Isle of Skye

I NEED TO DO SOMETHING WITH MY LIFE!

They only let me touch his feet. To ask for forgiveness, they say. I refuse to do so. I just want to touch his hair, because I can still remember how soft it always was. And I haven't touched it in ages. But when I move towards his head, the lady in charge clears her throat and says to me curtly, "Only touch his feet; it causes less pain." But how can he feel pain at all? He's been like this for the better part of the day. My dear boy. He's only 28 years old. That's young, isn't it? I think it is. I don't want to touch his feet at all. They actually look asleep; the veins have enlarged and it looks as though he stepped in an inky puddle on his way here. I don't even need to ask for forgiveness, it's just another one of those century-old traditions which I have never understood and what I have always rebelled against. In mind, at least, if not in action. He can't hear me, anyway. I don't care what they say. They have said ...

I am ashamed that I have ripped off the title of this post from that crappy Bob Dylan film, with Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger. I hate Bob Dylan's music, it's too nice. But I like Dylan Thomas' poetry. Anyway, this title is apt because I am no longer 'there'. I have hidden myself away and am acting on autopilot; which basically means I sleep a lot, eat a lot, watch a lot of telly and reminisce of London, because of course, that place is so much better than this place. Even though I have tried to rationalise the fact that because of the recession, living in Karachi is the cheapest option, I still feel that I have no life here, that there really is nothing I will be happy in doing here. I have a massive list of gripes with this place. - There is not much room for non-conformity with the mores here. - All they'd rather do is make bigger malls than feed the hand-to-mouth citizen. - The traffic is murder. - I can't just go out for a walk whenever I want to, fo...

"A painter thinks, 'I can't fix the whole planet, but I can at least make this square of canvas what it ought to be.' And a sculptor thinks the same about a lump of clay or marble. A writer thinks the same about a piece of paper, conventionally eleven inches long and eight and a half inches wide. I suggest you set as your goal the putting of some small part of the planet into something like safe and sane and decent order." Kurt Vonnegut "We live in a society where a superficial definition of strength often takes the cake. Those who are physically strong, emotionally unfeeling, distanced, and stoic are often seen as the mightiest. Those who are vulnerable, feeling—dare I say human—are often seen as weak." Author (Unknown) "What most people need to learn in life is how to love people and use things instead of using people and loving things." Author (Unknown) "Cynics are only happy in making the world as barren for others as they have made it...

"Counsel from a Veteran of the Writing Wars" Irving Wallace Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul I once overheard a professor say to a beginning writer: "Everything has been written about already, and written better than you can do it. If you intend to write about love, tragedy, adventure... forget it, because it has all been done by Shakespeare, Dickens, Tolstoy, Flaubert, and the rest. Unless you have something absolutely new to say, don't try to be a writer. Take up accounting." That was silly - really stupid. Everything has not been said, and will never be said. Human emotions may have always been the same, but there was never anyone on Earth before you who was exactly like you and who saw love and hate exactly as you see them through your eyes. And you need not have lived something to see it, to write about it. You were provided with imagination. Use it. Da Vinci did not have to attend the Last Supper to paint it. Use your imagination daily. Writing is no...

"Find a subject you care about and which in your heart you feel other people should care about. It is the genuine caring and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style." Kurt Vonnegut The only thing I ruddy care about is my mental health and that people should take humanism and MBTI and enneagrams seriously. That's it; I am not really as passionately about saving our world, because it just seems humanly impossible to change ideas and thought processes. Right, so I like Rogers and Emerson and Coelho, but how would I take on a subject at graduate level to show how these work together? God knows. Anyway, I thought I had decided that I am not going to write, at least not for a living: it's too much pressure.

Free personality analysis from ColorQuiz.com. Generated on Wed Jun 11 12:45:00 2008. Your Existing Situation Relatively inactive and in a static condition, while conflict of one sort or another prevents peace of mind. Unable to achieve relationships of the desired degree of mutual affection and understanding. Your Stress Sources Unfulfilled hopes have led to uncertainty and apprehension. Needs to feel secure and to avoid any further disappointment, and fears being passed over or losing standings and prestige. Doubts that things will be any better in the future and this negative attitude leads her to make exaggerated demands and to refuse to make reasonable compromises. Your Restrained Characteristics The situation is preventing her from establishing herself, but she feels she must make the best of things as they are. Becomes distressed when her needs or desires are misunderstood and feels that she has no one to turn to or rely on. Egocentric and therefore quick to take offense. Your De...

They say we should write every day. A diary, scraps of things. Well, this is my scrap diary of things which are all over the place and still make no sense. I can't honestly see myself making a career out of writing. If that were the case, I would have applied for Olshen's Creative Writing class in my second or final year at university. The pre-requisites are always a portfolio of things done in the past year or two. The only thing I have managed to write which was noteworthy is the poem entitled 'Deity" and that too just rushed onto the keyboard through my fingers. I was just the medium for Godly expression to come through. I don't have a burning desire to write; I hate it sometimes. Especially when it comes to term papers. Writing for literature class was such a drag; a chore. All I am good at writing is about me and my condition and that's a very depressing piece of writing. So writing as a career is no longer a viable option. Neither is teaching. As Rogers s...

"Good painters don't paint like this. But I paint like this." And it's okay to paint the way you paint because imitation is suicide. It is unbelievably hot today: it's now almost 9 pm and it's positively sweltering. Oh, how I miss the London weather, rain and all. The London summer is good for someone like myself, it's the winter that drags me down. And I'm not going to ever be one of those types of people who can spend 6 months here and six months there. Forget the fact that I'm dirt poor, it wouldn't be environmentally sound at all. So Rogerian theory tells us to be who we are, not to please others, not as we 'ought' to be. Be the fluid process of who we are in this moment and embrace all the contradictions this being entails. That's almost exactly what Emerson is saying in his essay. Be who you are in the moment, forgetting all of who you were before. But, what happens when you are trying to be 'in the moment of being...

On Self Reliance Ralph Waldo Emerson THE OTHER DAY, I read some original statements written by a famous painter. Whenever I read something truly original, I get a feeling. That feeling is far more valuable than the statements themselves. The feeling fills me with a recognition of a profound truth: That genius is simply to "believe your own thought." "To believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all [people]." Speak what is true for you, and it will almost always resonate in others. The voice in your own mind is so familiar to you that you give it no respect. Instead, you give too much weight to the thought of others — your neighbors, your teachers, or some great thinker from the past. But what makes great thinkers great is that they didn't disregard their own thought. They expressed what they truly thought; they listened to their own voice. You must learn to detect the light that shines from within and pay it more respect than ...

After having watched 'Memoirs of a Geisha' just today, I now have more of an appreciation of Japanese culture and Japanese women, most of whom are quite beautiful (well, the actresses in the film and a few students I knew at Glendon were). I finally have regained enough concentration to follow an entire film. And read chapter after chapter of 'The Kite Runner'. It's such a melancholic book that when someone dies, I feel a sense of relief. That they've gone to a better place than this shitty place called Earth. Umair emailed me today. Boys just cannot take hints. Oh well. I have no clue how to tell him I no longer want to keep in touch. I have nothing to offer this friendship, seeing as my soul and life have withered like an old palm branch, sucked dry and are dank with disappointment and despair. This 'friendship' is useless. One should throw away something that is useless, or rather, harmful to one's growth. A mon avis. But it made me recall somethi...

That the hijaab provokes such violent, misguided reactions, that fact I do not doubt. Just try taking the Northern line during peak hour and having the misfortune of wearing a black winter coat and carrying a large tote bag (filled with magazines and books you'd planned on reading) and observe the cold blue, green and brown eyes that keep shifting from your headscarf, to your face (for later identification) and, of course, to your tote (which you now which you hadn't toted to Central London). However, this reaction also makes me proud of the fact that we have such a strong symbol of faith. Inside of our faith, we all tend to be engrossed in the finer details of what constitutes 'good' and 'bad' hijaab i.e. how thin a cloth, how tight a shirt and how short a pair of trousers we can get away with wearing without bumping into one of those well-intentioned, yet completely out of line fellow Muslims (usually the ones with beards cascading over their bellies) and eith...