On Selfhood

In one sense you have only one self. But in another sense you have multiple selves. And yet in still another sense you have no self at all.

[From my notes. Not a complete thought but a possible theme for future stories.]

My last day at work for this year before my vacation. Tomorrow we travel. I didn't finish the book I'm reading, so it'll be coming along with me probably. Or should I take something else? something more light? Hmm...

I have read only 29 books this year. On the other hand, I did write and post more. In the second half of the year, at least. If I go on in the same way for the whole of next year, maybe a few of them could be good enough for a collection. Maybe for now, before I get busy with my travels, I will post the incomplete notes and drafts I have which I don't know what to do with.

Lost

He talked to me about others he deemed to be lost. He talked about what it meant to be lost as if there was only one way to be lost. He talked about it from the perspective of an outsider, and I pretended to be an outsider too. If I were to tell him I was an insider, that I was lost too, this would only fill him with loss and he wouldn't know how to cope, he wouldn't deal with being lost as I do. He would be like someone who lost something, which is different from not knowing the way. Being lost, not knowing the way, can be very different from loss.

[First draft.]

2022-2023 Readings

My reading plan for next year is to reread books, either different translations of some of my favorites, uncensored versions, or completing collections I hadn't before. In the words of Nietzsche according to an article I found online, those books "that spoke to me", and according to the Walter Kaufmann translations I have, it's those "proved to me", which also makes sense.

This is the current plan anyway, ultimately the moment decides for itself...

As for this year's favorites:

I think the best fiction book I read this year was Auto Da Fe, which was a mad book about mad characters, and I wanted to write my thoughts on it at the time but as always I got carried away with other books and other things. Suffice to say I wouldn't recommend the book to everyone, and I don't mean that from some kind of elitist perspective, I feel it's really a crazy story and I can't believe anyone would write such a thing. Definitely not a book I think I could ever reread either. 

Best nonfiction would probably be Rediscovering the Islamic Classics, which I raved about to people around me when I read it, and I'm looking forward to getting the Arabic translation when it comes out so I can share it around.

Timing

He died at 6:22 am. The car had swerved at 6:19. He had closed his eyes at 6:18. When he opened his eyes, still at 6:18, it was already too late. He had left for work at 6:06, so that he could arrive by 6:30, so that he could leave at 2:30 pm and be back home by 3. He woke up at 5 am.

[Edited on 28-02-2023.]

The Eyes of Others

She hated herself when she looked through the fog and was able to see herself. Only when someone liked her did she like herself; when she looked at herself through another’s eyes with the distortion of desire. This was why she did not reject those who liked her even when she didn't like them. She would resist at first, but at some point, she would succumb to their wills. This was also why she hated herself when she saw what she was doing, until the next person helped her lose sight of herself again and she was glamorized by someone who desired her. And so it goes, a blurry love that leaves behind a hateful clarity, until a new one comes along.

[Edited 20-12-2022. Wrote this a while ago and forgot about it in my drafts. I still don't like it. Needs something different. Except for the Billy Joel homage in the end.]

Being

There is no necessity to my being. I didn't have to be who I was, I didn't have to be at all; I could have been someone else and I can still be someone else. I once came across someone from a distance who reminded me of who I could have been, who I could still be; it was an eerie glimpse into one of my possible other selves. I wondered what it would have been like to meet this person who was living one of my possible lives, and I wonder now, though I don’t know if I had thought of this back then, if I was living his other possible life. Maybe I’m living other people’s possibilities, just as others are living mine.
I go on being who I'm being though, not who I am, and I don't know which is more authentic or what that even means if it means anything at all.

[On Instagram.]

A Manifesto

Let us make an art of being unable to say what we cannot say. 

Let us be masters in our lostness. Let us enjoy the sights, even those that don’t exist except in our minds, in this path to I don’t know where. 

And if we cannot write except that we cannot write then let us write that we cannot write. 

[Posted on Instagram.]

Last Thoughts

He shivered as they took him to his executioners. His hands were tied behind his back. The men who led him were not rough, they did not take pleasure in his punishment. The night was warm, and quiet as if listening to his thoughts. His thoughts were what made him shiver. He was wondering if his death would be worth it, if the revolution would succeed or if the state would win in the end, if the people would believe him to be a hero who died for them or a traitor who died for some sinister agenda; he knew it was what people did with his death that would determine whether his death was worth it or not; and not knowing what they would do, he shivered until he was dead.

Infinite Fiction

If I were to create a fictional self and that fictional self resembled me, and that fictional self would be as consumed as I am with creating a fictional self, then that fictional self would create a fictional self who resembles him, who would, in turn, create a fictional self, who would then, of course, create another fictional self, and on and on it would go without ending...

Or it would end only with my ending, as the original real self. But then another dilemma occurs to me, which is, since each fictional self believes himself to be real and the first creator of a series of endless creations, then would it not make sense for me too to wonder if I am also another fictional self in this never-ending story?

Ugliness

His physical ugliness revealed my inner ugliness. I was repulsed by him, through no moral flaw on his part, though my mind rapidly sought to find one. I wanted to justify my revulsion; I could not accept that I was repulsed by someone merely for their physical appearance. But, perhaps because I was slow in my thinking, I saw clearly what I was doing and when I saw my inner ugliness, when I became aware of its existence, I wondered how others reacted to my own appearance, and I wondered if they were ever conscious of it as I had just become. Perhaps those who were faster in their thinking couldn't tell what their minds were doing.
And I decided to forgive them for what they did not know.

[Posted on Instagram.]

Writing A Story

In order to entertain himself, a writer began to write a story. He had no plot in mind, no characters to follow, but he wanted to keep himself busy and entertained, so he kept on writing. After a while he wanted to stop, but he thought of how his life was when he wasn't writing, which he hated, so he kept on writing. He wrote on some more until he felt hungry, but he remembered how he was full before when he wasn't writing and he had hated what it was like to not be writing, so he didn't stop writing. He felt very thirsty after a while but he remembered how he wasn't thirsty before writing but he wasn't happy either so he continued writing. Until he wasn't hungry any more, he wasn't thirsty, he wasn't tired, he wasn't writing, he wasn't even living. 

Doubts

I doubted myself and thought maybe the others were right. I thought everyone should doubt themselves, that self-doubt was healthy. But then I came to think, What if the others were right in not doubting themselves? This was taking my self-doubt to its conclusion. Thus I learned from doubting myself and trusting others to trust myself and doubt my doubts. But I got into a heated argument with a friend in which I trusted myself and she trusted herself too, and it seemed as if each of us was blind to the possibility of being wrong though one of us had to be, and I remembered that this was why I had previously concluded that self-doubt was healthy since to discover one’s mistakes required questioning oneself, and so I returned to doubting myself and trusting in my doubts.


[Posted on Instagram.]

Anger

A young man got angry at an older man. I, though not knowing either one of them, felt angry at the younger man for getting angry. I thought he had no right to get angry and it angers me when someone is unnecessarily angry. I wanted to respond angrily to the angry young man, and I kept getting angrier as I imagined the angry words I would say to him, and I got angrier as I thought of his angry responses to me because surely he would get angrier at my words of anger too. The day went on, and we each went our separate ways. I don’t know if the other two still feel angry, reliving the conversation they had, but I know I’m still angry, imagining the conversation I never had.

[Rewrote this older story, and posted it again on Instagram, where you can go like it.]

What Matters

I wanted to tell you that it matters, because I thought of this instance in which it does matter, but then I thought of other instances in which it doesn’t matter and I decided not to tell you that it matters, because I don’t want you thinking of instances in which it doesn’t matter when I’m telling you that it does matter, and I don’t want to tell you that it doesn’t matter because I don’t want you thinking of instances (like the thought that started this) in which it does matter when I’m telling you that it doesn’t matter.

Words in his mouth

She put words in his mouth. She then responded to the words she put in his mouth. She didn’t like what he didn’t say and she asked him why he would say such a thing. She asked him how he could say such a thing. He didn't know why he would say such a thing, and he didn’t know how he could say such a thing. But because he forgot how he never did say such a thing, he too asked himself how he could and wondered why he would say such a thing.

[Posted on Instagram.]

A Written Web

If you wrote a book about someone, you’d like it if they wrote a book about you. If you wrote a chapter about them, you’d like it if they wrote a chapter too. If someone is a footnote in your book, you’d like to be a footnote in theirs. If you’ve erased someone from your book, you hope you’ve also been erased from theirs.
You don’t want them to do this to return the favor, you want everything to be genuinely mutual. You want whatever is sincere within you to also be originating sincerely within them at the same moment organically.

Yes, you want all this, possibly without knowing you want all this. It’s an unrealistic, unconscious fantasy.
Reality, however, weaves a web not so symmetrical, in which you’re a footnote to someone who’s a book to you, if you’re lucky enough not to be erased, you’re a book to someone who’s a chapter to you, a footnote to a chapter, a book to a footnote, forgotten by the remembered, remembered by the forgotten.

And so it goes. 

[Repost from Instagram, so head there and click Like if you liked it.]

Silence

He woke up, suddenly, in the middle of the night, because of the silence. The silence of voices he had expected to hear, the silence too loud to ignore. He attempted to think of words, to write down words that would end the silence and bring back the voices. He panicked when he couldn't think of what to say or find the right words, as if he lacked oxygen. He decided, to relieve himself from feeling, to write down, if nothing else, how it felt to not know what to say, how he felt about the silence and the lack of words, so he wrote, "I am suffocated by the silence of my self when I cannot think of the right words." And suddenly, he could breathe again.

[Now on Instagram, where you can like it, if you like it.]

Ideal Readers

What kind of readers would I like? Those more interested in the writing than the biography. Those that can enjoy texts regardless of context. I find pleasure in words that I come across even when they don't represent me, even when I can't relate to the I in the text, as long as I like how it's written; and that's the kind of readers I wish to have. Of course, relating to the words can be beautiful, and if you do relate then good for you; I just mean that is not the only goal. The least worthy goal for my ideal reader is searching (mainly) for my biography in what I write.

Rereadings

When he was twenty-three he got lost in the moment with her; she was thirty-three at the time. Back then he felt she was lost in the moment with him too, but by his twenty-seventh year, when twenty-three seemed a lifetime ago and thirty-three still seemed far ahead, he looked back and thought she couldn't have been caught up in the moment with him, as he had been with her; she must have known exactly what she was doing, she must have been more in control than she had seemed to him; thirty-three must be too wise to get lost like that, thirty-three must mean full control. He spent the next few years of his life hating her and blaming her for much of what happened to him, with her, and after her. This continued until he reached his thirty-second year and thirty-three was just around the corner, when he still didn't find the control he had expected to have by then, he still got caught up and got lost in the moment. Now he understood it all differently, and the bitter memories he had long replayed repeatedly in his mind gave way to other memories he had forgotten, fond moments he smiled at as he remembered. What he regretted, now, was all the bitterness, and the time he'd spent hating what he now saw was never worth the hate at all.

Really

She said she really likes his photos, the ones he posts on Instagram. He said she really doesn't. She insisted she really does. "But really you don't," he said. She called him rude and said this was no way to take a compliment. She thought he was emphasizing on "really", but really, he was talking about Instagram likes.

[Edited on 28-02-2023]

The Right Words

He wanted to somehow convey to her why they were a good idea. She wanted to explain why she didn't think they would work. He tried to be clear with his words about what he wanted. She tried to hint at him, to lead him to the conclusion she had arrived at without saying what would hurt him. They both believed there was a right way to express what they wanted, a right combination of words that would give them their desired results, but the right words and the rightly said words, if they truly existed, eluded them both. In the end, they surrendered their speeches to the despair of silence, a silence that explains nothing...

[Edited 03-12-2022.]

Different things

They wanted different things. In itself this was not a problem, not always. But they wanted different things from each other. If they wanted different things but wanted the same things from each other, that could work for them. If they wanted different things from each other and they were each getting what they wanted, maybe that would work too. But they wanted each other to want the same things they wanted from each other and they weren't getting what they wanted, for neither of them could control their own wants, much less that of the other.

[Edited 23-11-2022. Posted on Instagram.]

Between what was and what should have been

All that happened was not supposed to happen. And all that was supposed to happen did not happen. My imagination of events, because it fixates on what was supposed to happen, makes more sense to me than my memories of these events. The fickleness of our decisions! What we could never foresee or even understand in hindsight. How was the line drawn, or erased, and when?

[Posted on Instagram.]

Repost: On Types

She's looking through my books for certain types of books while I'm looking through other types of books. She laughs and praises God as she points to the type of books she's looking through, which she thinks of as praiseworthy, in contrast to the type I'm looking through, forgetting that all these books (the ones she's looking through and the ones I'm looking through) are mine. She borrows a book from me; she would like to read this book; she would like to be the type of person who would read this book, and she thinks I'm the type of person who wouldn't read this book, again forgetting it's from me she's borrowing this book. When she tries to read it, she finds it not to her liking; she had expected much more from the book. Years go by, and I ask for my book back. She's forgotten she borrowed it from me; she's forgotten her impression of the book when she did try to read it, she remembers though, that she wants to be the type to have read this book (and liked it), and she remembers that she thinks I'm the type to not like this book, again forgetting the book is mine, as she says: "That book is pure gold."

[Edited 23-11-2022. Posted on Instagram.]

She wanted to seduce him, but he wouldn’t be seduced. He would be seduced, but not by her. He would be seduced by her, but not this time, not again. He would be seduced by her, even this time, again, but not this way. He would be seduced by her, even this time, again, even this way, but not with these words. She wanted to seduce him and she could seduce him, but she had to get too many things right which she couldn’t or for some reason didn’t, and so she didn’t seduce him and thus found him to be unseduceable. 

Who She Was

She didn’t know who she was anymore. When she was alone she said things to herself about who she was. She said she was the type to do this, she was the type to not do that. But then experience came along and put her in situations she hadn’t been in before, in which she had thought she would act in a certain way but ended up behaving in a way that shocked her. She had mistakenly assumed that she was who she was when she was alone, but it was other people who revealed her to herself and showed her what she could do. Maybe she did know herself, but only the self she was when she was alone and not the countless other selves she could be, which only time and other people would continue to reveal to her.

[Edited on 12-11-2022, posted on Instagram.]

Humanity is the confusion
of having animal brains
with transcendent aspirations,
each forgetting about the other.

[Posted two years ago on Instagram.]

Haunted

I am haunted by other people. I am haunted by my thoughts of other people. Haunted by the thoughts of others; what I imagine to be the thoughts of others. The feelings of others, or what I imagine to be the feelings of others. All of which, I recognize, may have no reality whatsoever outside of my own head. I am haunted by my own self; I am the one who haunts.

[Posted on Instagram.]

Repost: Ego

Although he hurt my ego, and my instinct was to blame him for hurting me, I held myself. Since I knew it was my ego that was hurt, I told myself I should not react in defense of my ego. This made me feel good since I got to tell myself, "Look how noble you are, allowing him to say what hurts you because you don't want to defend your ego." Being aware of this self-deception though, disarmed my defense, and I was left again with my offended ego. I now became very conscious of my self-deception and my ego; I was also aware that these were subtle incidents in one's soul that others may not notice in themselves. This last bit was also a defense mechanism in which I told myself not how noble I was, but how everyone else must be just as bad, (although I was also praising myself for noticing).

(Edited and reposted. Now on Instagram.)

Repost: Feeling

Sometimes it feels like what you feel in the moment is all there is to feel, and all you should ever feel and all you should have ever felt, as if you owe this feeling your loyalty, and you feel guilty (alongside the original feeling) about all the other times in which you didn’t feel this feeling, and all the other feelings you felt instead of this feeling, and you plead with yourself to never forget what this is like and to never let it go, but of course, this is futile, as each moment is transitory and soon replaced with another overwhelming feeling that imposes itself on you. 

[Reposted on Instagram too.]

On Forgiving and Forgetting

He wrote about forgiving and forgetting, because he wanted to forgive and forget. He wanted to forget first, so there'd be nothing to forgive. But even though he forgave at times, he wouldn't forget. He would sometimes, however, forget he’d already forgiven. And at some point, he found out he'd been mistaken all along; that there was nothing for him to forgive. But this too he eventually forgot. 

[Posted on Instagram. Edited here on 30-10-2022]

His Loss

She said it was his loss. She knew he didn’t think it was his loss, but she wished he thought it was his loss. She said it was his loss because she wanted him to think at least she thought it was his loss.
He said nothing, because it didn’t matter to him if she thought it was his loss or her loss. He just wanted it to end.

[Edited on 11-11-2022]

Untalked About

I don't want to talk about it. I do want to write about not wanting to talk about it though. But if I write about not wanting to talk about it, I'll have talked about it. So instead, I'll write about not wanting to talk about it and wanting to write about not wanting to talk about it. If no one knows what I wanted to talk about, then I won't have talked about it. But something is still nagging at me, and I think it's because the truth is I do want to talk about it; I just want to behave as if I have never talked about it.

[Posted on Instagram. Edited (because of a mistake) on 3-11-2022]

On Knowing

It's good to know. It's also good to know when you know. It's okay not to know. But it's bad not to know that you don't know. Worse still is not to know and to be certain that you do know. And worst of all is when you don't know and you think you know and you bash everyone else for not knowing what it is you think you know.

[Previously posted on Instagram, written in my notes long before that. Six sentences, before I knew about six sentences.]

Choices

Looking back, she thought of it as a moment of frankness, in which she was being honest so as not to lead him on. He looked back and remembered it as a moment of cruelty, in which she had been callous to him when she could have been kind. Then again, there was this other moment, which she remembered not being so honest to spare his feelings; he remembered that as a moment of deceit and deception. The truth hurt, but so did a lie. Sometimes it seemed to her that she was stuck with no way out, between two pains. No matter what she chose, she would be accused of a crime.

[Posted on Instagram.]

The Neck: Part 2

He wrote a story about falling in love with her neck. He was very clear in the story about how it was only a part of him that loved a part of her. And though they had never talked before, he shared the story with her and told her the story was inspired by her neck. She loved the story, and she wanted more. She didn't mind that it was only her neck or mostly her neck that he wanted. She used her neck to make him want more. She wanted more parts of him to be in love with more parts of her. She liked how in love with her neck he was, how obsessive he seemed to be over her neck. It made her feel attractive, even special, since he was someone she wouldn't have expected to notice her. He had surprised her with the story, and she had surprised herself by liking someone who freely admitted only liking a part of her. She would have considered this to be superficial behavior before if she had seen it from someone else, and she never saw herself as that. She had a good opinion of herself, and rightly too as others would testify. But it is often the case that we don't know what we're capable of until we are put in a situation. This unpredictability in both of them excited her. She had discovered more about herself and people in general through reading the story and through her reaction to the story. She understood now that she was also made of parts and it was part of her that liked this part of him that was attracted to her neck, she also understood that the part of her that would have judged others for this behavior was part of her still; contradictory parts that coexisted within her, and the contradiction gave birth to more forgiving parts; for as she forgave herself she also forgave others (including him) for being made of different parts and not functioning always as coherent wholes; and as she forgave others this made her feel less burdened and thus allowed her to abandon the judgmental part of her while she enjoyed for a while this newly discovered part, which she came to know through reading the story about her neck.

[Part 2 of The Neck, still needs some editing.]

The Brahmin Tutor

As a child growing up in Bombay, my grandmother wasn’t good at Sanskrit. She went to the house of an older Brahmin student who would tutor her. At the Brahmin house, they covered all their furniture and made my grandmother sit in the balcony so she wouldn’t touch anything. After partition, when my grandmother moved to Karachi and enrolled in a college, she was shocked to see her former tutor there. The tutor made a pleading gesture, putting her finger to her lips; she had married a Muslim and migrated with him.
“Please don’t tell on me,” she begged.

[Edited on 14-12-2022, three years after her passing. Now on Instagram.]

Disappointing

Sometimes I imagine looking at myself from the eyes of another, in which case, of course, I wouldn’t be myself; I feel the disappointment of the other; I feel doubly disappointed in fact, since I also feel myself being disappointed at having disappointed another.

[Previously posted on Instagram, slightly edited here.]

The House that Someone Built

This is the house that someone built.

This is the house that we were told that someone built.

This is the house that we were told never to leave, that someone built.

This is the house that we were told was the best of all, and never to leave, that someone built.

This is the house that we were told its people were blessed, was the best of all, and never to leave, that someone built.

This is the house that we were told no others deserved, its people were blessed, was the best of all, and never to leave, that someone built.

This is the house we barely knew, that we were told no others deserved, its people were blessed, was the best of all, and never to leave, that someone built.

This is the house we barely knew, the only house we really knew, that we were told no others deserved, its people were blessed, was the best of all, and never to leave, that someone built.

[In my notes from 2018, posted on Instagram three years ago today, 01-10-2019.]

Retirement

They ended his services. That was his death sentence. He couldn’t afford to stay in the country any more, so he went back home to a family that neglected him. He was old and he was sick, which was why his employers let him go. They let him go to save some money. And his family let him die, so they could inherit his money.

Feeling

Sometimes it feels like what you feel in the moment is all there is to feel, and all you should ever feel and all you should have ever felt, as if you owe this feeling your loyalty, and you feel guilty (alongside the original feeling, even if that feeling is guilt) about all the other times in which you didn’t feel this feeling, and all the other feelings you felt instead of this feeling; you plead with yourself to never forget what this is like and to never let it go, but of course, this is futile as each moment is transitory and soon replaced with another overwhelming feeling that imposes itself on you. 

[Previously posted on Instagram, with minor edits here.]

Between the Blog and Instagram

I've been posting on Instagram the pieces that got more hits on the blog, but after a few times it didn't seem like there's a necessary correlation. Meaning if a particular post gets clicked on more on the blog doesn't mean it would get more likes on Instagram. So yesterday I posted the Jigsaw piece on Instagram, though it hadn't gotten many clicks at all on the blog, and sure enough it got more attention there. I guess I have to be more conscious of the difference between the two audiences. Not that I know anything much at all about who's reading me here.

On Remembering

We forget what we once knew, and we inevitably replace it with what we think we now know. It happened in a certain way, but there are details that I don’t remember, and therefore my memory of the whole thing without those crucial details does not make sense. So instead of sticking to what I do remember, I distort it into something else and fill the gaps in a way that does make sense. Other memories help support this distortion and a reinterpretation of events reinforces my new narrative. It is imperative to forget, however, that this was not how I always saw it. I must also forget that at some point there was much I remembered not remembering, and much I intentionally forgot. 

[Edited: 20/10/2022]

Not a Poet

I never became a poet. 
Though I once thought of a poem 
or a few verses 
to write about you, 
but you vanished 
before the poem was born.

[Posted three years ago on Instagram, but written more than 8 years ago in 2014.]

Non-Vegetarian

Ethically speaking, he didn’t know how to justify eating animals. His only defense was that God had made all things for Man. “If I ever stop believing in God, I would have no justification to eat meat,” he would say. (This was more reason to keep believing in God, since he didn’t want to stop eating meat.) One day, however, he did stop believing in God, but he did not stop eating meat. “I lost God,” he said, “you want me to lose meat too?”

[Posted on Instagram.]

She Wrote

He came across the name of an old lover of his in an article about writers on love. She hadn't been a writer when he loved her, he had been the writer between the two. The title of the book supposedly containing her writings sounded familiar to him. He looked through his books, suspecting he already owned the book, and there it was, innocently surrounded by other books of the same genre. He thought she must be one of many contributing writers, which would explain why he hadn't noticed her name before, but he was surprised to find the book had only a single author, her. The book inflamed him with jealousy for various reasons, starting from the quality of the writing, to questions about when she had written this and whether writing had been a secret she had actively kept from him; had she been writing every time he hadn't known where she was; had she been writing when she had ignored him, when her excuses had not made sense, and finally to the aching realization that the content of the writing completely excluded him: every man she wrote about, deemed worth writing about, he was not one of them. 

His Rules

It's not that he didn't have any rules, in fact he had many rules. Perhaps he had too many rules, she first felt. But she came to discover that he broke the rules he had, or the rules he said he had. Or he said he had a rule, but he didn't say (at first) that he hadn't always had that rule, that he had done certain things before that were against that rule but later (perhaps as a result of doing those things) he made a rule to not do them. Or he did always have that rule, but he did not always stick to that rule, though he wished he would always stick to that rule in the future. So when he said he had rules, he listed those rules, which he wished he followed, which he wished he was the kind to follow, the kind to have always followed. 

الشوق

إنّ شوقي لكِ حبرٌ

ولِحبري لك شوقٌ.

[In my notes since 2017, at least. Posted it as a story on my Instagram three years ago on 18-9-2019, decided to share it as a post today.]

Could-have-been

When she thought of it, which she tried not to, but when she did think of it, she scared herself. She knew she wanted him now just as much as she had wanted him then, and she wondered, if back then she had been who she was now, how much bolder she would have been. How she would have pursued him. How many wrongs she'd have done. And if it had been with the easier technologies available to them today, what she could have done! She feared herself and the possibilities within her that no one else could see, the possibilities that were hers alone to fantasize. 

[Edit: 16-9-2022]

Wants

Many wanted what she had, but she wanted him to want what she had. She wanted him to look at her, to see what she had, but she didn’t want him to know she wanted him to look, to see; she didn’t want him to think she was the type of person who would want him to see. She wanted him to want to look at her, to see what she had, so that when she would allow him to look, to see, he would think, “I wanted to, and she let me because I wanted to, not because she herself wanted me to.” 

He did want what she had, he wanted to look at her, to see what she had. He wanted her to want him, and to want him to want her, to want him to look at her, to let him look, to see, to show him what she had; but he didn’t want her to think he wanted her before she wanted him to want her, so he waited while she waited, and there they still remain, waiting. Wanting. 

[Something I wrote a while ago which I liked and hoped to post somewhere more public, but gave up, I guess. Edited 16-12-2022]

He returns

It's been almost two weeks since I posted anything here. I was on a trip to Bali, Indonesia. I did try playing with a short piece I'd written before, I rewrote many versions (almost on a daily basis) but I still don't know if I'm content enough with any. Even though this is supposed to the place to post drafts, but I guess it's not as easy as I thought. And then there are pieces which I like a lot and so try to find other places to post them in, public platforms that accept submissions. Actually the piece I was working on in Bali is one which I have submitted somewhere. So far I haven't heard back from wherever I have submitted anything. I'm trying not to feel too discouraged. "Write it and they will come." 
Anyway, now that I'm back at my desk at work, I'll find more distractions to write down. 

The Devil’s Whispers

I know what the devil whispers to me, but I often wonder what the devil whispers to others, what the devil whispers to others about me. If someone usually warm is suddenly aloof, I'll wonder if the devil has whispered to them. Although that thought too could sometimes be something the devil whispers to me. As in when I get into a fight with someone because of what I think they thought, because of what I think the devil whispered to them; then the devil has whispered to me about what the devil whispered to them. But sometimes it isn't the devil's whispers, like when I try to be nicer to someone usually warm but suddenly aloof because I think maybe the devil whispered to them. It isn't the devil's whispers either when I think their bad behavior is from the devil's whispers instead of thinking this person is behaving badly because of their bad traits, since I'm then giving them the benefit of the doubt, which I doubt would be the devil's whispers. 

The Limits

"I don't know, and neither do you." 

"Neither do they." 

"But you don't know whether they do or don't know, and neither do I." 

"So what do we know?" 

"We know that we don't know. We also know that you think they don't know and I think they do know, but we don't know and can't know whether or not they do know, and this is all that we can know." 

[Posted these six sentences on Instagram in June.]

Thoughts on the blog

I'm wondering about this blog. I really feel it's time for a new social media platform, that takes the best from all the other platforms. For now, I will continue using this, although this probably isn't even social media, or I'm not using it as such by visiting other blogs, engaging with other bloggers, etc. 
Wondering if Tumblr would have been a better choice. The possibility still remains, to create a blog there too and link it to the other platforms. 

Also wondering what I should post here from my notes, and what to post from here on Instagram. The Neck post got more hits than others, but I don't think I'd post it there. I am conscious of who follows me where (family, friends, etc.) and that determines what I post and where sometimes. 

Update

Removed the Like button as it didn't seem to be working, (not because
no one was using it thank you very much).

Do unto others…

She often said how she liked it when older people didn’t treat her like they were much older, like the age gap between them was not as great as it was, she liked it so much that she too didn’t treat them like they were much older, she liked it so much that she treated younger people like they were much younger, like she was much older, like the age gap between them was much greater than it was.

[Edit: 20-10-2022]

Heresy

I've never heard this before, and you should be very careful about thinking things I've never heard before, because if I've never heard it before then there must be good reason why I've never heard it before, but if I do hear it even once from anyone who isn't you at least, then you'd be allowed to think it because then I would have heard it before. 

Posted on Instagram. 

Edited on 28-09-2022.

Considerate

She wants to play chess with him. He wants to jump off the balcony. She says they'll play a game or two once she's back from the laundry. He wonders if that will give him enough time to finish his pre-jump preparations. She's gone to bring clean sheets. He doesn't want to leave a mess behind; that would be too inconsiderate. 

[Posted on Instagram.]

Reciprocity

She liked his paintings. She liked what he painted and she liked how he painted. She liked him, and she wrote to him to tell him how much she liked what he painted and how he painted, and to show him a few of her own paintings. She was pleasantly surprised when he wrote back to her, but bitterly disappointed when he didn't like her paintings as much as she liked his. She didn't like him after that, nor what he painted, nor how he painted. This surprised him, since what he painted and how he painted had not changed; he didn't know he had to like another person's paintings for them to like his own. 

Edit: 15-09-2022

(Now posted on Instagram.)

A Traumatic Sentence

I heard a sentence many years ago which traumatized me and which I've never been able to forget. Someone said, "She thinks she's good at what she does, that is the problem." It wasn't said about me, but I forever live in fear of the same thing being thought about me, whispered behind my back. The only way I've known to escape this is to never think I'm good at what I do. A forced but genuine humility, which, though crippling, has its advantage. Better to be good and doubt it than bad and have no doubts. 

Posted on Instagram. 

Face Masks

She hated wearing face masks. She was an artist, her face her artistic masterpiece. And like all artists, she wanted to show off her art and gauge people's reactions. She hated being forced into anonymity, just another face mask in the mass of face masks. Those around her shared her feelings: they too hated masks on her face. They loved looking at her face maskless, with their own faces masked, secretly gazing, lost in a sea of anonymous art lovers. 

Posted on Instagram. 

Familiarity

When you see someone you don't know who looks like someone you do know, even if not personally, it feels as if that familiar person's spirit is in an unfamiliar person's body, and as you observe this person you don't know waiting for the person you do know to manifest in their words and mannerisms, you're filled with familiar feelings: if you like the person you know, you find yourself liking the person you don't know, if you mistrust the person you know you look at this stranger with suspicion, waiting for the same flaws to appear, and so it goes, as if you really believe (even though you don't) that the spirit of the person you do know is in the body of this person you don't know. 

Posted on Instagram. 

Jigsaw

I found myself one day as a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. I was one piece among numerous others, each of us unique in our combination of shape and colors. Each of us looked for its place in the puzzle; that we each had a place in the puzzle we somehow knew instinctively. When we found our place we sometimes didn't know which side went into which space, and it took us a while to figure it out. But we did know, again instinctively, that there was a right side and a right space, and that one of us could be in the right place but not positioned in the right way and therefore would not fit. We also knew that all of us were essential, and it was only with all of us that the whole puzzle would be complete. 

[Posted on Instagram.]

Between the Fake and the Real

It was hard to tell whose lips were real anymore. This was especially sad for people whose lips were real but assumed to be fake by everyone. Real people who looked fake were sadder than fake people who looked fake. Fake people who looked real were the lucky ones, definitely luckier than the real ones who looked fake. And real people who looked real? They probably wished they looked like the fake people who looked real.

Internalizing Ideas

But once we read a word or see an image, do we not then internalize them? Do they not become part of our imagination and our lexicon, whether we agree with the ideas in these words and images or not? For example, perhaps your answer to these questions is no, and yet some instance in the future will remind you of these questions. This would, I believe, prove my point, since you have internalized the questions, whether you change your answer or not.

This is how we sometimes confuse other people's thoughts for our own, after having internalized them and forgetting their source of origin. Like someone who hears an opinion from you and comes to you later expressing the same opinion hesitantly, as if after arriving at his conclusion due to his laborious research, he worries that you may disagree for dogmatic reasons. He asks you after he relays your opinion back to you: "Do you agree?" And to avoid a scene, and at the expense of your ego, you say yes, you agree with him.

Excerpt from a story in my notes, written in 2014. Posted now on Instagram. 

Blindness

I thought he was blind and I could see. Everyone else thought he was blind and we could see, too. He didn't think he was blind, he thought we couldn't see what he could see. He was surer than I was sure, and this made me more unsure, especially when I didn't have anyone else around to confirm what I'd see. I wondered, if he was so certain, if we were each so certain of what we were seeing, how could I tell which of us could see? And the further I was from everyone else, the less I was able to tell if it was only me. 

Edited: 17-8-2022

The Neck

He fell in love with her neck. He didn't know he was only in love with her neck. No one had ever told him you could fall in love with a neck, or with a single part of another person. He always thought when you fall in love it's the whole of the person that you fall in love with. He went on thinking this even when he fell in love with her neck, he thought he was in love with her. He expressed to her what he thought he felt, and she fell in love too. She fell in love with what he said to her. The feelings were not mutual; it wasn't his neck she was in love with, and it wasn't what she said to him that he was in love with. It was also only part of him that was in love with her neck. Other parts of him were indifferent. The other parts of her bored the other parts of him, and the neck was not redeeming enough. But his love for her neck blinded him. He didn't know that if her neck was on any other person (maybe not any but at least many others) he would follow the neck, and he would think it was this other person he was in love with. This feeling was mutual; if (almost) anyone else had expressed his feelings to her the same way she would have fallen in love too. And so it goes, each of them confusedly loving parts of each other, thinking they're in love with all of each other. 

Edit: 30-09-2022

Lines

It's fine to look with your eyes. Then it's just looking. But if you pull out your phone and use it to look, then that is suspicious. It's fine if you remember it after, that's just your memory. But if you record it and look at it later, that is just strange. It's fine if you squint your eyes to see because you're distant, but if you pull out your binoculars to look, well that's just psychotic.

On Types

She's looking through my books for certain types of books while I'm looking through other types of books. She laughs and praises God as she points to the type of books she's looking through, which she thinks of as praiseworthy, in contrast to the type I'm looking through, forgetting that all these books (the ones she's looking through and the ones I'm looking through) are mine. She borrows a book from me; she would like to read this book; she would like to be the type of person who would read this book, and she thinks I'm the type of person who wouldn't read this book, again forgetting it's from me that she's borrowing this book. When she tries to read it, she finds it not to her liking; she had expected much more from the book. Years go by, and I ask for my book back. She's forgotten that she borrowed it from me; she's forgotten her impression of the book when she did try to read it, she remembers though, that she wants to be the type to have read this book (and liked it), and she remembers that she thinks I'm the type to not like this book, again forgetting the book is mine, and she says: "That book is pure gold."

Edited: 14-11-2022

Neurosis

While one man, feeling physically ill, spends his time recuperating and concentrating on becoming better, looking forward to the return of his good health, another man, neurotic and plagued with malicious thoughts, when suffering from the same physical illness, spends his time consumed with his rage against everyone who isn't expressing compassion towards him, relishing the idea of a future conversation in which he'll be able to bring up this moment of neglect on their part, to add to his list of imagined grievances.

(Written in 2014. Posted now on Instagram.)

On Losing Selves

They lost themselves to each other. "No, they

lost parts of themselves to each other. They lost

parts of themselves, but they found other parts of

themselves. They gave parts of themselves to

parts of each other, but they mistook their partial

selves as whole selves, thus thinking they gave

themselves to each other." They lost parts of

themselves to other parts of themselves, but they

gave what they found to each other, so they lost

their whole selves, to each other. They lost the

selves they had previously known, and they lost

the selves they had found.

Edited: 21-7-2022

Posted on Instagram. 

Before I Forget

I almost forgot this thought I wanted to write about forgetting thoughts I want to write. I wondered, before I forgot, how many thoughts have occurred to me in my life that were (and still are) worth writing but which I never wrote down so I've completely forgotten. 

What a loss these thoughts are, if they ever existed. 

[Edited 7-12-2022. Now on Instagram, where you can like it.]

The Liars

A liar will lie to protect another liar's lie. This, the liar will do, not for an affinity felt between liars but because the liar wants you to believe his own lies if he ever uses a similar lie. If you doubt the other liar's lies, the liar will throw doubts at your doubts, to make you question yourself if it is ever his own lies that draw your suspicions. If you are good at discerning the truth this puts the liar at risk, so the liar tries to damage your truth-detection skills, or failing that, to make you doubt yourself. For his own deceptions to work on you, the liar needs your views of reality to be distorted. For his own lies to work on you, the liar needs you to believe all the other lies. 

Edited: 24-8-2022

On Rules

Rules between rule-makers, rule-keepers, and rule-breakers. Between rule-makers who break the rules, and rule-breakers zealous about the rules, and rule-keepers who don't believe in the rules. Between rule-keepers who would like less rules or no rules, and rule-breakers who want more rules. Between rule-makers who make rules they like and rules they hate, all the rules that benefit them if followed (by others), and rule-breakers who hate rule-makers for not making the rules they believe should be set (for others) even if they themselves would break the rules. Between rule-keepers who are punctual about the rules they keep but believe it is fine not to be so rigid with the rules, and rule-breakers who rage fanatically against rule-keepers for not being as zealous about said rules which rule-breakers lazily break. Rules, say the righteous rule-breakers to the unrighteous rule-keepers, are meant to be made and kept. 

[Edited on 14-10-2022]

Consequences

It was Ramadhan, the fasting man had no patience left. He got out of his car and beat the laborer who had angered him. He looked very official as he beat the laborer. Another man filmed the event, and posted it online. There was an uproar, and a law came out because of this. You were not allowed anymore to post a person's photo or personal data online without their consent.

(Not) Selling dogs can be a dangerous business…

A dog-owner wanted to sell his dog. A dog-buyer came to his house to buy the dog. The dog-owner's little girl told her dad she didn't want him to sell the dog. The dog-owner accepted his daughter's wish and told the dog-buyer he wouldn't be selling the dog. The dog-buyer got up in a rage, went to his car, brought back a sword, hit the dog-owner on the head, and chopped off his hand. The dog-buyer didn't get the dog and went to jail, the dog-owner lost his hand but kept the dog, and the dog lives on, freely, limbs intact.

True story.

Edited: 29-07-2022

Fears and non-fears

Afraid of making a mistake, I avoid doing something, while wondering if it's a mistake to avoid doing it. 

Although I'm worried that doing it may not be a mistake, still I avoid doing it, because what if others think doing it would be a mistake?

And though it would be a useful fear to have, I don't wonder if others would think avoiding it is the mistake.

I wonder why I don't wonder this. 

My Ego

He hurts my ego, and my instinct is to ascribe some moral flaw to him for hurting me. But since I know it's my ego that is hurt, I tell myself I should not react in defense of my ego. This makes me feel better, since I get to tell myself, "Look how noble you are, allowing him to say what hurts you because you don't want to defend your ego." Being aware of this self-deception though, disarms my defense, and I am left again with my offended ego. I am now very conscious of my ego, and my self-deception as a defense mechanism; I am also aware that these are subtle incidents in one's soul that others may not notice in themselves. This last bit is also a defense mechanism in which I am telling myself not how noble I am, but how everyone else must be just as bad, (although I'm also praising myself for noticing).

Edited: 14-09-2022

How



We're hurt by what others say and don't mean, and what they mean and don't say, and what we imagine them to mean, and madly enough, what we imagine them saying and meaning because it makes sense that they would, or that they could, the possibility exists and that is enough to hurt. 

Posted on Instagram. 

A New Nose

Her wedding was coming up and she wanted a new nose. Her old nose was fine, but oh the photos she could post of her honeymoon with her new nose! So she took her old nose to the doctor and asked for a replacement. Her new nose brought her headaches at first, then swelling, then bleeding eventually, finally landing her in the emergency unit in the hospital, and the courts soon after. Her fiancé had left her new nose, she told the courts, and though it wasn't clear why, her job also quit on her new nose. She sometimes dreamed of her old nose laughing at her, mocking her new nose.

[Edited on 04-10-2022]

The Cat

The cat ran out. The man ran after the cat. The man who ran after the cat passed a boy walking his dog who said the dog had scared the cat that ran away. The man who ran beat the boy walking his dog who said the dog had scared the cat that ran away; this upset the dog that scared the cat and pushed the dog to run away. The dog returned, but would not eat nor drink, and slept all day. The court fined the man who beat the boy who walked his dog that ran away and then returned: 5,000 for beating the boy, 40,000 for the dog that ran away and then returned, and 1,000 in legal fees; the court wasn’t told what happened to the cat that ran away. 

(Short story in six sentences. I posted this on Instagram. It was inspired by this article.)

This Blog

My idea for this blog is for it to be like a notebook. This is where I’ll post drafts, notes, thoughts, incomplete writings, and writing exercises like short stories in six sentences and so on. This way there is less pressure to only post what is good. If I post something, it doesn’t have to be the final version, and I can keep editing it as I see fit. I’ll add in the dates every time I edit. 

I suppose I’ll find out more about what I’ll do with it, if anything at all, as I go along.