACKing its way to the edge of the horizon until it spills until it shows itself, until the pretty little man is no more.

--Pull out his eyes. Apologize.

Torture, as established by the CIA is a highly effective technique to force human beings to the truth by blocking off all other routes of reason or emotion. And that is exactly what this human state of switching and turning and twisting is all about. He stands in an outline of shadow, carrying a false pretence that he is the LOVE and he is the TRUTH but in actuality he’s a out-hooded, no-apologies charlatan.

LIAR.

--I’m here. Touch me. Kiss me, he asks in a seductive manner.

He does not exist. He is a construct. I am not a node to receive lies like the radio. I have betrayed to the truth. I have defected.

I’ve defected.

--A merchant, Stephen said, is one who buys cheap and sells dear, jew or
gentile, is he not?

--They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said gravely. And you can see
the darkness in their eyes. And that is why they are wanderers on the
earth to this day.

--Who has not? Stephen said.

--What do you mean? Mr Deasy asked.

He came forward a pace and stood by the table. His underjaw fell
sideways open uncertainly. Is this old wisdom? He waits to hear from me.

--History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

From the playfield the boys raised a shout. A whirring whistle: goal.
What if that nightmare gave you a back kick?

--The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said. All human
history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God.

Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying:

--That is God.

Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee!

--What? Mr Deasy asked.

--A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders.

Daytime is an odd embrace. Beauty threatens with its splendour to dash itself to ruin. I gently walk around in an elated twirl, looking for flowers to cup in my hand, the sweet smell of the day, the next soul to collide with. I am a walking honeypot for the bees.

Soon the afternoon descends, the city coughing out the excess in a long, drawn out breath. I too, share many of these exquisite, painless sighs. I sigh off the fatigue that has gathered around like a cloud. Faint memories and desires are shaken off, as if they were dying leaves in autumn, each group of amber leaves appearing as if they were cut from a sheet of gold with a fine knife, scattered around with a delicate hand, swaying here and there, pushed along encouragingly. I am the boat that adjusts her sail to this current.

Darkness infects the sky. The soul is reduced to a whisper. And it is all calm, and silent, and terrifying. Silhouettes of nature obscure the bizarre cityscape. The view from the window is nothing else but this. Eyes cast down, preparing to trail lightly into a temporary death. The bed is hungry. It demands more. More touch, more feel, more energy. There is something missing here. What is it, oh what is it? The knowledge sinks into obscurity like fine ink. I become the ghost that fades back into dream.

Awakens once more into the odd embrace.

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil,
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turned fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell:
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

- Shakespeare

So i was talking with someone who plays Team Fortress 2 with me online. I always associate online gaming shooter communities with geeky teenagers with no manners and wit. For fun, i started quoting random lines from Ulysses. He suddenly said :

--Hey! You’re not the only one who’s read Ulysses you know!

This was my face :

I was in shock. So i started talking about James Joyce more and turns out this guy has read EVERYTHING and specialises in Greek epics. He’s actually convinced me to try reading them more. What's more, this guy hasn't even done his A levels yet. He dropped out of education. And yet he's read so widely and has such an extensive pool to draw from. It just goes to show that the pretty image of formal education isn't everything. It's just that. An image. "Education" is just living your life truthfully. 

I was thinking to myself, that people can come from the weirdest places. What are the chances of finding a fellow literature enthusiast on an online game?

This world is so weird sometimes.

Looking back in this week, i had several moments where, upon bumping into people on my way towards somewhere, those people would subsequently stop me and ask me :

--Hey, are you alright?

I started wondering why the hell people started asking me these questions so randomly. It really puzzled me and i was beginning to wonder why there was this sudden burst of spontaenous concern. I finally got my answer today.

Bumping into my politics teacher today, he said :

--Hey Adnaan. You alright? You look lost.

Ah, so that was it. It was that telltale expression on my face. That thinking, misanthropic, bitter look on my face. To be honest, i’m not very good at feigning normality.

It wasn’t all dull though. Last week i had bought James Joyce’s Ulysses and a lot of my spare time has gone onto thinking about the connections and complexity of the book. A lot of the time i was just lost in thought.

What worried me though is when people see through the mask i portray and they get it right. When they sense something’s wrong, take a guess, and end up with full marks. I find myself having to explain and justify my depressive dips, which i never really get down to. I’m always fully able to escape underneath the shallow guise of witless sarcasm and misdirection.

It was frustrating to me because no matter what i did, no matter what angle i portrayed myself in common everyday light, ended up as a fruitless endeavour since the more i tried to avoid attention, the more i attracted it. When you attract attention and intrigue, it is a double edged sword. On the one hand, it allows me to make heads turn and to inspire people with a few well placed sentences, but on the reverse side, i become accountable for my defects.

No matter what i do, i cannot stay happy all the time. And likewise, i cannot stay sad all the time either. But when i’m upset and depressed, i need daily mundanity to stay away. Just as dusk turns to dawn, i bide my time and wait it out. I wait till it’s over and then i come back into the light again. That’s just the way it’s always been. It’s not as if its a distortion of my normal life. These extreme dips ARE my life. And yet, when i try my best to hide that, and my face gives it away, what shall i say?


“And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”

T.S Eliot