Afterglow

Come

You know that feeling?

For a second, everything is blurred in jarring, pleasant blankness. Thoughts muted. Senses peaked. Conscious but void of identity. You are nobody. You are the world. The world is you. And it's is okay. And you understand everything and nothing. And that doesn’t matter. This is just how everything in the world works.

All that brouhaha with not a hint of kink, in a room full of fellow meditators. Or on a yoga mat, exiting a long practice. Or on the prayer rug, after the closing salams.

English and Arabic use the same words for both sexual orgasm and religious ecstasy. Probably because it feels the same. And it looks the same from the outside. The methods might differ, but the experience is basically the same.

That’s pretty cool for a hermit with anti-social tendencies. And for anyone who would think that ecstasy is only available is for those who are sexually fulfilled.

(Compared to sex, asanas and sports might sound as fun as masturbation. I'm not complaining, though. Cheap, careless sex can do worse damage than masturbation.)

(Oh, quit smirking. I'm trying to say something here.)

Catch

I might be pushing the no-sex tab a bit far. But it I’ve been indulging in too much talk. And I need to strengthen my faith in the solitary nature of fluent work.

Qusai nags about practice. Practice that builds momentum. The goal to physical exertion is to calm the mind. The calm might lead to orgasm/ecstasy/rainbows.

Yoga isn't just a physical exercise. Meditation isn't just "not thinking". Repetition builds fluency. Fluency leads to easier immersion in work. You don’t talk when you’re immersed. And when you don’t talk, there’s a better chance to reach the calm. The calm might lead to ecstasy. Ecstasy needs a build up. Build up takes is repetition. Nothing happens just from a single stroke.

First that moment of jarring blank. Then orgasm or ecstasy. Then the happy, floating afterglow. It looks tedious and impractical, but the afterglow is always awesome.

If ecstasy justifies the past, then afterglow is for things to come.

The ecstasies have the same effect, however it arrived. A systematic restart. And like all restarts, it's only a button's press then it's gone. But, the afterglow that follows. Ah. That.

Cohere

Remember when the afterglow lasted all day? Everything we touched and did felt prettier and smoother. Like we are loved through and through. Like we can handle it all. A renewal of faith. A glimpse of God.

And what in the world is beyond us with a spark like that in our souls?

Muslim Note: I like to think that the positions in a Muslim prayer is a meditation designed for build up. A build up for the calm to arrive at the very end. When the person, the prayer and the universe come at the tip of a finger, testifying Unity (شهادة).

Talk Post

Writing has been bugging me.

On one hand, I feel like I have these ideas and I want to talk about them not in the form of stories. Maybe I've been too busy playing poker online that I'm not allowing these ideas the time it needs to ferment into stories.
On the other hand, I feel like I’ve been blogging a little too much for my own creative good. Blogging has been the only form of writing I know, man. What if there are stories waiting to be told in the unbloggable form? What if blogging has been confining my writing in a sure comfort zone?
What if all I needed to do is write a few more words; let the canvas expand and watch it ferment longer? What if all I need to  is die a little more for the sake of the goddamn muses?
Where do these questions come from? Is this what they call artistic growth?
If only there is a distinct Career Development Plan for writers. Imagine having set milestones for writing: “After XKK words, you will move on to this form or that. Follow obediently; success & satisfaction guaranteed.”  (There is such a thing as mid-career writer, though. What is that anyway? Does it come between obscure tweeter and Stephen King?)
Say that there is such a thing as a career development for us creatives, maybe this is how the process goes:

• Write short, bloggable stories.
• Build a portfolio: Win competitions and get published on other people’s places (such as "&"?)
• Whore around, get rejected and ignored a lot. (Yes, this has to be part of the plan.)
• Then, if one is really that obtuse to persevere this far, one might finally figure out know how to weave 10’000 words in a cohesive piece of prose without dodging rotten tomatoes.
• Eventually learn how to weave 10’001 words the next day.
• And 10’002 words the next-next day, etc.

Well?
It looks like a plan. It looks like a mouthful of a long plan. And I only got until Tuesday. But it makes sense. Looks doable. I could innocently experiment with form and still have something to appease my obsession with Achievements.
Besides, what else is there left to do when you have an itch of a writing bug haunting you around?
On another note, I found it fun, really fun to have someone talking with me about writing while writing. Even if we're just trying out words and doubts on each other. For this reminder and the warm sense of community, I thank you, Saad.

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(PS. Something like a bad habit is telling me that I’m ditching the plan and reverting straight back to telling bloggable stories as soon as I hit the publish button on this post. Dammit.)

A Warming and Cooling Globe

There is this ridiculous show on NGC, Doomsday Preppers. In one of the episodes, a family moved hundreds of kilometers away from their home to get away from the beach in case the planet veers off its axial position.

Who plants these ideas in these people’s heads?

I remember something about the major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions causing Earth to tilt a little off its usual axis. Also, if I remember correctly, the planet has been tilting on and off it's axis a few times. It swings at a 2° range within the last 5 million years, I think?

That reminded me of the global warming and freezing thing.

In the case of global warming, every one is right as far as the beginning. Global warming begins with the sun. It has, though, very little to do with what we eat.

How I see it, in bullet points, global warming is like this:

• Sometimes Earth leans a little too close to the sun, or a solar eruption happens. Both might effect Earth’s internal temperature.
• When Earth’s temperature raise, the pressure of the planet's magmic core also raises.
• When the planet's core grows too hot, volcanic eruptions ease the planet's heat.
• A string of massive geological action occurring within a short period of time is basically the planet’s way of managing its temperature. The Earth acting like a pressure pot.
• When the magmic core of the planet releases its pressure, the planet cools from within.

From outside, the volcanic ashes that spreads in the atmosphere cover the Earth from the sun's heat and radiation. The ashes make like an umbrella. It might or might not increase global warming. If it does raise the global temperature, then the string of geological action continues within a few years of each other. If it doesn't and the planet has released enough of its internal heat and pressure, Earth will then enter a period of global cooling.

That is just one half of the story. I don’t know why the volcanoes erupt when it is freezing. It is probably more complicated than how I described it. You might have more fun reading Historical Worldwide Climate and Weather than my ramblings.

The underline is that all these are normal occurrences by planetary standards. The tilting planet, the moving on and off axis, the comets whizzing and solar eruptions. They have been happening a lot. As often as global cooling and warming.

We just have really short memories compared to the planets and sun and galaxies. And I'm fine with that. There's very little that we can do about it. There is very little we can do to make better or worse global temperature on the galactic scale. Very little we can do, for instance, to keep the moon from veering off its orbit.

And if you're going to watch a show called Doomsday Preppers and start feeling rather anxious, remember that the dying part isn't the worst part of it yet.

"The coming death no longer seemed an evil, for it gave them an hour of slumber before it came. Hunger and thirst and cold—these were evils, but not death."
~ Honore Balzac

For, as far as the planet's geological and galactic positioning managerial staff are concerned, our lives and deaths and arguments and causes were never part of their grand design. Therefore, we might as well concern ourselves with things that we can directly and personally influence, instead.

Like vasectomy?

Peeves

I release an involuntary snort every time I hear someone placing bets on the absolute goodness of charity organizations. (Like, come on, man, think about it a little. There is always a catch.)

...and on the idea of bringing more children to the world. (Because there are seven billion of us here. And because every DAY 5,760 more children become orphans. And they look like this and this.)

...and hipsters complaining about boredom. (I hope something bad happens to you so that you remember how boredom is actually too much of a good thing.)

...and the distortion between need and want. (You have between two, five or six needs to maintain your well-being. It does not include 192 bottles of nail polish.)

...and fanaticism. (Shouldn't we be over that by now? Nothing lasts. Especially feelings.)

...my writings. (Yea. I snort at my writings. A lot. Especially when I'm so stuck that I revert to mere bullet points. I’ll probably delete this post someday. Can’t snort all the time, can I?)

Uncle Pi

It was Eid. Gates were open and guests were expected even if the owners were not home.

The boy strolled in like a parading trooper. His family waited at the front of the house. The boy called for master of the house. He called over and again, growing bolder and louder by the turn. It wasn't polite, but there was no stopping a three years old on a mission.

When his voice was at that perfect pitch, Uncle Pi appeared. And the boy screamed with all his might: "EEEEEW! BLIIIIIIND!"

Who could blame a blind old man for traumatizing a three years old? It's not that Uncle Pi chose to be blind, or that he had anywhere else to go. His job was to guard the house. Even on Eid morning. Come screaming child or none.

It's a communal house that he lived in. You would be surprised how little a man needs. A row of tiles, layered with a mat, on the hallway. Just enough for him and his ashtray to share. And he sits there every day. If he was not too busy smoking his precious kretek, then he'll multitask it with a stare.

And you wonder how it is that the man doesn't kill himself out of boredom. We are at an digital information age, after all. Since he is even blinder than ever. Where would he want to go? With whom would he have to digitally socialize?

Stop. Rephrase that.

You know for sure that he has plenty enough to live for. Guarding the house, for one. And there are plenty of important daily engagements he must keep. For instance, there are his prayers to keep him busy five times a day. Assuming that he does observe.

Oh, of course he observes. What else is there to do? And the rice and water that he prepares for the house's inhabitants. Do the math. With twenty people to feed, keeping the rice stocked is a lot to do.

You have no doubt that sharing a communal house keeps anyone's ears filled. Blind or not. And you would like to believe with all your heart that, when everyone's gone, he isn't lonely. He would sigh in relief instead. And he would not dread the silence.

On nights like those, when the people are gone, you would see him sitting on the terrace. Elevated on a plastic chair instead of his usual mat. You would greet him as loud as the boy did, though kindly. You smile, of course, because he could hear that. Then announce the food you have brought just as loudly, "Eat, man."

You would assume, that when he is alone there, it would come to him like a whimsical tune. And the thought would tinkle louder into a grin. Since everyone has had their meals, he could eat everything left behind. That a full stomach turns even the thinnest mats into the softest beds.

You would assume plenty about a man who lives in blind poverty. Even if all your assumptions were wrong, you choose your thoughts. You would hold on to the giggles that almost choked you when he met your brother decades ago. You would hold on to the thought that he isn't bored, lonely or unloved. And that it remains bright inside of him.

You would hold on to the belief that there is plenty to live for, even for Uncle Pi.

The Thinking Tree

The Ceiba tree was taller than all the houses and people and animals that surrounded it. Nowadays it's rare to see a tree surviving that height without getting logged. This one did. Maybe because it's located in the middle of a graveyard and nobody wanted to catch a bitter ghost evicted from its trunk into their cupboard or something.

Anyway, a Ceiba tree grows to about 70-90 meters tall. I wondered how old it must be. I thought how the bigger a thing is in size, the longer it takes to grow into that size. Sequoia trees reach bout a hundred meters, and live up to a few thousand years. An elephant lives about seventy. Whales live long too.

Then I thought about the planet and how big and old it is. And of the mountains and the stars and how old they must be. And I remembered a popular hadith that mentioned that the first man was 60 cubits (or 30 meters) in height, and that he lived to about a thousand. And the people of his time lived a long time too.

Then the Deluge came, and God was disappointed in man and cut short their lives down to 120 years or so. Or maybe, because there were only very few people left after the deluge, so they had to inbreed.

Then again, according to the Bible, the Deluge was the last of the total wipeout antics that God did on the planet. If that was so, then everyone left on Earth today are the result of those inbred people!

I thought how, after the deluge, there were more people populating the planet and the harder a fight it was to survive. And the survivors who lived on strained resources gave birth to children with mutated genes. For example, children whose mothers lived on meager diet while carrying them in pregnancy had the tendency to hoard calories and become obese, shortening their life expectancy.

I kept wondering and thinking about a lot of other things. Until finally dusk came and I had to quit staring at the big old tree and go home. Its long old shadow still following me.

Bookmarking Audiobooks on iTunes

1. On iTune, highlight and right click on the track/s you want to mark as audiobooks.

   

2. Enter "Get Info"
3. Click on Options
4. Choose "Audiobook" as your Media Kind.

   

5. Voila. The next time you return to that track, it will start again from the last part where you stopped.
6. You already knew about that? Well, that’s one less reason for you to not listen to audiobooks.