Side-tracked

Tak boleh concentrate doh.

Aku nak belajar. Tapi aku tak faham apa aku tengah belajar. Jadi aku berhenti belajar lepas tu aku baca blog orang lain. Lepas tu aku marah diri sendiri suruh pergi belajar, lepas tu aku belajar, lepas tu aku tak faham apa aku tengah belajar, maka aku berhenti belajar dan pergi baca blog orang lain. Dan seterusnya, dan seterusnya.

There's that part in A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby where Martin states that ladders is what it all comes down to and how you can reduce the biggest topics to the tiniest parts. I thought of that, and I thought about my own life, and then I summed it up to magic.

Magic. What a flimsy, la-di-da term. But it's the best one I could think of.

Listening to a really good song is magic. Not just a good song. A song that gets you. You understand, right? We've all listened to a song like that. A song that wraps around your soul and squeezes until you want to burst. That's magic.

Open communication with my dad. Realizing the extent of my love for my mom, how vivid and solid and real it is, even though I never say it out loud, even though we never express it in speech. That's magic.

Praying in Makkah, where it felt like when you spoke to God, it was a direct conversation, He was close and listening. Your faith was unshakeable , you couldn't see how you could ever falter again after this, you were sure that you could be better, that you would be.

Do you see? It felt like magic.

Music and religion. When I was in high school, it was pounded into me that music-unless nasyid-and religion don't go together. I remember my ustazah saying how we shouldn't listen to our walkmans before falling asleep, how if we were to somehow die in our sleep after doing that, we would "mati secara sia-sia". There was at some point talk about how we're not supposed to play string instruments or something? And the same principle applies to dance. Dance? Are you out of your mind? WE CAN'T DANCE. Dance is sexual. Dance is maksiat. Dance is wrong.

Fucking apeshit!

Sorry. But whenever I think of such memories from high school, I get angry.

High school was where I learnt religion. Of course there was Pendidikan Islam in sekolah rendah, a bit of sekolah agama, the Qur'an lessons before that. But here I was properly thrust into a practicing environment. Before I entered high school,I couldn't even recite the Ayat Kursi by heart,and I had stopped reading the Qur'an since I khatam-ed, making me quite rusty.

In high school, I was introduced to Allah in a specific way, I was drilled with the dos and don'ts of a muslimah. 5 years in a boarding school instilled a very regimented approach to God. This is right, this is wrong. Islam is correct, other religions are not.

As I grow older, I seem to come to the conclusion that a lot of what I was told, what the ustaz and the ustazah said; doesn't make sense. Like the whole music thing. If we were to accept it at a purely superficial level and generalize that music and religion are contradictory, then I'm fucked. And it also boils down to a more fundamental level. I don't see why Allah would put a decent person in hell just because that person was born into a different religion. And it relates to how everything is pre-destined, which is another topic I find myself struggling with, I grapple with the technicalities of it.

Faith. My faith is there, but it's in a manner that is different to what I've been taught, so it flexes and struggles and throws itself against the different chambers of my heart. Sometimes it is exasperating and frustrating and contradictory and I wish I could just consult someone and ask "Is this right?Is this ok? Will I go to hell?". I try to reconcile what I know and what I think I believe, and it's a mess usually, but sometimes it works out ok. If I'm lucky,it all just falls into equilibrium.

I don't want to go to hell. I want to be good and be happy doing so. That's pretty much it, basically.

I want to have a Wall of Stuff too

Right?
Right you are!

When I feel incompetent, I do organizing work. I rearrange the things on my desk, sort out papers, do my filing, clean the apartment, send out the recyclables, refold my clothes. Storage solutions make me happy. Since I don't have money to get proper storage supplies from shops, I tend to resort to shoe boxes.

I have a lot of shoe boxes in my room.

My exam starts in about a month.

If I concentrate properly, if I stop being incompetent and fully pitch in to get my shit together academically, I think I can do it.

So. Are you ready to fully pitch in and get your shit together Atiqah?

Yes. I think. I mean, yes. THUNDERCATS ARE GO!