Reflections.

I've been making self-reflection a daily habit, most of the time during the few minutes before I go to sleep.

During the day and night, while we move along with our lives, whether we are alone or interacting with loved ones, acquaintances and strangers, we don't really have much time to reflect before and after our actions. I know that we should live life without regrets but a life without a single lesson learned must be truly wasted, don't you think so?

"Blessed is He who made the constellations in the heavens and made therein a lamp and a shining moon. And He it is Who made the night and the day to follow each other for him who desires to be mindful or desires to be thankful."

Al-Furqaan, 61-62.

We are taught and trained since very young to hone our deductive and mathematics skills. It sharpens our logical thinking. It heightens our intellectual prowess. It lets us understand cause and effect, and in turn lets us find valid solutions to get to a desired conclusion. Life is about constantly checking yourself, making sure you know your mistakes and making sure you don't repeat them. It's an innate mechanism of learning. That's how babies learn to understand sensations and emotions.

Most of the time, our lives are so fast-paced and we are from a generation that is more profit-driven than ever. Most of the things we do benefit ourselves more than others, even when it is intangible. It's a scary state of mind and personality.

I'm far from being a good person or Muslimah so I think a session of self-reflection daily would really help to put me back into humility and gratitude to Allah. How terrible it is to forget His every single blessing.

For all the sins and evils I've done, Astaghfirullahalazim.

For all the blessings I've received, Alhamdulillah.

For all the inspirations I've seen, Subhanallah.

For all the aspirations I have, InsyaAllah.

Ramadhan is going away again and I hope we all enter Syawal with the victory worthy of celebrating.  Eid Mubarak, everyone.

Sets of Pillars

Being a ( self-proclaimed ) Architecture Nerd, I am expected to be obsessed with building elements. Like pillars.

But this post is not going to be about those tangible posts that help sustain the roof, the walls and even the floors as well as help communicate the foundation to the structures above. ( sigh )

Nope.

This post is about the religious pillars. ( No, not those you found in prayer halls. )

Ok.

There's a bad habit among us. We tend to be fairly single-track-minded bunch of people so we forget that there are the Pillars of Islam and there are also the Pillars of Imaan. I'm not saying we forget how to recite them. I'm just observing how we don't really try to have a proper understanding of these pillars, which I believe ( since they are called 'pillars' anyway ) are the main things we need to focus and strengthen on.

Sure, you may argue that you have been upholding and practising the 5 Pillars of Islam ( Or maybe 4 since Hajj is for those who are able to) daily. But rituals don't make you a proper Muslim. Have we been focusing on our faith too?

Have we been deepening your understanding of the 6 Pillars of Imaan?
Have we been accepting Qada' and Qadar and understanding the philosophy of life?
Have we been studying about the end of days and death and afterlife?
Have we been reading of the prophets and gleaning lessons from them?
Have we been reading the revealed books, not just the Quran?
Have we been aware of the existence of the angels and their jobs and how we encounter them every day, really?
Have we been believing Him as we should strongly believe in Him because we believe in all that He has created and given?

( I always believe that the 6 pillars of Imaan is arranged according to how important and deep your belief gets once you've achieved them. Therefore, I think people start to have faith when they try to understand philosophy in life and after-life. And that leads to learning from examples that are from the prophets and the revealed books. And then we attain the proper belief to the intangible beings and all creation. This leads to a string belief of Allah, the Great Creator. )

I think the 5 pillars of Islam that we build will be just empty rituals if we don't have the 6 pillars of Imaan readied in our hearts.

Let's look at it constructively. We can't build 6 pillars on top of 5 pillars. Our building will collapse. Therefore, have faith ( which we can strengthen through understanding ) before we can build our Islamic self. So that the Muslim in us is not and empty veneer but something that withstands loads because we have our Imaan.

That is why it is scary to meet those who practise the 5 pillars but refuse to do more than verbally dictate the pillars of Imaan without eradicating any rising doubts within them. It's ok to question your belief so long as you strive to find the answers with an open-mind ( and question with an open-mind ). Be a quality Muslim. Know and understand why you pray and believe.

When your Imaan is strong and your practice is fulfilled, here is where Ihsan should be attained as best as you can.

Bismillah and InsyaAllah.

An Anecdote on Personal Views.

When you're young and voicing out your opinions immediately makes you feel so smart and wise beyond your years. It's the selfish pride of having opinions, really. Sometimes utterly baseless. Sometimes filled with projections and anecdotes to satisfy a very biased perspective. Sometimes purely self-indulgent to the point of believing the path you are on is the only right path and anyone who agrees with you are also smart and wise and beyond their years.

A youth starts off tottering and jostled about by the current of objectivity. The innate urge to be 'awesome' and amount to something puts energy into your rebellious mind and you start to swim upstream, feeling all powerful against the current. But then again, my dear, all salmons swim upstream to die the same death.

Enter the point of believing you are the savior, the maverick, the hero everybody is waiting for. Your every word, every emotional outburst, every creation is a gift from God. You hold to that belief. They will start to see it your way. And then they'll be on the right path. Your ideas will stir the mass into an inspired confusion of admiration. Oh this what you see in your bubble of air, safe and sound from the "mass" but indifferent to those similarly trapped in their personal bubbles.

Come out, child. Burst your bubble. Don't worry much because the air is sweeter out here. Look around and realise that you are not alone. Everybody is in an infinitely wide pool, seemingly aimless but surely they swim to a point only they can see. Question them if you can't see what they see but never try to steer them to a course they do not need or want to go to. If you are lucky, they'll let you in for a while and you can sip a bit of their air in their flavour of choice. You might not like it but please be polite and take a taste. You might be surprised how flavours added to yours can create an entirely new and wonderful kind of vision.

Get high and visit their castles in the air and maybe your own will start to look more solid and real and no storm can break it away from that pinnacle of success you're climbing to.

Good luck. If you crash, fear not. Not everybody is stuck in their own bubble or floating aimlessly along the current. Sometimes you'll find another soul flitting around like you. If you crash, there'll be others to help you up, if you say please.

Good luck and think again and again.

Let's take a walk through the corridors with music.

Calling architecture enthusiasts and appreciators.

I have this idea. Let's choose a building and each have a set of songs / playlist to listen to while we 'experience' the building. I bet the music would influence the paths we choose, the views we notice and the details we admire. Write or sketch the observations made while still influenced by the music.

"Add the present influences of space & music to the past influences of background & lifestyle. Subjectivity in architectural appreciation." I tweeted just now.

It would be an interesting project, won't it? Documenting how differences in immediate influences and subconscious influences shape our perception. :)

So who's interested?

Avalanche of Ideas.

I recently got ambushed by a group of story ideas, all twisted in their own sweet and creepy ways. I've written the synopses down but now I feel like writing proper short stories. Here are the breakdowns of the stories that visited me so far.

1. Nasi Lemak Mak
This story was really a result of brainstorming with my favourite married couple, Neem and Kawar. I think we were all drowsy and tired and hungry and somehow that was conducive to our creative flow. The story centres on a man who did not go through grief for his mother's passing yet he's showing signs of not letting go. He becomes obsessed with Nasi Lemak because it was his mother's famous dish. The story follows his journey throughout the country looking for compensations for Nasi Lemak. During his travel, he gets to observe and meet people who are also going through hardships and troubles but seem to be coping with it while being fully aware. He comes home changed, although not obviously. He finally finds the right balance between acceptance and appreciation, of letting go and retaining memories. I'm quite proud of how the ending turns out. *wink*

2. Susu Kotak
This is more of a short film / short story. It's a love story with a twist. A pair of childhood lovers got separated so young and long ago. The man finds the woman again 15 years later. They meet up and it is not to rekindle a fire like the woman hopes for but to give a final closure. There is a twist at the end that I think should be endearing and tragic for some people. I'll write this as a proper short story soon, I promise.

3. Jendela
I had this idea a couple of years ago. I woke up with a vivid dream about this. It starts off perfectly harmless but develops into a psycho-thriller. I had the idea of making a presentation of story through a series of photos. I won't spoil the story yet. This should be written down properly too. It involves a photo of a beautiful scene framed by a window in a stark white room, a curious woman and an artistic motive.

4. Project O.G.E.
Project O.G.E. stands for Project One Generation Entity. It is such a 'meta' idea, I can't help but get shivers the moment I thought this up clearly. It was actually inspired from a dream I had. Let me just tell you truthfully that I dreamed of Redza Minhat. Yes yes I'm a fan. *sheepish grin* Anyway, in my dream, he was writing a film and asking a bunch of people to help with his experimentation research. Anyway, it's a very long synopsis to write but let's just say it's about viral videos, film-making, propaganda, dystopia and meta. If this idea falls through, it would literally be a dream come true if Redza Minhat plays Uqbah Ahmad, the film-maker. *starry-eyed*


So yeah. Those were the ideas cluttering up my brain. Oh and the reason why I'm suddenly thinking up ideas for films is that an ex-university colleague of mine is looking for good film ideas. If you are interested in sending your stories to her, do drop a comment and I'll pass it on to her.

She also mentioned how there has been too many love stories and unfunny comedies given out as ideas for films and they are looking for something different to further help the film industries. Just make sure the stories won't require an extremely huge budget (like sci-fi with CGI or crazy settings and props).