Eccentric Optimism

It’s past 6 in the evening and I just woke up from a much needed nap. This morning we were picked up at 3:15 am by our tour company and driven 2 hours away to Gaansbaai. We then sailed out to the sea and dived with Great White sharks! It was one the most thrilling adventures of my life. After spending much of the day on a boat in shark infested waters of the Atlantic, I was exhausted. I haven’t had much sleep in the last couple of days, partly due to jet lag and partly due to travelling. Nothing much to do on Christmas eve but I have found a nice steakhouse for dinner and I am planning to go clubbing for a Jewish themed party.

There is a christmas street market on the street outside. I can hear hawkers selling various cheap goods. It reminds me of Mary street in Dublin.

I am sitting at the Toronto Pearson airport waiting for a flight to London Heathrow. Tomorrow I will spend a few hours in London city centre before flying to Cape Town, South Africa. A few days in Cape Town will be followed by a few more days in Kruger National Park after which I will go to Istanbul for new years eve and a few more days.

As I contemplate the year that is just about to end, I am also thinking that it has has been a while since I went on a real vacation. I was in New York city for New Years last year and I had a chance to go to Houston for a week in February. I also made two wild trips to Las Vegas but a true all out vacation hasn’t happened since I went to Thailand in July of 2010. I am finding it hard to contain my excitement at the moment. I love London and can’t wait to go back again even if it is just for a few hours. I have never stepped on the continent of Africa and Istanbul ofcourse is one of my favourite places regardless of a few naive mishaps that occurred during my last trip there in 2007.

This year has been full of momentous changes in my life. I started working for a new employer after working for one company for almost 8 years. The new job has been quite exciting and has been providing me with far more challenges compared to the previous one. I also bought my first residential property. It’s a beautiful loft condo in a historic building that used to be a garment factory and dates from 1935. I moved into Toronto after living in the suburbs for almost a year. I learnt a lot of things relating to my career. And now I am on my way to visit three different continents in two weeks.

Life is good and I have much to be thankful for. I still miss Europe though.

The most interesting and controversial book that I have time to read while juggling a move, starting a new job, and countless other activities this year is “Why I am not a Muslim” by Ibn Warraq.

My favourite poem by Faiz:

watch?v=boXVOPu7Smg

Translation can be found here

“Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for anyone but inspire them?”

- Bob Dylan

This morning I woke up to a CNN news alert on my iPhone telling me of Christopher Hitchens’s death. I was quite saddened by this news. I have admired Hitchens for his intelligence, his amazing ability with words, and his views on religion. Even though I didn’t even remotely agree with his views on the Middle East and Islamic world, I found it peculiar and interesting that he didn’t fit into a mold of “right” or “left”. May he rest in peace. He has been an inspiration to me and countless others.

This seems like the year of deaths..so many familiar and famous individuals have passed away. To name a few who were famous although some were arguably not very nice individuals include Hitchens, Steve Jobs, Jack Layton, Gaddafi, Amy Winehouse, Jack Kevorkian, and Osama Bin Laden.

“How excellent is reason as a pilot and companion in good fortunes and evil,

As a judge who can pass judgement over the invisible as if he saw it with his own eyes.

… one of its actions is that it distinguishes good and evil,

Through a possessor of powers whom God has singled out with utter sanctification and purity.”

- Bishr ibn al-Mu’tamir of Baghdad, a Mu’tazilite.

Zeb & Haniya and Javed Bashir

I’ve been listening to Zeb and Haniya quite a bit lately. It’s so relaxing. The music sounds like Pakistani version of Jazz or Soul.

It is just after 4:00 a.m. I was dreaming about Moab, Brooke and I walking around the block just before dwn. I threw a red silk scarf around my shoulders and then I began reciting in my sleep why I write:

I write to make peace with the things I cannot control. I write to create fabric in a world that often appears black and white. I write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue. I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the world will change. I write to honor beauty. I write to correspond with my friends. I write as a daily act of improvisation. I write because it creates my composure. I write against power and for democracy. I write myself out of my nightmares and into my dreams. I write in a solitude born out of community. I write to the questions that shatter my sleep. I write to the answers that keep me complacent. I write to remember. I write to forget. I write to the music that opens my heart. I write to quell the pain. I write to migrating birds with the hubris of language. I write as a form of translation. I write with the patience of melancholy in winter. I write because it allows me to confront that which I do not know. I write as an act of faith. I write as an act of slowness. I write to record what I love in the face of loss. I write because it makes me less fearful of death. I write as an exercise in pure joy. I write as one who walks on the surface of a frozen river beginning to melt. I write out of my anger and into my passion. I write from the stillness of night anticipating – always anticipating. I write to listen. I write out of silence. I write to soothe the voices shouting inside me, outside me, all around. I write because of the humor of our condition as humans. I write because I believe in words. I write because I do not believe in words. I write because it is a dance with paradox. I write because you can play on the page like a child left alone in sand. I write because it belongs to the force of the moon: high tide, low tide. I write because it is the way I take long walks. I write as a bow to wilderness. I write because I believe it can create a path in darkness. I write because as a child I spoke a different language. I write with a knife carving each word through the generosity of trees. I write as ritual. I write because I am not employable. I write out of my inconsistencies. I write because then I do not have to speak. I write with the colors of memory. I write as a witness to what I have seen. I write as a witness to what I imagine. I write by grace and grit. I write out of indigestion. I write when I am starving. I write when I am full. I write to the dead. I write out of the body. I write to put food on the table. I write on the other side of procrastination. I write for the children we never had. I write for the love of ideas. I write for the surprise of a sentence. I write with the belief of alchemists. I write knowing I will always fail. I write knowing words always fall short. I write knowing I can be killed by my own words, stabbed by syntax, crucified by both understanding and misunderstanding. I write out of ignorance. I write by accident. I write past the embarrassment of exposure. I keep writing and suddenly, I am overcome by the sheer indulgence, (the maddness,) the meaninglessness, the ridiculousness of this list. I trust nothing especially myself and slide head first into the familiar abyss of doubt and humiliation and threaten to push the delete button on my way down, or madly erase each line, pick up the paper and rip it into shreds – and then I realize, it doesn’t matter, words are always a gamble, words are splinters from cut glass. I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient.

I write as though I am whispering in the ear of the one I love.

A heart wrenching video on the condition of women in India:

http://www.shreeyasinha.com/undesired/

How can people be so cruel?