I'm sitting on my kitchen chair in my room. Samurai's been sleeping on my computer chair beside me. I've been hearing a familiar baby myna's chirp. In fact I see him at the top of a tree. He's so high up. The cool wind is swaying the tree. I hope that's Jack.

Flash. Miracle. Strong.

FURASSHU! MIRAKURU! SUTORONGU!

Against the world

I have been imagining a small lake, surrounded by casuarinas and other trees with gentle-dull looking leaves. Crystal clear water. Shallow depth. Rocks and pebbles near the edge so that I can walk comfortably without any mud slowing me down.

I want it to be drizzling when I get there. Each droplet will be a reminder on its own. I need to see the lovely tiny worlds of greeneries submerged under clear rain puddles. The contrast of underwater green with dark brown soil is beautiful. Will there be tiny fish in those puddles?

I will climb a tree to see the fish in the lake and catch the sunset. I have always wanted to climb a tall tree. The wind will sway the trees and rock me gently to sleep.

I want to be there alone, to escape from myself.

Evil has been brewing in my heart.

I'm drained.

Pride Rock

The huge open field beside Masjid Alkaff is now being dug up and re-flattened. Its reddish soil aroma reminds me of something familiar though - Pusara aman? Sato kogyo bendemeer DTL drill? The building phase of Taman Pelangi at Johor? Mmm.

The evening was pretty. The wind lightened my breathing. The birds gave me company. The setting sun was subtly beautiful and modest enough to highlight the huge, semi-barren trees. Plenty of birds were foraging the reddish soil to have their end-of-day feast. The crows settled on the most barren tree. The mynas were doing their 'reporting my location & finding my pals' chirps. The swifts (or swallows) and pigeons were doing their common quiet things. I went up to a pair of white-and-teal-coloured kingfishers. They were 3 metres away. Lovely colours. While walking home, a handful of sparrows flew to a patch of grass beside me. It's the super fine natural grass that looks nice, and super fine. Did you know the normal blade of grass (not the super fine grass) is sharp enough to cut your fingertips?

Anyway, my cats have been lovely to me. I'm thankful.

All forms of knowledge except the knowledge of our own words and character.

Flight and Plight

I've been a little more attentive to the birds around my neighbourhood lately. A little more aware of the different sounds they make. What time they're active. The flock dynamics. Their respective nests. It's cool that a myna sticks with its partner and wander in pairs most of the time. That's nice.

Jack's still here with me. It should be his last day. Tried to release him twice though but somehow the crows circled my kitchen window when Jack was near, like they're waiting for their lunch. He only chirped for his parents during the first few days. He doesn't do that now even when the adult mynas are nearby. How will his parents find him if he keeps quiet? He can't fly that high and far yet. Or can he? He's following me everywhere I go around the house. He responds by his name and comes running after me when I call him. I think that's cute.

I've been constantly worried about him. Is he too warm? (Switched on the kitchen fan when I leave for school just for him). Is he thirsty? (There's no water in his cage because it'll be a big mess). How will he learn to fly when I release him today? Will he find his parents? But honestly I'm tired taking care of him, and I'm trying my best not to be too emotionally attached to it.

I care a little too much about the things beyond my control.

Jack

It's been more than 24 hours. Jack's doing well. I think he's happy. I hope he's happy. I'm placing him near the kitchen window now, and 2 adult mynas have been calling out to him. Jack's responding very actively with its own chirps. The chirp is a set of 3 to 4 consecutive chirps. I know he misses his parents, and his parents miss him as well. I'll find a way to get you back safely into your nest.

It eats and drinks from my hand. I was pacing around the house when it flew to me and perched itself on my shoulder. Jack is a good friend. My cats (especially Amy) accompanied it last night beside its cage. Jack likes to follow Amy around the house. I've been training it to fly by releasing it from a high place. It slept on my tummy this afternoon. It's nice to have the trust of a tiny creature.

Hang in there Jack.

Where's my old rubber slingshot?

It was an animal war scene. The crows preying on this injured baby myna after attacking its nest. The adult mynas doing flying karate kicks on the crows. AKs being fired left and right. Mines detonating everywhere.

Since it's my parents life-long dream to be a war veteran, my dad cooly told my mom to get in the crossfire. The process of R&E was conducted flawlessly by my mom. She walked with a limp straight into the red zone, like an injured general immune to life's bullets, (I wanted to type "like a cute mother penguin") with her eyes fixed on nothing but the helpless baby myna on the ground.

Now she's going to nurse it for a while. My cats and I are going to have an extra friend. She's feeding it with bread. My dad wants to name it Jack. They used to have 2 pet mynas named Nine and Ten. Hope I get to climb the small tree to return it to its nest.

As I'm writing this, I see a crow near my window ripping apart another baby myna. The raw meat looks like the $10 frozen boneless tenders at the supermarkets.

Well, now I'm questioning things again.

The night sky

An owl’s nest, if read properly, speaks to the health of a forest.

There are stars that lose their light after greeting death, permanently camouflaged in darkness as corpses made of colossal diamonds. What an ironic grandeur of insignificance (as consolation, astronomers nicknamed a space diamond Lucy after the song "Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds"). Maybe they are meant to remind us of insignificance or ignorance, or a combination of both. There are also heavy stars bagged with glorious struggle in their lives that burst into tiny miracles of apparent emptiness with nothing but faith in the Four Fundamental Forces for a new rebirth. Patience must be one of them. Then, there are also those that will just be a grand splendour of beautiful destruction and mystery.

Technically, if we point a blaming finger to an event or someone on Earth as we always do, we’ll be blaming the stars. We’ll be blaming the cosmic events spiralling to the point of our displeasure. Extend a finger and we’ll point to the Act of Creation – and that would be blaming God. Good heavens O celestial creations! Your astral garden marvels me. How can you embrace the flap of a cosmic butterfly and be patient in such deterministic chaos? Verily, you are in constant praise.

Scientifically and historically, we are made of stars, or at least we have the same elements as them. You can call someone a shining star. We do have our spiritual collapse against degeneracy pressure, our glorious outbursts and puzzling enigma – can’t see any difference there. All the same, except for the Divine injection of free will as our greatest blessing and test. Just like the stars, we are sensitive to pre-determined conditions too but with free will, we can choose to chew on what we create and what we destroy. Oh and I am choosing to clench my jaws right now. Because when it comes to choices, I’m being helplessly sundered to portion my trust generously in the heavens instead of mankind. Oddly enough, there is guilt in being a noble victim of the circumstance. Like false courage, the blessing of guilt takes a monstrous form in the dark. I trust my feelings. Thus before pride silences me, I declare that there is nothing noble in choosing to be weak when one is permitted to be strong. The world today fuels the unravelling secrets about dark matter. They deform our perception of cardiac constellations, making patience to believe what we see as more of an active choice. Gravitational lensing.

One thing I’ve grown to realise in better lenses is the shortness of time. Some things feel like eternity, but the untangling truth is, our lives are short. Credulous. Just a heedless judgement based on the complacency of our past. Perhaps it’s not about the struggle to find time. Perhaps it’s about internalising the things that matter about living and dying so that we will never be a stranger in the hands of time. Time finds you. There are meaningful ways to live life rightfully while still being wise and enjoying the beauty presented to us, especially the hidden ones. Similarly, like living and dying, time is painfully beautiful because it can delude us while still painting the truth.

Time deceives what the eyes perceive. Billions of people don’t know that we’re gazing back billions of years into the past up above. It’s beautiful isn’t it, I mean, the night sky. It is like a fabric woven together to coolly untie naive deceptions of what we ought to receive. The further you are from the stars, the further you’ll be dragged into the past. This delay in delivering what’s hidden has been promised. Thus purify the dark within us. The heavens receive what the heart conceives.

It is equally interesting to note the evident relationship of a star’s mass and its struggle – that too has been promised. I believe all tests are internal. A black hole’s involution is an albatross of its own being, collapsing into a personal gravity capable of pulling everything apart within its reach, including light. Interesting isn’t it. This immense greed for light becomes a pandemonium of emptiness to an outsider. Just a perpetual enigma of darkness, a cosmic trap of innocence and evil. Interesting, interesting, interesting! It is a lighthouse to those observing (one of the strongest signals in the universe) with an internal secrecy labelled as the greatest mystery of the universe. What gets expelled through the two polar jets? What deserves to be shown? What should be silenced? What ought to be removed completely? But the past, it will still be there, inscribed in the fabric of existence. Can it be compressed into singularity before disappearing completely, at least in our time? What gets transported away to another time and space?

Yeah, impractical pondering. Let’s hasten into the future. What about our future? Thinking about what’s ahead of us, and sometimes behind us, bring forth insecurity and restlessness. Fear. Or is it just me? I’m afraid of the future. But I do appreciate the nature of a story that can be written and read at the same time. I don’t know what the future and the past hold for me but the future in the past was different from what I experienced, just like how one gets involved in seeing beyond the centre of singularity. The future and the past are equally unpredictable in how they’ll hold on to you. Time is unique for each soul. I have to understand that. As I grow, I began to appreciate the future as much as I hold on to my past. But perhaps not at the moment. There are many things which I have to let go to ease myself into the future. It’s not easy having heavy sentiments weighing us down in the mind, heart and soul, time after time. Sometimes I get a random surge of energy while staring at something. I’ll get visions of myself shooting through space so fast that I feel practically still while having stars streaking past me. I shall learn to be still without imprisoning myself within my own visions and memories.

"There are worse prisons than words."

I feel like diving into a black hole. Yes. I want to avenge my lack of wisdom and patience to understand the truth about living, and dying, in the best humanly, virtuous way possible, and that is by plunging myself head first, with hands on my belly, or slightly above it, like how I choose to dream and escape. No not parallel to the direction I’m travelling, but with a tilt of 15 degrees, so that I don’t have to strain my neck while looking at where I’m going. And I’ll gather all my courage that have ever manifested since my existence to utter the sacred word “PATIENCE” in a composed, mellowed voice (with suppressed boiling hatred and anger).

Like the tormenting pull past the event horizon, a point of no escape, like fate itself, my distrust for anything unknown to me have been growing exponentially. I’ll crumble and get spewed out into the pain and insecurities of unsuspecting time and undetected spaces. Nevertheless, in the end, I have faith that these sentiments will lose their vigour and disappear from our mortal senses but not from our sanctuary of wisdom. I believe I am brave enough to come face to face with my own gravity. I’m going to hold my body with all my remaining soul and if all matters are ripped apart – even my own trust – I’ll face it like the weak man I am. I’ll battle in the reality that I wish to bend in my own world. And by God’s Grace and Mercy, and only if He permits me to, I will win.

I'm lost in patience. I hope the broken elements scattered across this void will become something.

Trust patience.

We have a lift off

So today while walking to the office building, the Interstellar track S.T.A.Y. was playing in my ears. I disconnected my earphones, entered the building, tapped my card and went into the lift. I zoned out in the lift and thought I heard the song playing in my head.

Hey the track is still playing on my mind, feels real, cool.

Went out of the lift. I can still hear the track playing in my head. It got a little weird. Checked my phone. Ah yes, must've pressed play accidentally after unplugging.

There were people in the lift. I know you are all aiming for the stars. I want to be an astronaut too. Ey, don't mention it. You're welcome for the lift music. Motivational Monday. (edit: Ayesha rightfully pointed out to me that today's Tuesday. Nice Azmi nice.)

Go forth

I love my intern job. I really love it. I must be grateful and wise to gain as much as I can. And in order to do that, I must be wise to give as much as I can.

I'm on an adventure.

"It feels like evening all the time"

When I left my house and walked through the corridor, I felt that I was transported back 15 years ago. Something about the setting sun. Something about the warm tones enveloping my peripherals while looking at the concrete floor. Something about familiarity. A familiar adventure.

"I feel like I have a lot of problems, but today I decided that I have none".
And Quinn the punster was again quick to point out that Damien was indeed having naan.

I've been a regular customer of this place for ages. And I'm quite familiar with the hindustan songs being played on TV and their stereos. To my pleasant surprise, Hotel California was played when we're preparing to leave - never had that.

Desert rose. Desert plateaus and empty road.

I see today as a beautiful reward. For many things.

Words can never capture an experience.

Influence of the internal and external

I feel like a hypocrite who's putting up a good front by sharing these Du'as.

I shall still do it.

- - -

فَاطِرَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ أَنْتَ وَلِيِّي فِي الدُّنْيَا وَالْآخِرَةِ ۖ تَوَفَّنِي مُسْلِمًا وَأَلْحِقْنِي بِالصَّالِحِينَ

"Creator of the heavens and earth, You are my protector in this world and in the Hereafter. Cause me to die a Muslim and join me with the righteous." [Surah Yusuf - 12:101]

اللَّهُمَّ إنِّي أعُوذُ بِكَ مِنَ الْهَمِّ وَ الْحَزَنِ  وَ الْعَجْزِ وَ الْكَسَلِ  وَ الْبُخْلِ وَ الْجُبْنِ  وَ ضَلَعِ الدِّيْنِ وَ غَلَبَةِ الرِّجَالِ

"O Allah! I seek refuge in You from grief and sadness, from weakness and from laziness, from miserliness and from cowardice, from being overcome by debt and from being overpowered by men (other people)." (Sahih al-Bukhari 7:158)

ربَّنَا اغْفِرْ لَنَا ذُنُوبَنَا وَإِسْرَافَنَا فِي أَمْرِنَا وَثَبِّتْ أَقْدَامَنَا وانصُرْنَا عَلَى الْقَوْمِ الْكَافِرِينَِ

"Our Lord! Forgive us our sins and anything we may have done that transgressed our duty: Establish our feet firmly, and help us against those that resist Faith." [Surah Al-Imran - 3:147]

Grow up

I am uncertain if anyone finds worth in my words, because I came to realize that I don't. This feeble heart has forgotten its own weight and has been distracted with the hope of external replenishment. The love and self-respect I used to have for myself have been tainted by the very same person who believes in the value of sincerity to oneself. This unsettled longing for support, for empathy, for respect, for genuine admiration, for understanding, is it a sign of weakness? The beacon of contentment crumbles in the hands of others. We can depend on others but we must be brave to take responsibility for our own soul. We must have the courage to look within and have maturity in dealing with our hidden world. This corrupt heart yearns to be better but it elevates itself emptily under an apparent veil, instead of lowering its roots into a foundation. How noble. How misguided.

They say it is a blessing, and a curse to be a sensitive being. Little things, they are big to a dwarfed soul which has grown to appreciate the minute grandeur of a mindful heart. Being moulded to live in the realm of subtlety, silent sacrifice and hidden sincerity is not easy. It used to be better when the occupant acted upon his values, regardless of the pain, humiliation and extrinsic influence. Yes, the strength of silence and patience leaves in the inner presence of ignorant comfort, pride and unmindfulness. I believe these traits come into existence within us at the instant when a positive quality gets instilled as they are a pair, and we ought to take effort in realizing the things we subconsciously feed. I feel like some of us are losing sight of not only our destination, but our paths. Everything seems unfair to us yet we still take things for granted. How genuine. How deluded.

"One day when you're older, people will do it to you".

My mother used to say it when she gets hurt by me many years ago. It seems like a mother's prayer for her child often gets answered. And an accepted prayer will always bring benefit. InsyaaAllah. Be mature and have contentment.

(:

(smiley face here cause I just finished staring at my kinda new whatsapp wallpaper)

Kenapa tak amek mee goreng?

Kuliah Subuh by Ustaz Zainal Arifin (Former Principal of Madrasah Aljunied)

(Right click + save link as...) ^

It may be nothing much to some of you (haha talking as though got a lot of people read my blog), and it's not particularly filled with details of practical knowledge, but please have a listen if you have the time.