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[13 Jun 2009|06:53pm] How dumb! I am looking at these new media art projects. "What we have here is thus and so which in doing such and such is like this real-life thing that I have dwelt upon in my consumptive leisure but that remains a mystery to me because, as you can see in this next piece, we have thus and so which in doing such and such..." What you need to do is stop screwing around. and He is the Source of strength. You try too hard and your arts are apologies. Nobody will kill you for making your dioramas of the wasteland of which you are part and parcel nor would you die for them given the choice and yet you would spend your life on them (while people are struggling and dying for things. What people? Which things?) This is the scary part so be scared of that and you will have TAQWA THE FEAR OF GOD. ++

[23 Mar 2009|07:08pm] الحمد لله I got 29/30 on my corporate finance final (my toughest prof), and I am done with finals. These are equally pleasing to me. ++

Grade Grubbing [02 Mar 2009|06:41pm] بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم This term is almost over and I wasted it. I did not do very much work, it was a term of lazy grasping at A whereby I barely turned in each assignment and barely curved over 90%. I don't think it is going to be good for straight As and anyway I didn't learn very much. So I am eager to put this one behind me and move on insha'Allah. I ask the forgiveness of Allah for failing to strive in my opportunities. - In retrospect it was a bad idea to take 20 credits two days a week. I guess all the credits and the long days took some kind of toll on me even though I didn't try very hard. Just too much to think about and grueling to have class from 10am to 9pm. Next term I am looking at Arabic, geology, sustainable development, and something else. Also I will be back to work so I will lose less momentum insha'Allah. - I did manage to work out consistently so I got stronger, and I picked up some religious knowledge. Narrated Abu Huraira (رضى الله عنه): Allah's messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم) named war: deceit. 1 ++

[16 Feb 2009|08:21pm] I am so glad I am not a stock broker. Here I am about to embark again into my Corporate Finance textbook. - I tutored at the middle school today and my best little buddy got into a fight, actually he just pushed this other kid over a table because the kid had made something up about him to get him in trouble with the teacher. Really let him have it. Well he got in trouble as the retaliating one usually does. So after school I told him it's a good thing to stand up for yourself and you should always do that, but that it is very important to maintain your self-control and not let others make you act foolish and get yourself in trouble, that when you allow them to do that they have the power. I think he understood. Then my other little buddy was so hyperactive it was really hard to make him focus and he was playing off this very impulsive girl (both of them are very intelligent smart asses). So I had to divide and conquer them. And this little dude made me want a son, because he has so much energy and potential, made me want to raise a little guy like the kids at the mosque with smarts and dignity who go about their worship and socializing like miniature men. - And then I started studying for really real because it's very important to me to get "A" ++

[16 Feb 2009|07:36pm] I can't express how much I do not want to do this bond analysis. I guess most business students are propelled through by agnostic self-interest and I guess they don't consider countries that aren't infected with banks. They don't ask the tough questions. Like why is government, y'know, the steward of the marketplace with all the prisons and guns, giving up interest before taxing? Why do banks get paid before government and owners? - What we have going here is a faith-based institution based on a faithless industry. ++

burn victim [16 Feb 2009|07:29pm] Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (may Allaah have mercy on him) said in Majmoo’ al-Fataawa (10/132): "It is sufficient to note that one of the effects of love of a member of the opposite sex is enslavement of the heart which is held captive to the loved one. So love is a door that leads to humiliation and servility. That is sufficient to put one off this sickness." - I got very involved with Ms. Africa over the past two months which I thought was wonderful because she is so attractive until I realized what a distraction and compromise it was. It didn't matter at all that we weren't sleeping together, that we didn't come close. We ended up excited and abject anyway and I felt out of sorts all the time. So I stopped all that noise and now I am getting back to normal. Understanding, now, why dating is in nobody's best interest and the meaning of seeking comfort from women. - Now I am just earnestly always trying to do the best thing, so clear headed that I find things too real and I have to squint and grimace to keep a distance. I try to have good manners, to be very friendly with every brother I meet, to avoid looking at women, to be totally steady. I lift weights every other day and play basketball whenever I can and these are the only times worldly life feels comfortable. I don't listen to music, I don't drink alcohol. I believe that the type of love that develops in the eyes and charming speech is a debilitating sickness of the heart and that art is useless. - I just keep shedding this life and what is underneath is much different; fresh, bloody and almost unrecognizable. ++

[22 Nov 2008|10:14pm] Restored draft from last time: "I have feelings for this sister at school. I wrote about her! Can you imagine? For a long time now if I had written down my feelings about love it would read like a" and I would finish that sentence... "Patrick Bateman music editorial." - So I was wondering about this girl in general, and she is Somalian, so of course when I see my Somalian friend at jum'ua I ask him what he knows about this girl. His expression changes. "Yeah, I know her. What do you want to know?" "You know, just what you know about her, if she is a good Muslim and about her family..." "Why do you want to know?" "Well, I guess I just noticed her in my Arabic class, y'know I haven't talked to her or anything, I am just wondering about her." "She's my sister." - I've had a few chances to talk to her and I didn't, because... well, put it this way: if I used to be shameless, I am now ashamed. And I can't just talk to her because in our community such a thing is noteworthy and affects reputations. - The pleasures of my life are the way things look or the air smells outdoors sometimes, ayat, prayer, Qur'an, khutbah, studying deen, lifting weights, basketball, getting "A"s, cappuccini, not smoking, a clean room, my pet mouse, and The Cosby Show. - I can think now about the most minute and innocent details of love, pure and abstract, and they are so sweet as something that hurts my mouth. I can hardly imagine really being with a woman, that kind of intimacy and tenderness and trust. I can hardly believe I was ever such a brutal ingrate. - My iman must hold two crude visions: that when I have finally forgotten these hints of love, no longer even caring to remember, I will find them again as I never knew them, halal and sublime, as water at the break of a fast: nothing sweeter, more perfect. Or I will never get married and never fornicate and forget all about it. Maybe I will harden to petrification in these ways and achieve extreme focus and purpose. All praise is due to Allah. ++

[05 Nov 2008|06:48pm] I was happy watching it happen and I feel like a different citizen today, with Barack Hussein Obama as my President. I feel like we have a different country. I have felt for a while that this was inevitable, that he was unstoppable, and not out of nervous desperation like 2004. The import attached to him worried me, that so much for so many depended on the career of one man, the stakes were too high. But the gamble was won. Our faith rides high today, we have proof of our ideals. - Do you suppose these feelings matter? I think they're like beer after a long daily grind. A resigned revolution. - That our country once allowed the enslavement of Africans and has now elected president the son of an African is amplitude, it is no glorious height. That our whole country might be born-again! All regaled by the drama of our salvation! No. The notion that all the injustice has somehow led to triumph is perverse. The United States Show goes on, nothing more or less. The narrative of Obama's victory over racism comes through loud and clear; that of all government being subject to entrenched private interests does not and yet is more evident. - Obama delivered his 1st candidacy acceptance speech to AIPAC. This is the pragmatism which precludes any righteousness. Money talks and bullshit walks. The money still says Blackwater, bodies, bulldozers and banks. The bullshit is different and really strutting its stuff. ++

[02 Nov 2008|03:01pm] I wrote this essay about jeans and this exquisite corpse about a communist children's book and uh got back my sea legs. My ink legs. Then I watched Oprah's unremarkable interview with Cormac Mccarthy in which I noted the great benefit of fellowships, and of being at a place like the Santa Fe Institute. It sounds like a sanatorium. And of God, who provided Cormac Mccarthy with a sample of toothpaste when he was flat broke and had run out of toothpaste. And of God, about which Mccarthy dithered, even in being soberly grateful and humbled by the course of his life, and after writing The Road which is so pure a testament to faith. - I noticed a bad neurosis I was suffering from by thinking: there wouldn't be any muslims at the Santa Fe Institute. (bad destination) Besides myself, if I were to get there. And I do not know that, if we are even underrepresented. To be unlimited, unafraid and unflinching. - The colors of autumn! The air cool and sweet! ++

[29 Oct 2008|03:36pm] Blake was recovering from a relationship that had culminated in a refusal of his marriage proposal. Telling Catherine and her parents the story, she expressed her sympathy, whereupon Blake asked her, "Do you pity me?" To Catherine's affirmative response he responded, "Then I love you." fr Wiki ++

[29 Sep 2008|09:48am] It is hot, summer is still kicking. All of the trees are still green. I know that it is the end of September and it is fall which I am craving. I am looking forward to cool, crisp air, rain and wind. I am rejecting Wahabbism and I feel a liberated peace of mind. Wahabbism asserts, among other things, that music is wrong and that pictures especially of animate objects are wrong. The judgment is that if it leads to haram, it is haram. Music leads to passion, pictures lead to idolatry. I don't sell this idea short, I have periodically believed it. Perception as membrane. Consider the success of advertising. Lately when I imagine the sharia state I get the bizarre Fellini-esque images from Osama or the bleak "after" scenes of The Kite Runner. Indelible fiction. What should come to mind is the fact that the presumption of innocence came from sharia; before Louis IX brought it back from Palestine, European legal procedure consisted of trial by combat or ordeal LOL What should come to mind is that the unaltered oral tradition of the Qur'an includes law, for example prescribed inheritance (having just sorted out my grandmother's affairs I can tell you this is a great blessing), the repeated explicit banning of usury (forgotten in the Bible; see the current financial crisis), and women's rights downright feminist for their time. Which brings me to the reason for this post: I have rejected the subtractive, paranoid posture of Wahabbism even as I learn to appreciate Islam more fully. I believe we must develop Islam, that we can't afford to abandon the inspired and concrete but we don't have to accept ancient arab standards for fear of hellfire. There were musicians against which the prophet (peace be upon him) plugged his ears and he cautioned us against indulging in idle talk and he condemned the paintings and sculptures of pagan idols. These issues are not the place for legalism; they are a part of the process of engaging life. We've all heard braying and seen obsession. Like all of the finest distinctions, you know it when you see it. ++

[07 Sep 2008|03:13pm] These days it is Ramadan, so I don't drink or eat anything from dawn until sunset. I tell you, there is NOTHING like that first drink of water and a date, so sweet it hurts your mouth. This is a great blessing. Nothing challenges the willpower like non-smoking. I recommend you quit so you can join the ranks of us willpower supermen. Then you can moreover give up all the sweetest wholesome things for the love of God, and incidentally for the sensation of deprivation, to develop greater compassion, to invite supreme gratitude. ++

[31 Aug 2008|03:29pm] Boy oh boy I sent a text to my old friend "What's going on?" "Partying" (good grief) I was in a suit and tie because I had been at a CD release concert, dutifully escorting my sister. I had only been out about three hours when I dropped her off and the suit felt good so I went to the party. I missed every beat, grimacing, not drinking. I gave up because it was just irony and meanness. I reckon for the people there this was an end in itself, toying with nonsense and snickering. I checked out, smoking cigarettes and making faces. There was one cute girl and she was attracted to me but I felt like I was watching her from far away and I couldn't conceive of convincing her of anything. At the same time this was all I wanted to do because it would be something. Altogether I was reminded of something sheikh shared with me, that technology did some good things but that it can confuse people interpersonally, that you will encounter people who expect you to spit them information like a computer. This is exactly it. All the guys were like spigots off the internet, regurgitating messes of ideas and images, dull and leveled and unreal. They are a peculiar deformed kind of boy, making no sense. ++

Like a Christ-like conquistador [15 Aug 2008|11:19am] a generosity, a covenant clung to, a precious better page of history. Greed at bay! See how the sea was subjugated, lolling Little Boy aloft, warhead in the serpentine smell of Bali Ha'i like a Looney Tune. How could I have skimmed those icecaps of salty froth, skated those yawning cliffs? And though I smelled the storm miles away, heard the whispered names of communism, it was never to violate MY mile, my softly swept lane. I felt sharkskin lift my feet ever more gently than the water. Because a Christ-like conquistador captains a raft, his feet washed all day by an ocean more inviting and lost than a prostitute. I saw teeth brighter than the moon, bared where the moon is only naked. Of the holey and alien: o my sail is the most hateful, lavished with reliance and coy, inert, inflated. No rush, my dearest rigged friend, because we left the waiting no timetable and there is no conception of us where we are headed. Like a Christ-like conquistador we bring good news, on the nails crusted over and in the stiffness of the lashing, in my stinking briny fast-smelling inspiration. ++

[10 Aug 2008|03:04pm] I am not responsible for you, I imagine your disgrace and your waiting and it makes me very sad, and I remember from a foggy lighthouse my own disgrace and my own waiting, interminable and battering, my wringing of poetics, clawing at the soft sand below the shoreline constantly falling away from my own sinking impression. It was so hard and I always felt sick or I felt tired or some way or another, the feelings that were constant and all the same in substance and in effect, pulling, tugging, jerking, stretching, all of those feelings one atop another like stacks of old newspapers. Cliche trite and boring, o the boredom, o the allure of the new, the pulling tugging of the new issue though the headlines are obvious, glumly terrorizing. Interpersonal, yes, and so tragic in that; so tragic the confluence of feelings such that we bounce and bound and fall biting through the dust and gnashing at the dirt, feeling pulls of our own together like a siamese centaur twice-hitched, weak drives like perhaps deformed unfit spurbooted little legs kicking at our own sides, or yours? Try to stop imagining, burn away your fingernails on the rails of this rollercoaster. Why would you? Enjoying this picture, this empathy though you may be, feeling kindness or the softening of solitude about you like a warming cabin, why would you stop? Because there are no more prophets and my solitude is complete and not at all, because I am only the inertia of a revelatory process that is my only patron, press, and process. Because I can't tell you why or how or when, because you are riding along with me to a period that is, by happy coincidence within a poison language, very much the same as that thicksmelling wasteful interjection of the womb; a crude end to an arresting clockwork. ++

[07 Aug 2008|08:13pm] I have some kind of malware that flashes messages on my screen, too fast to see. I only perceive them once in a while, what concerns me is if they are being flashed all the time and I only "catch" them once in a while. I hope they are commercial. ++

[04 Aug 2008|10:28pm] I sprained like almost broke my arm playing basketball. It just felt numb at first, I scored 5 more points and won the game. Subhanallah. Jumping high enough to notice the fall and now the pain like crocheting my forearm, alhamdulillah it's great to be alive. + Way to go Starmeat, wear your scars proudly, like a cuffed right pantleg. I guess you turned off comments to avoid corny solidarity well have some HA. I doubt you even read copelandia, who would? Infidels; do you guys laugh at me? Or am I like a praying goldfish? + "The Israeli nation has a national and historic right to the whole of Israel. However, in order to maintain a Jewish majority, part of the Land of Israel must be given up to maintain a Jewish and democratic state. Israel shall remain a Jewish state and homeland. Jewish majority in Israel will be preserved by territorial concessions to Palestinians." Love, Kadima Racist apartheid bastards. I just found this. There is an extended post regarding my volunteer work for Palestine forthcoming. + I'm really busy. I'm taking a terms-worth of stats in 4 weeks while my other two classes finish up. I tell you, I have willpower. Ice cream is my only vice. But I have the hardest time not looking at the half-crazily half-naked girls all over the place. Did you know, ladies, that all of your beauty is in your face? Your body is beautiful like a spiderweb: perfectly, delicately, shining and beaded in the most private flight path. Or you'd prefer sticky tethers in my eyes, a thrashing fragile exoskeletal octopus in my ear. ++

[31 Jul 2008|03:38pm] If you don't start worthlessness, there won't be worthlessness. Stay out of trouble. *** I would break his hand if she had not invited the disgrace. ++

[09 Jul 2008|10:19pm] Alhamdulillah alive, fed, clothed, housed and even with a massive network of computers. I have taken up chess again, playing online at chesspark which is so great. I have always loved playing chess, I never thought about pwning it. I've mostly gotten my ass handed to me so I'm reading some Pandolfini. I never studied chess, now I am studying chess. My classes are very easy so far, leaving me plenty of time to study chess. ++

[06 Jul 2008|11:00am] I went to the mosque on Friday. It is very peaceful inside. On Maui when you go to Kaupo you notice how loud it is everywhere else you go, it is so quiet with just the wind and the birds; it was like that. The imam (a strikingly upright man) cried several times delivering the sermon which was about mortality: "Today is for deeds, tomorrow is for reckoning." Everyone was friendly and self-possessed. The children are amazingly composed and precocious, I was next to one not older than 4 who sat still and quiet the entire time with seemingly no supervision until a big guy pushed him out of the way for prayer, which he took in stride, wriggling into the next row. The women have basically their own mosque upstairs with a separate entrance. I wouldn't miss it for the world. ++

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