The Pen and the Pad

Purpose.

2006-07-07T22:27:00.000+02:00

Purpose. That place in your head. Where fear itself fears to tread.

Dude, Where's my Assurance?

2006-07-07T11:56:00.000+02:00

Emotions often spill forth in poetry.
Barring any other outlet.
You'd think the love of another would be enough.
But as you've said...
All it will take is a single tear.
and Things fall apart.

Your heart left questioning...
Your head left reeling.

But in the end does it matter?
If all of this is merely a bump on the road to our destination?

I just don't know.

2006-07-06T22:34:00.000+02:00

The bad news is I don't feel love anymore. The good news is I don't feel hate either. I feel NUMB. What is that? :(

Courage.

2006-06-28T13:56:00.000+02:00

What is True Courage?

The courage to let go, cut it loose and move on?

... or the Courage to stick with it, fight it out and change it?

Technorati Tags: courage, change, The Pen and the Pad, Muhammad Karim

Technorati Tags: courage, change, The Pen and the Pad, Muhammad Karim

To Be Continued...

2006-06-22T14:05:00.000+02:00

Got this Poem from the zephyr and i Amazing... had me mesmerised the whole day.
-----------------------------
brief infinity;

the definition of
when you asked me
to close my eyes.

after telling me
the future would
put spaces between us.

just eyelash intervals
but epic intermissions
between the prequel
and the sequel.

I'm still writing our story,
there's no plot here yet to lose,
which also means

the ending hasn't begun.

Technorati Tags: the zephyr and i, to be continued, poetry

AAaargh.

2006-06-20T16:46:00.000+02:00

We're in a huge box and I want to break out so bad.

AAaargh.

2006-06-20T16:44:00.000+02:00

We're in a huge box and I want to break out so bad.

Self-Sacrifice

2006-06-17T18:11:00.000+02:00

You cannot understand self-sacrifice when you have a full stomach and a good night sleep.

Bigger than that.

2006-06-13T16:47:00.000+02:00

Fear not, for Jannah lies not in the spoils of war but in how and why you fought the battle.

Junkie.

2006-06-07T09:46:00.000+02:00

Philosophy and the Internet... Music and Art... And so much of everything lying in between. I love it all... passionately, endlessly.

Knowledge is my addiction, and I'm getting high off my own supply.

Think Differently.

2006-06-07T09:38:00.000+02:00

The World doesn't spin anti-clockwise.

Clocks spin anti-worldwise.

The world was here before before man quantified time in an invention with which we structure our lives... 9 to 5, Lunch @ 12, Dinner @ 7, 2 hour meetings, 2 minute noodles, give me a minute, just a second.

We've grown up thinking clocks are time.
A circular nothing on the wall which has put our minds in boxes, put tinted sunglasses over our eyes. There's no time, Just killing time, What's the time? Out of time.

You're not as constrained as you think.

Technorati Tags: clocks, time, anti-clockwise

I have so much.

2006-06-03T20:38:00.000+02:00

I turned the poetry of their poverty into prose but the narrative didn't fit my life story. I can't complain anymore. I should be grateful.

Crazy, Stupid, Stubborn.

2006-05-09T15:28:00.000+02:00

I'll let the world call me crazy, call me stupid, call me an idiot... maybe even stubborn. but I will not let my principles slide even just a little for someone's ego to be stroked, for some material benefit to alight on my shores.

My consciousness will not allow it and my being will totally reject it. Just as so many accept it even though their souls revolt with utter disgust, they will not listen. Truth will hit from every side, unfold itself in a blatant attempt to be exposed... but they will look over it, under it and around it but not at it.

It's not your fears you fear to face. It's the Truth you don't want to know. The comforts of this life and your current disposition disallows any shaking or trepidation, yet that is life...a constant intifada against the lusts which drive you ever downward.

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The Invitation.

2006-05-05T10:25:00.000+02:00

A fragment of inspiration from an epoch in my memory I should never forget...

The Invitation

from Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

: Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Invitation, Inspiration, The Pen and The Pad, Muhammad Karim
: Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Invitation, Inspiration, The Pen and The Pad, Muhammad Karim
: Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Invitation, Inspiration, The Pen and The Pad, Muhammad Karim

Love

2006-05-03T17:26:00.000+02:00

How does one Love so much that they cannot speak,
cannot move and you can only hear your blood rushing, heart pounding.
Beyond any expression of word or deed it can only be felt.

and cannot be understood.

only talked about in abstraction like eternity.

Love
in the long-term is the only Love worth having.. it can only be
experienced, and when it is, we find out what true happiness really
is... contentment.

The Path

2006-04-21T15:53:00.000+02:00

I keep thinking of our path in life like the Hansel and Gretel story...

like we're following the bread crumbs..

but they keep lying in more than one path..

so depending on which one you choose.. that path will lead you somewhere else... and on and on...

but from this you can see a trend..

where you choose the path (with acceptable risk levels ofcourse) which requires a change.

a shift.

a major change in habits, living conditions, mindsets ,everything moves, changes.

This is then in tandem with the rest of the universe.. and so... even though it seems you're taking a different route.. it is exactly the route you're supposed to take.

;)

Let It Go.

2006-04-16T13:19:00.000+02:00

The past can't hurt you... Unless you let it.

in the end its only you.

2006-04-11T10:54:00.000+02:00

I've got emotions to move a bus, but only the strength to move myself.

Selective Perception.

2006-04-07T22:56:00.000+02:00

Who could have known that such wondrous eyes, a smile which makes the sun dull in comparison, a laugh which ignites hearts... Could hide such hate and anger to subdue the devil. Such fierce degradation to cut you to a size of their choosing. There's an old African saying... "White teeth, black heart." Meaning that the most beautiful of smiles hides the most evil of intentions.

Words & Ideas.

2006-04-07T18:49:00.000+02:00

Words run out of ideas. Ideas never run out of words.

Life.

2006-04-07T11:46:00.000+02:00

souls lost and found, but lost still.

Killer Karma.

2006-04-03T09:38:00.001+02:00

Do you notice how when you're going through the most trying times in your life, fighting your own demons that you notice how everyone else seems to be living a charmed life?

You begin comparing yourself with them and start picking out all the little things which make them so lucky compared toyou, you end up wishing you were them or at least in their situations. Truth is, they're looking at you and thinking the exact same thing. It's very hard to sit down, take stock of your own life and be truly grateful for the things you have.

You see all the good things in others, but you can't necesarrily peer below the surface, the demons they have to deal with, the complex web of relationships they encounter and have to maintain, the stress between a few and the love between the others. This balancing act applies to everyone... relationships, external environment and unknown internal struggles.

No person has a burden thrust upon them which they cannot handle. There are so many things wrong with the situation you're in now, but is that all we need to focus on? There are so many things going right... why do we not see them. They may be small, they may be insignificant, but if they make someone flash a smile, even for a second... isn't that worth it?

We all have choices we make, sometimes we make them without knowing. When you give up on anything, its your choice. When you surrender yourself to your circumstance, its YOUR choice. Prioritisation of the good and the bad needs to come into perspective. Find out whats wrong and correct each one, or at least plan to correct each one... one at a time. Everything good... keep it up, increase it...

Life is so short... and I don't want to spend it complaining.

Tags: Struggle, Choice, Gratefulness, Life, The Pen and The Pad, Muhammad Karim

Evanescent Delusion

2006-03-28T17:16:00.000+02:00

I've just recently realised that my understanding of the world around me and the things I am interested in is opaque at best. It takes true dedication to the search for truth to even gain a glimmer of knowledge with which I can satiate my thirst for knowledge.

There is just so much to know, Why am I missing all of it? Absorbed in sitcoms and Male Magazines which pervade a culture which my soul so desperately rejects and yet I sit there with time and knowledge passing me by like the draft over a Mercedes on the autobahn. Gone.

This Life is so short and I'm missing it. I hate that thought so much... knowing that all the time I wasted sitting there learning nothing, doing nothing, helping nobody including myself is gone. Vanished. Wasted.

I have this nervous energy now around me, like Tyler Durden in Fight Club, I want to go out and do something. change something even the littlest thing. I mean isn't going out and making a single person smile, or laugh, or learn something from me far better than sitting in complete vacuity, nothing explored, nothing gained. Time lost. Time which is so much more valuable than any currency in the universe.

This epehemeral existence is not some asinine trip which we can ignore and let fly by... there must be some purpose... there MUST BE. All this is not for nothing. It can't be.

What do you think about Life and Death?

2006-03-14T09:09:00.000+02:00

Life is something we need to lessen our focus on controlling so much... karma, taqdeer, destiny, fate... whatever. It isn't so much whether or not you believe in these but rather the nature of Life itself. you cannot predict what's going to happen next. so you have no control over life. You just have to live. So.. What are you doing right now that makes it worth it?

Death... death, we need to ponder on what lies beyond it. Therein lies the answer to what Life is all about. Where else would the answer lie, except after the event we all fear, but know so little about?

On Friendship...

2006-03-07T09:12:00.000+02:00

Friends are like the gardeners' of our souls.

The greatest possession in this life is to have friends whom we can feel make our lives so much better.

Peace,

WTF?!?

2006-03-02T13:24:00.000+02:00

Oh My God!

Did anyone else read below and wonder "What the hell is he on about?" Thing is... I don't know myself... what? am I trying to be some cultured academic with a large vocabulary who sits in coffee shops and thinks of more arbitrary bullshit which doesn't make sense to anyone else excpet other arb brown-suited wannabe academics.

What the hell am i doing, this isn't me. I do things with a purpose and right now, there isn't one.

Get a Life!

Zephyrist.

2006-02-28T18:31:00.000+02:00

afloat... somewhere between the keyboard and a thought.
a sombre patience struggling with the urge to create, to act.

Seven seconds of Sigur Ros made me realise the chaos invading my peace.
The urge gain... slow and powerful, like a glacier.

Go with the Flow...

No.

Why should I act without a bearing, no prospect of achievement.

What's the end game? Who gets and what and why?

More importantly, What do I get?

It's not always about you.

Teenage Girls and Ancient Inca Burial Rituals.

2006-02-24T10:07:00.000+02:00

Expectations, Anorexia and a Lamborghini Murcielago in the garage.

Oh to be thin, to be beautiful, to be on the cover of magazines... every Teenage girls dream. The gold, nay, the holy grail of Female Adolesence. A possession more treasured more than all the gold in the tombs of ancient Inca's buried long ago amidst wealth they could take no further than their grave stones.

And therein lies the irony... Nothing will go any further than a stick of wood, or a slab of stone or marble edging out of a six feet hole.

Define this.

2006-02-23T22:48:00.000+02:00

If you aren't a little bit crazy. You're insane.

Her.

2006-02-23T19:53:00.000+02:00

Why is it so hard when she's away? It's not that I can't manage, there's just this longing that pulls at my soul... Damn, I Miss her.

Ghetto Rock.

2006-02-23T14:04:00.000+02:00

The White Powder which infects the veins of the Black Streets.
The Stones mined in Africa which corrupt the Black Elite.
The Sound which can't be imitated and is the heart of the Black Beat.

Cocaine, Diamonds and Hip-Hop.

All Ghetto Rock.

Stranded.

2006-02-21T14:02:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I feel stranded on this planet of mine,
Living on borrowed time.
How many people lost to the crime
Of doing the opposite, but hoping for the divine.
How many people lie in wait to let the planets align
While others succumb to oppression opting for the benign
How many soldiers sat and cried while on the front line
If someone has an answer please just give me a sign
Or is this just a gasp of nothingness caught in a rhyme?

Word.

2006-02-20T17:20:00.000+02:00

With just a word, I was slew,
Broken heart amid morning dew.
Mind the bearing to which your heart does lean,
For your words can hurt things which are unseen.

The Message.

2006-02-20T08:24:00.000+02:00

He had his hands in the air all excited and shouting and then his hands dropped and he wondered why exactly he was doing this... what was this all about? What was he going to accomplish being there amongst so many people, still not feeling better, still feeling alone. All he wanted was escapism… to get away from everything, but it’s impossible, for him especially, he knows too much, he knows that the only way he can go forward now is to actually do something, to move away from all of it that was distracting him from completing what he knew was his sole mission in the world, why he was created in the first place. He had a destination to get to and at this moment he was travelling in the wrong direction. He needed to do a 180 degree turn and he needed to do it now. He realised that there is no escapism and how a decision like this which he had made will really, really screw up every single thing that actually matters. So... back to what he needed to do... Move, do something, change something, talk to someone, anyone, make a statement. The most important thing is "the message". What you’re saying is the most important thing in the world, the hard thing is it's not only what you say... it's what you are. You need to live the message to spread it.

Snap.

2006-02-17T14:46:00.001+02:00

He stood there, just outside the doorway, not knowing what to do. The blood was still dripping from his hands despite him running the five blocks to the mosque, what had happened? he didn't know, he didn't recognise himself in those moments which seems like little eternities. He remembered every little detail, every sound, felt every impact and heard every single scream.

His arms couldn't stop moving, they were moving on their own... fluid horizontal motion in continous straight lines... fist, face, fist, face... he couldn't think. He was unable to.

All of it took 7 minutes in all, from right outside the bakery, he was just leaving with a loaf of bread, and right outside the guy was waiting. All it took was one look and one word which set it off. Bread... then Blood.

He froze at the doorway, startled at the guy's sudden appearance... he was about to speak on the threshold of his anger, but was interrupted by him...

The guy had sharp green eyes, which almost seemed evil with the right expression, Looking right at him with absolute contempt, "Useless..." he said.

The guy's intention was to stare 2 seconds longer and leave but there was no time to do even that, except maybe a little flinch before impact.

At that moment, when the words almost left his lips. He lost himself, his anger had surfaced and had now taken over. A minute later he was running down the block to the mosque. Mind spinning and fist full of blood.

The guy had a microsecond to flinch before the fist connected with his nose, dead-on. The blood appeared immediately, something he noticed a second before his head hit the pavement, a second after that he felt another connection, and another, and another.

As he stood there, fist dripping, outside the mosque, he wondered, "Why did I come here?" and then he realised what he had done... looked at his fist, flexed his hand and noticed that he didnt have the bread with him anymore.