Challenge accepted #1

Salam. Hi.

“Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.” - Albus Dumbledore

Sometimes,
we are just too quick to judge.
We have listened, we told ourselves, justifying.
We did give a chance for the other person to speak their hearts out.
But rarely do we listen to understand.
Often times we listen just enough for us to come out with a reply.
We listen just so we can, later on, justify our own views.
We listen just so we can, later on, use it as a weapon to counter attack.
And we end up not understanding a single thing being said.

Sometimes,
we are just too quick to dismiss.
We have spoken, we told ourselves, justifying.
We did give a chance for the other person to understand us.
But rarely do we speak to reach out and explain.
Often times we speak just enough to convey our feelings.
We speak just so we can, later on, justify our own views.
We speak just so we can, later on, use it as a weapon to counter attack.
And they end up not understanding a single thing being said.

What, let us ask ourselves;
what was it that really caused Anakin Skywalker to become Darth Vader?
what was it thatreally  caused Tom Riddle to become Lord Voldemort?
Money? Power?
Or simply because they were being misunderstood, and was not given the chance to understand?

Seek first to understand, then be understood

- Stephen Covey

ps: Salam 1 Ramadhan :)

Too lazy for a title

Salam. Hi.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.

So a certain someone told me that i like to make things complicated. That i'd take simple things, and turn them into complicated matters. So i thought about it.
And i thought about it more. And a bit more. Until it becomes complicated. So, yeah, i guess it's true.

And then i realised why.
It's not so much liking doing it, it's more to the fact that my mind is currently pretty much empty. Yeah. EMPTY.
I'm not used to not thinking about things that matter. I'm not used to not thinking about the big things and the deep thoughts.
And so my mind is filled with all these trivial thoughts, and all these trivial thoughts are not stimulating enough that i have to make them complicated in order to make them matter.
And thinking of trivial thoughts really drains the energy out.

Then i stopped. I thought no, scratch that.
Why? Why would it be trivial? Why wouldn't it matter?
How is it that in my mind, there are things that are small and trivial?
It doesn't make sense. Even a bacillus is huge if you look under a microscope.
It's all about perception.

Everything we see is a perception, not the truth.

Some things may be of little weight to me, but may be the heaviest thing to some. It's not the face value that matters, really.
It's what it means. It's what it represents. That's what matters.
And we, as empathetic beings, should not be the judge of that.

Being empathetic does not mean we understand what others go through. We don't have to. We never will.
We don't walk in their shoes. And pretending to is just a way of downgrading and minimising their pain.
We shouldn't think that we have to understand. And it shouldn't be expected of us.

Sometimes we get too tired with the world. We feel so drained. We feel disappointed.
And every time we watch the news, our heart bleeds and our brain aches.
We look around us, and the blade cuts deeper.
We get exhausted. we wish we could help, but there's nothing we can do.
We settle with what we can, and eventually the flame fades and blows out.
And so we live in our own little world, doing our own little job, thinking only of our own little problems.

And that thought really scares me.
Thus end my random rambling and ranting on my day off.

A person's a person, no matter how small.

- Dr Seuss; Horton Hears a Who - 

I open at the close (of 2014. Perhaps.)

The world is a profoundly unjust place.
It always have been and i imagine it always will be.
But that doesn't absolve us of our responsibility to look directly at problems, even if they are painful to look at.
And to try our best to do something to decrease world suck.
- John Green

We are now edging into 2015.
Meaning we are almost 15 years into the 21st  century.
What did we imagine 2014 would be like 10 years ago? 20 years ago?
How big is the difference between what we imagined and reality?

So i was reading this list of events that happened in 2014.
And i have to say, it wasn't a very happy read.
Sure 2014 is the year Germany added another star to their football team logo.
It is also the year the Rosetta spacecraft's probe landed on a certain Comet 67P.
And also the year a 17-year-old girl received the Nobel Prize for Peace, youngest ever laureate, wow!

Happy, happy thoughts.

On the other side of the coin however...
The civil unrest in Ukraine.
Some 276 girls and women abducted in Nigeria.
The disappearance of MH370, 239 people on board.
Capsize of the Korean ferry, 290 people died.
The Boko Haram killing in Nigeria, around 300 people killed.
Ebola virus epidemic, at least 7000 people died.
The so-called "Sunni millitant group" ISIS agenda killing God-knows-how-many.
The Israeli attack on Gaza, called Operation Protective Edge, killing over 2000 people.
The shooting down of MH17, all 298 people on board died.
The killing of 141 people, including 132 children in Peshawar by Taliban gunmen.

Too many killings. Too many preventable deaths.
And these are just some of those that made it to international news.

What will it take for us to see, to really see with our eyes? And to feel, to really feel and understand the situation of this world we're living in?

I mean it's been over 100 years since the identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and over 60 years since the development of antibiotic streptomycin, effective against TB, yet 1.5 million people died of TB in 2013 alone, most of which are from low-to-middle income countries.
And what about malaria, one of the oldest disease known? Over 500 000 people died of malaria in 2013, mostly children in Africa. That's like one child a minute. And this is a preventable and curable disease.

Yes, these are very complex matters that involve lots resources and departments and agencies to solve. It's not as easy as it seems.
Heck, even the truths behind them are complicated.
But that's the thing. Truth resists simplicity (another one by John Green).

But is there really nothing we can do?

And here's to hoping for a 2015 of humanity and love. Cheers.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

- Dr. Seuss, The Lorax -

Mistakes, maybe.

Salam 'alaikum. Hi.


A transcript from How I Met Your Mother, S1E20; Milk.

Lily: Come on! It's an adventure.
Ted: No, it's not an adventure. It's a mistake.
Lily: Okay, yes it's a mistake. I know it's a mistake. But there are certain things in life where you know it's a mistake but you don't really know it's a mistake because the only way to really know it's a mistake is to make the mistake, and look back and say, "Yep, that was a mistake". So, really, the bigger mistake would be to not make the mistake, because then you go your whole life not really knowing if something is a mistake or not. And, damn it, i've made no mistakes! I've done all of this - my life, my relationship, my career - mistake-free. Does any of this make sense to you?
Ted: I don't know. You said "mistake" a lot.


There are times when we aren't sure about our lives.
We are torn apart between two choices. We know what we want, and we know what is right.
We may even know it will be a mistake if we do it.
So we weigh the pros and cons.
And we end up doing nothing, out of fear of making mistakes.

We live in an environment where making a mistake is not acceptable. Not even tolerable at times. Well, for some of us, at least.
So we grow up making the "right" choices, the "right" decisions. Mistake-free.
And along the way, we miss out on a lot of things.
We become too afraid to open our minds and widen our views.
Because we don't know what is outside this box we are accustomed to.
And every time we try to step out, the fear of making mistakes engulfs us. Much like agoraphobia.

Sometimes, even if you know something's a mistake, you've got to make it anyway.
Then you will really know it's a mistake.
And you will learn to live with it, to forgive yourself for making that mistake, and to come to peace with it.

I guess.

There will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.

- Albus Dumbledore -