a list of quick notes as opposed to the usual long form thoughts.1
-
quick - directions for blog
wondering whether i should make some more personal posts rather than just sticking to posts that focus more on ideas. like "this and this happened" sort of posts. or updates on life? i don't know?
maybe i should just write in my journal more. i may or not may not be getting swayed by reading personal blogs and seeing the fictional online life updates that they had in that one book.. i'm noticing i'm very easy to influence.
also, i'm wondering whether i want to be more anonymous here, which means my url should probably change. i've changed it to mi-book [shortened 'mi's notebook'] which seems ok for now. :]
contemplative (_ _).. -
quick - invisible [story idea]
story idea? [youngish] person who perceives themselves as having the superpower of invisibility; they mostly use it for convenience purposes rather than saving anyone's life or anything dramatic [since they're a teen / young adult anyway and they don't know how to do all that]. one day they're sitting in a coffee shop or something and using their invisibility for unimportant purposes and someone they know walks into the shop. without any sense of pretence, the person spots the mc [who is supposed to be invisible], walks over and starts talking to them as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening. bonus points if the person who spots them is important to the mc but [it's perceived that] they don't hold the mc in as high esteem as the mc does.1
you go through the story thinking that [and maybe it's in their perspective and they write as if] they really do have this superpower, so when this happens the mc is flustered and quite surprised that this happened, as if this is a terrible change in the equilibrium [because who is this person who can see them?!?? i thought i was invisible?? and why them of all people??!??] but it could be like that one thing where the lines between "mc literally had this superpower" and "they just made it up the whole time" are blurred and maybe never fully explained in the story.
of course, all of this talk of invisibility is a metaphor for the insecurity that no one cares about this person at all, and their assumption that they don't really bring much to anyone. so when the person [who mc thinks they don't really know or want to know mc very well] is capable of seeing them when everyone else "isn't", there's the implication that this person actually holds them in high regard despite the mc thinking they don't, which is kind of sweet
i'm thinking of the "i find this person super cool but i'm literally just some guy to them, do they even remember my name" dynamic. examples: crush, squish [person the mc wants to be friends with], cool classmate? some sort of class president, like in a club or maybe course representative. basically it could be someone well known while the mc is just another person that's a part of the crowd that knows that person.↩
-
quick - murky water
the first few bits of long form writing i'll do here are likely not going to be very polished or smoothly worded or objectively great, and i will be fine with that (alhamdulillah). all part of the process, as they say..
-
quick - gratefulness and hurt
from a thought strand: i think they've just experienced so much hardship in their life that those difficulties have stuck in their mind and stopped them from realising there were also happy moments, especially since their hardships seem like a continuous part of life as opposed to a one-off terrible experience.
you know, "with hardship comes ease" but instead of thinking of the "ease" coming after the hardship, recognising that there are different types of ease that one might be experiencing at the exact same time that they experience hardship in another aspect of their lives
people that have gone through traumatic moments perhaps have some struggle with recognising which areas of their life they may be experiencing ease during a time of hardship. black and white thinking, putting an entire period of your life as "this was when i had a bad time", not realising that most of life is a mixture of black and white, and rarely will you find there's such times which are unapologetic periods of happiness or sadness.
-
quick - gratefulness
- walking into my lgt and being able to laugh at the rickroll exercise
- getting to ask a question to a ta in the lgt, pointing at the board and all. i felt like a real student
- coming to a humiliating realisation that was good for me. paul williams' "life is a great journey of unveiling and disillusionment, in a positive sense for me"
- listening to a podcast ep with imam tom that came out recently
- actually using this space rather than letting it gather dust!
alhamdulillah alhamdulillah alhamdulillah!!!!!
grateful (v_v) <3 -
quick - morning self-regulator
heard the idea that reading Qur'an in the morning regulates your mind for the rest of the day.. subhanAllah..
same can be said for adhkaar. it's not to be rushed, not something to merely tick off on your to do list, it's something to ground you and keep you focused. even if you're getting distracted by your own thoughts, it acts as self regulation for as long as you try to stay on track. take it more seriously, give it the weight it deserves.
-
quick - trying out feeling:
i wanna try out using a victorious / status cafe-esque "feeling: [emotion]" part of these little quick thoughts. if this doesn't go well, ...
refreshed :] -
quick - when should i blog?
i usually have so many thoughts in the morning. possibility: log on and try dumping them out here? they're usually topic-focused, which seems perfect.
-
quick - guide
when you share things that may guide another, your intended audience must be one: yourself. the reminder must speak to you for it to truly be of any benefit to anyone else, so don't get so caught up in "did they benefit? have they been guided?".. what about you?
-
quick - reading
someone asked me yesterday if there's a lot of reading for comp sci at uni and thinking about it now, i think the bulk of our reading is just going through pages and pages of DOCUMENTATION
-
quick - freedom
freedom is not in your ability to follow your desires because that's just obedience... to your desires... [the true captive is the captive of their own desires] [if you are constantly doing whatever your immediate feeling is to do, then you're just as caged as someone who is unable to disobey a human master, if not worse because often, you don't even realise you're obeying something.]
TRUE freedom is REALLY being able to choose what is good for you to do, and then the question is: what's the best thing for me to do?
and then we look at all the good in self-help books and scattered in the rest of the world and realise.. oh wait. that's all in the deen anyway. why not go to the true root itself? follow what the One Who literally created you, Who knows what's best for you guided you towards