Grammar lesson #1

The difference between "can" and "may"; the former indicates capability or possibility, whereas the latter grants us permission to do something.

I.e. Can I drive your Rolls Royce? Well, yes, if your feet can reach the pedals and you can understand the concept of a steering wheel.

May I drive your Rolls Royce? Over my dead body.


Taken from " My Grammar and I".

I've been spending my Sunday afternoon reading on grammar. It's bizarre because the more I think about it, the more I question how I got through school with straight As. It's quite unthinkable, but that's a whole other matter.

I didn't come here to talk about grammar to be honest, I just thought that was something interesting to share.(but ofcourse you know the above fact already)

on another note, I never really understood the difference between apathy and paranoia. That line has been erased, drawn, erased again, and now it's quasi visible with smeared lead on both territories. In other words, it's a pretty messy area. well perhaps not for you (lucky).

Have you ever felt like you don't care about this or that, but in truth, you're just scared. Treating people as places and places as people because you believe(strongly) that everything is temporary. but there's another part of you that is scared that if you put any importance in places, people and anything else for that matter, you'd be...affected. In more ways than one.

Well, that's tough. 

let's talk

i've always wanted to be one of those people who are so incredible at speeches, like martin luther king jr, obama, those people on ted tv. the more i try the harder it gets to be honest but i did manage to   reveal some of the secrets of those who are eloquent :

1) they talk alot or

2) they are clear -minded or

3) they read alot or

4) they watch alot of tv.

way to point out the obvious( i have the tendency of doing that)..

but seriously, i'm not a naturally talkative person. i can talk non -stop if i have to or when i'm with certain people, but i find talking very hard to do which is why i believe i was born verbally challenged. 

after giving much thought to it, i realise that, we really dont have much to talk about. we have much less to say than we acually think we do. like when i was catching up with a friend, i really dont feel like talking about my life and what i've endured because for one, if i've gone through some difficult times and survived it, i dont see the point in telling the story because i've made it through well and good. when something good happens, i dont wanna talk about it because i dont even want to give anyone the chance of thinking i'm gloating. ofcourse not everyone is that mean, but preventive measures beat the crap outta having to fix a complicated situation. 

furthermore, if you dont tell anyone anything, when something goes wrong, you have noone else tIo blame but your self and i personally feel being hard on yourself is better than blaming others for your weaknesses or mistakes. whatelse can we talk about? my interests? oh if only.. work?  boring.
food?i'd rather eat than talk about it. politics? too lazy to argue with varying opinions when you know you're right and by right i mean you're just as intolerant as everyone else invloved in that discussion.

i might have gone off tangent here, but i guess if i wanna be like martin luther king i gotta forget about a and brush up on b,c or d. perhaps I shoud forget about b too. was probably born a scatter brain.

i feel a little bit psychotic.

if you can't pretend you're happy, why not avoid people when you're not.

Don't even know if I make any sense

“So you see, Good and Evil have the same face; it all depends on when they cross the path of each individual human being.” 
― Paulo Coelho, The Devil and Miss Prym

Last week I had a discussion with two friends on this article:

http://www.suhaibwebb.com/personaldvlpt/reflections/people-leave-each-other-but-do-they-return/

twas very enlightening and a friend brought up what I felt was the most intriguing part of the article that relates to an even bigger scope of things and I quote :

Allah (glorified is He) tells us in a very profound ayah (verse): “Verily with hardship comes ease.” (Qur’an, 94:5). Growing up I think I understood this ayah wrongly. I used to think it meant: after hardship comes ease. In other words, I thought life was made up of good times and bad times. After the bad times, come the good times. I thought this as if life was either all good or all bad. But that is not what the ayah is saying. The ayah is saying WITH hardship comes ease. The ease is at the same timeas the hardship. This means that nothing in this life is ever all bad (or all good). In every bad situation we’re in, there is always something to be grateful for. With hardship, Allah also gives us the strength and patience to bear it.

That has always been one of my favourite verses, but I too, had misunderstood it the same way the writer did.  I know the general presumption is that, hardship is God's challenge for us and ease is God's reward but it certainly works the other way as well.

I read the Devil and Ms Prym (good read, I recommend it) before I even read the article and was deeply troubled by the above extract. It seemed like such a horrid and somewhat defeatist idea to believe in but a small part of me did any way. Perhaps everything God has furnished us with, whether it's our wealth, intelligence, status and even the most abstract paraphernalia such as our ideas, thoughts, assumptions, etc, has two faces, but I do believe it is not as straightforward as being good and evil. From the interpretation of the Quranic verse I realised that, my fear arose from the very two faces of my presumption; acceptance that life is a cycle, uncertainty of life's cycle. When hardship falls upon me, I beg God to provide ease, when I'm at ease, I constantly worry about my downturn. This unhealthy situation stems from my lack of understanding.

Relating the quote to the verse, what we make out of everything God has given us defines the face of it and this face changes with time. It will keep on changing until our very last breath but one thing for sure,  it is written for the faithful that everything happens for a good reason.

internationalists

" All around the world, countries are developing strong national sentiments. and that's not good; it's time that our worries and concerns be not just national but global. Now the world has to develop internationalist sentiments because we wouldnt be internationalists or possess a doctrine of worldwide solidarity if we began to blame other nations."

Fidel Castro.

"that's the reality of bani Adam, it's a pathetic state"

Of civilisations

pardon me for recycling my posts. this is taken from my journal written sometime 2 years ago when i was in Dhaka. I was thinking about dinosaurs and the theory of evolution when my sisters and I started talking about great civilisations before us.

"about a year and a half ago, a bengoli couple( Miraj and Shumona) who were acquainted to Dad came to Malaysia for their honeymoon and I somehow became their tour guide in Kuala Lumpur. Bengoli people are generally very big-hearted and hospitable so if they are fond of you, they make sure you know it. I try not to say this and perhaps I would never in a million years let myself think this even with people close to me, but this couple is very fond of me. I did after all spend a week bringing them all around KL. It's human nature to have a strong sense of gratitude towards people's help and hospitability. So even though we met only that time in Malaysia, I became like family to them. 
They would always email me to come visit them here, and here I am finally. So today, they came over and decided to take me to out. We ended up going to Shumona's Dad's house which was extremely awkard for me cause I'm like "The Guest of the House" and I'm just a kid. It would have been different if my parents had followed, then I'd just be the daughter of "The Guests". Shumona's dad(perhaps a man slightly older than my dad) came out to entertain me. He was a bewitching learned man so we had a lot to talk about. He started telling me about the Egyptian civilization and continued expressing his fascination and admiration for History which led to us talking about the nature and destiny of a civilization. He said, Alexandria was called the Lost City because part of the city is now lost underwater. C'est la vie. The world will turn upside down to end a civilization. Like the nation of Lot (Prophet Luth, PBUH). That is the cycle. 
With the flash floods, mudslides, tsunamis, scientifically speaking, the physicality of the world may indicate a mark for the end of our civilization. Looking back into history, even thousands of years before the birth of Christ(PBUH), this seems relevant. Untill now, noone has yet to discover the technology behind the construction of the Pyramids and the mummification process. Untill now you can't find anyone comparable to avicenna and the likes. We are no more advanced than those civilizations before us. Only our modernity and technological convenience led us to think we are. This does not go to say that our civilization is a weak one. In contrary to that, this is highlighting that every single civilization has had its profound achievements. However, the lessons behind the decadence and fall of all the different civilizations made me think, noone, no nation, no society, can escape their fate. No nation is too profound for collapse. We will have to face what is already written whether we like it or not. 
I love this thought. The thought of being a part of a civilization instead of individualism. 
Anyway, do I really think our civilization will come to an end soon? I have no answer for that. If soon is 50 years away, then perhaps yes. I have forgotten what is the point of this post "

the Theory of Self Interest

"Our society right now is in a crisis, but a lot of the crisis is a direct result of misguided priorities of people that put everything into themselves and forgot about others. When you begin to give up self interest, and think about the common wheel, God will take care of your self interest.  When you focus on your self interest and forget about and the common wheel, God will cause you to even forget your self interest. They forgot God so God caused them to forget themselves."

We've got clear moral guidance so who cares whether Adam Smith was right or wrong.

nineteen hundred and nineteen

Come let us mock at the great
That had such burdens on the mind
And toiled so hard and late
 To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.

 Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars whereon
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.
 Come let us mock at the good
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of solitude
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked— and where are they?

 Mock mockers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in mockery.

 William Butler Yeats Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen

Addicted

to this