Ramadan Kareem! I've been busy getting ready to go back to school again, but now it's Ramadan, a time for reflection, so I'm back. A lot of people ask me to explain the point of Ramadan. I just looked up the interpretation of a dream I had while oversleeping this morning and I think it about sums up what Ramadan means:
Me: Why am I dreaming of potato chips?
Internet: "To see or eat potato chips in your dream symbolizes your overindulgent behavior."
Me: And waking up convinced I'm thirsty when it's Ramadan and I can't drink water?
Internet: "To dream that you are thirsty symbolizes an unmet need. There is an emotional void in your life. Or you may be seeking inspiration, motivation or just an extra push."
That dream was probably also a reflection of this train of thought I had last night at the iftar party: "Ahhh this biryani is soooo good! I want to eat more! Am I still hungry? No, I'm not hungry but it isssss Ramadan and it's okay if I overeat because I won't be able to eat all day tomorrow or the next day or the next day...."
A lot of people use food to fill emotional needs. A desire to over-indulge in food is probably a sign of or even just direct emotional over-indulgence, making up for something you lack or comforting something that hurts superfluously rather than working to make yourself stronger or heal yourself. Because issues with food often indicate issues with control, the desire to indulge and comfort yourself probably comes out of feeling like you don't have enough control to make the necessary changes in your life. Sometimes people overindulge because they are out of touch with themselves and don't know their actual need. A lot of over-eating is caused by dehydration: by your body telling you it needs water, you being so out of touch with yourself that you don't realize you're thirsty and mistake it for a craving you can't satisfy when a glass of water would've done the trick.
It's not bad to indulge once in awhile but doing it for the wrong reasons will makes things worse. It becomes an emotional crutch. It's not a class A addiction, necessarily, but you may be headed in that direction. Some people may also it to another level, upon realizing their eating habits are control related, by trying to take back that control by starving themselves or making themselves throw up.
I appreciate having a month dedicated to emotional discipline scheduled yearly into my life. To gain power over even yourself, you have to become attuned with
yourself, to know and trust yourself enough to peacefully submit to your
needs rather than drown them out with a power trip of indulgence. Fasting helps you clear your head of the quick fix, instant gratification approach to life that's so easy to fall into and challenges you to address your deeper needs. It is a call to improve yourself, to change something in your life for the better.
If you fall back into your old ways at the end of Ramadan, just that you completed one fast means you challenged your amount of self-control, won, and came away that much stronger. After a month, you'll hopefully come away with realizations about yourself you can focus on and improve upon or you really like the way one change you made during Ramadan worked in your life and that's definitely enough to call it a success.
If you're a non-Muslim friend or you aren't much interested in Islam, religion, psychology or philosophy, what I've said so far is the basic explanation I have for the month of fasting. If you're interested in a more in-depth explanation, please continue reading.
A lot of people say that the discomfort of being hungry, the pain of absence reminds them to be God conscious. That works for some people, with the explanation that in trying times, you should turn to God because God is the source of all strength and all power. I don't think this is wrong but I am wary of associating God only with pain. Besides, in that line of thinking, it would make sense to deprive yourself an unhealthy amount, believing this would make you even more God conscious. But being unhealthy is forbidden by God because it is too great a challenge for the faith of any believer but the practiced, highly disciplined ascetic/Sufi.
The way I see it, not eating during the hours of light, the hours of awakeness/awareness, is a call to figure out your real needs. You relinquish your option to cloud your sense of fulfillment with physical satisfaction. Doing this for a religious reason, you relinquish that choice/freedom/control to God. Well, you remind yourself that you were given that option by God in the first place by giving it up. By giving it up, you check yourself and make sure you aren't abusing this simple power, because an abuse of power is the classical sign of a failing struggle for more power. By giving it up, paradoxically, you gain control because you gain God's favor and God's favor is expressed with an endowment of power. It may not be the power you want, necessarily. But you have learned to trust, because when you give up your control to someone, it's an act of trust, and you'll have to trust that the power you are given is, if not what you want, what you need.
Fasting is also a lesson in the nature of power, that you must first give it up and gain trust, which is demonstrated through nearly every facet of the Prophet Muhammad's life, whose trademark (or trade name...in his time merchants gained reputation through the names they were given in their trade) was Al-Amin, the trustworthy.
What I'm saying is, if you're like me and you're dreaming of potato chips at the beginning of Ramadan and waking up in a panic thinking you're thirsty, this might be a sign of the path that can take you far in right direction, because you have a long way to go. Let the adventure begin!
Showing posts with label positivity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label positivity. Show all posts
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Brown Girl In Bright Colors
The other day I was extremely frustrated with studying for the GRE and I drew this picture. It made me feel 1000 percent better than I felt before I started. I drew it off a picture Will took of me at Montauk in Spring 2009. It was done in paintbrush, freeware that is about equivalent to Microsoft Paint, using the pen and paint bucket tools.
I really like how this turned out. In some ways, it reminds me of comic book drawing. The colors, the lack of texture in the hair. I also like how the use of different colors instead of gradations of one color turned out. The face appears three dimensional despite color variation being replaced by light variation and a lack of other indications of depth. The light pattern is maintained, and that is enough to maintain the illusion of 3D. Although, I did use brighter colors for brighter areas, generally.
I also like that it looks kind of ugly at first glance. Almost witch-like with all the green in the skin. But some people do have greens in their skin color and it's beautiful.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Beauty Standards: Elitism and Skin Color
Since I was young, my mother compared my complexion to that of my paler sister and warned me not to get too much sun exposure. She made it a given that lighter skin was beautiful. Though I argued that tans fade, she said sun destroys the skin, so lighter skin became more than a beauty standard, it became a marker of an appreciation of beauty as well. She even mused over whether, among my white friends, my darker skin would lead to my being overlooked. I don't really blame my mom and her views didn't stop me from loving the warm sun on my skin or laughing when my white friends complained that I made them look ghostly pale, but I was surprised to learn that it has become a trend among paler South Asian girls to go tanning.
To provide contrast, I had an experience recently in the "ethnic hair section" at the store, where surprised to find skin lightening products alongside the olive oil shampoo I'd gone there to find. It's not surprising that skin lightening products exist. Fair and Lovely, an ayurvedic "treatment" for dark or uneven skin tone is big in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. I have heard horror stories of women who used more aggressive means to lighten their skin. My surprise came from my unawareness of the extent to which the standard of whiteness as beauty is prevalent in black culture.
From what I understand, in most cultures, the beauty that is associated with paleness is as an elitist beauty standard. Women of higher classes maintained their prized paleness as a mark of the privilege of not having to work or even go outside if they so chose.
In American slavery, lighter skin color lead to household jobs rather than fieldwork. If a black woman was light enough, depending on where she was, her freedom might even be purchased by a doting white man. Across the board, the illegitimate children of white masters and their black slaves, tended to receive better treatment, as though the whiteness of their philandering fathers made their blackness somewhat forgivable. Again, lightness was an elitist standard enforced though the system of slavery by those in power. It can even be argued that the elitism of skin pigmentation lead to the enslavement of Africans, whose darker skin color made it seem like they were made for manual labor.
Later, the tan was adopted by Europeans and Americans as a mark of imperial life, exotic vacations, and leisurely sun bathing. Though it was a more accessible standard of beauty, the favorable tan did not come from fieldwork, which is still derisively called a farmer's tan or being a redneck. Since fieldwork had largely been replaced by office work, the tan indicated the privilege of relaxation that separated white collar work from blue collar work.
In Islam, though elitism often goes unacknowledged in its perpetuation, there is a prevalent interpretation suggesting that beauty is equivalent with whiteness. In Qur'an and Woman, by Amina Wadud, Dr. Wadud explains the highest beauty is that of a face aglow with the "noor," which means light, of angelic faith. Another contribution to this beauty standard comes from that of the ethereal houri, creatures of heaven who are described as being beyond human in height, having transparent, glowing skin, and virginal bodies that do not age. Both the concept of "noor" and the houri in beauty standards have lead to beauty standards akin with white beauty standards, which Dr. Wadud dismisses due to its inconsideration for black beauty.
Now with all this in consideration, going back to the tanning of pale South Asian girls, I am interested in where their motivation to do so is from. I have also seen black women obviously tanning themselves at the beach. Though I don't think it comes from an urge to uphold my mother's beauty standards, I am inclined to be critical of this practice. At first, I thought it might be a defiance of the beauty standard that is still prevalent in Bollywood. However, other enduring standards are those of elitism and western luxury, the later of which is especially endorsed by western residing and western educated South Asians.
In India, there is fierce enmity between the wealthy who uphold Bollywood standards and those who uphold western standards. In America, there is similar dissent between wealthy blacks who emulate old money standards and those who choose the flashy expression of new money. Though I'm not sure under which standard black tanners associate themselves, but South Asians in America likely propagate western standards of luxury. Either way, tanning is probably an expression of elitist standards that is definitely laced, ironically, with white/western beauty standards.
Long before I stopped being relieved when my sports tan finally faded and learned to enjoy the color of my skin, I felt slighted by the existence of standards of color and knew that no one should judge others or even themselves by a standard so superficial. Of course, the standard is not superficial in that it's steeped in elitism.
This doesn't mean I'm going to stop enjoying the sun. There is work being to done to prevent what has been called "shadeism." I think my views fall more toward the prevention of children growing up with so much stock in any standards of beauty at all. Sure, the pursuit of such standards, if successful, lead to confidence in one's image. But what people don't realize is that it's the confidence that's beautiful, not the image. So, since I'm not one for the abolition of all standards, rather than the pursuit of beauty standards, which seem rather insecure in their exclusivity alone, how about something more positive that anyone willing can achieve, something that understands difference and can't be evaluated with so little regard? What that might be is probably best left for you to decide.
To provide contrast, I had an experience recently in the "ethnic hair section" at the store, where surprised to find skin lightening products alongside the olive oil shampoo I'd gone there to find. It's not surprising that skin lightening products exist. Fair and Lovely, an ayurvedic "treatment" for dark or uneven skin tone is big in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. I have heard horror stories of women who used more aggressive means to lighten their skin. My surprise came from my unawareness of the extent to which the standard of whiteness as beauty is prevalent in black culture.
From what I understand, in most cultures, the beauty that is associated with paleness is as an elitist beauty standard. Women of higher classes maintained their prized paleness as a mark of the privilege of not having to work or even go outside if they so chose.
In American slavery, lighter skin color lead to household jobs rather than fieldwork. If a black woman was light enough, depending on where she was, her freedom might even be purchased by a doting white man. Across the board, the illegitimate children of white masters and their black slaves, tended to receive better treatment, as though the whiteness of their philandering fathers made their blackness somewhat forgivable. Again, lightness was an elitist standard enforced though the system of slavery by those in power. It can even be argued that the elitism of skin pigmentation lead to the enslavement of Africans, whose darker skin color made it seem like they were made for manual labor.
Later, the tan was adopted by Europeans and Americans as a mark of imperial life, exotic vacations, and leisurely sun bathing. Though it was a more accessible standard of beauty, the favorable tan did not come from fieldwork, which is still derisively called a farmer's tan or being a redneck. Since fieldwork had largely been replaced by office work, the tan indicated the privilege of relaxation that separated white collar work from blue collar work.
In Islam, though elitism often goes unacknowledged in its perpetuation, there is a prevalent interpretation suggesting that beauty is equivalent with whiteness. In Qur'an and Woman, by Amina Wadud, Dr. Wadud explains the highest beauty is that of a face aglow with the "noor," which means light, of angelic faith. Another contribution to this beauty standard comes from that of the ethereal houri, creatures of heaven who are described as being beyond human in height, having transparent, glowing skin, and virginal bodies that do not age. Both the concept of "noor" and the houri in beauty standards have lead to beauty standards akin with white beauty standards, which Dr. Wadud dismisses due to its inconsideration for black beauty.
Now with all this in consideration, going back to the tanning of pale South Asian girls, I am interested in where their motivation to do so is from. I have also seen black women obviously tanning themselves at the beach. Though I don't think it comes from an urge to uphold my mother's beauty standards, I am inclined to be critical of this practice. At first, I thought it might be a defiance of the beauty standard that is still prevalent in Bollywood. However, other enduring standards are those of elitism and western luxury, the later of which is especially endorsed by western residing and western educated South Asians.
In India, there is fierce enmity between the wealthy who uphold Bollywood standards and those who uphold western standards. In America, there is similar dissent between wealthy blacks who emulate old money standards and those who choose the flashy expression of new money. Though I'm not sure under which standard black tanners associate themselves, but South Asians in America likely propagate western standards of luxury. Either way, tanning is probably an expression of elitist standards that is definitely laced, ironically, with white/western beauty standards.
Long before I stopped being relieved when my sports tan finally faded and learned to enjoy the color of my skin, I felt slighted by the existence of standards of color and knew that no one should judge others or even themselves by a standard so superficial. Of course, the standard is not superficial in that it's steeped in elitism.
This doesn't mean I'm going to stop enjoying the sun. There is work being to done to prevent what has been called "shadeism." I think my views fall more toward the prevention of children growing up with so much stock in any standards of beauty at all. Sure, the pursuit of such standards, if successful, lead to confidence in one's image. But what people don't realize is that it's the confidence that's beautiful, not the image. So, since I'm not one for the abolition of all standards, rather than the pursuit of beauty standards, which seem rather insecure in their exclusivity alone, how about something more positive that anyone willing can achieve, something that understands difference and can't be evaluated with so little regard? What that might be is probably best left for you to decide.
Friday, September 16, 2011
The Miseducation of Me
Yesterday, I started working as a clerk at the public library. In a library, organization is very important. Things are classified a certain way and need to be kept accordingly so they can easily be located when needed. When something slips through the cracks of the obsessive structure of order, due to human error or subterfuge, it is tracked down and the situation is cleanly rectified.
Having studied post-colonial and vernacular English Literature, Gender Studies, and Philosophy in college, I am not trained to put things in a preordained order. I'm trained to question order. I'm trained to analyze, deconstruct, and reassess as exhaustively as possible and I am trained to defend as innovative a reassessment as I possibly can.
I wasn't really made for that sort of training. I'm a South Asian immigrant, I am a Muslim, I am a woman, and I am poor. College was a training that mostly sees the world for its disorder and dissonance. Despite the questioning of order, believe it or not, it is hard to avoid Western, patriarchal*, elitist values, since they are the values that get an American college its credibility. I at least attended a Catholic University that wore its Christian values on its sleeve and did not worship secularism.
While college helped me see my place in society, which I had previously felt I was lacking and that I needed to work hard and be creative to earn, it is a place in society where I increasingly feel like I am trespassing, a place I cannot earn no matter how hard I work. But it's a place that is rightfully mine. My college degree mostly made me painfully aware of the possibility that I struggle in futility. This is not something I am willing to easily accept.
Questioning order is infinitely constructive for the privileged, for people that order benefits. But of course they are the least likely to do so. That leaves it for those who order has forsaken. But after a certain point, for those that order has forsaken and has left to question it, all order becomes an enemy, life becomes meaningless and their questions become a threat to no one but themselves. This becomes a sort of order itself, created and supported by human error and subterfuge. It is unsettling to realize that you are not of the former group, though you've been a confident, straight "A" student your whole life, when you are in the middle of college.
I have to believe that order can be good. I have to see it. When a library patron is scanning a shelf that I ensured was organized, when someone comes in for something and I know exactly where it is, when I can learn from my mistakes rather than feel like everything I do is a mistake, it helps me feel that I can earn my place as a positive aspect of a constructive order.
Obviously, I don't think the objective way that libraries are ordered is a way that people can be ordered because people are not objects and what is just for objects is not just for subjects. Order should contain justice because a belief in order requires a belief in justice. This belief in justice is apparent in religion, and so religion has been called "The opium of the masses," and "slave mentality," Marx and Nietzsche respectively, for it's support of unjust order through a belief in cosmic justice. But that's what's called "blaming the victim," in my book, and it's ridiculous to blame disenfranchised people who can empower themselves by believing in any greater order.
So as it turns out, not all minimum wage jobs are soul-crushing.
*You can be a patriarchal feminist. You probably are one if you think matriarchal societies and lesbians are all feminists. Chew on that now.
Having studied post-colonial and vernacular English Literature, Gender Studies, and Philosophy in college, I am not trained to put things in a preordained order. I'm trained to question order. I'm trained to analyze, deconstruct, and reassess as exhaustively as possible and I am trained to defend as innovative a reassessment as I possibly can.
I wasn't really made for that sort of training. I'm a South Asian immigrant, I am a Muslim, I am a woman, and I am poor. College was a training that mostly sees the world for its disorder and dissonance. Despite the questioning of order, believe it or not, it is hard to avoid Western, patriarchal*, elitist values, since they are the values that get an American college its credibility. I at least attended a Catholic University that wore its Christian values on its sleeve and did not worship secularism.
While college helped me see my place in society, which I had previously felt I was lacking and that I needed to work hard and be creative to earn, it is a place in society where I increasingly feel like I am trespassing, a place I cannot earn no matter how hard I work. But it's a place that is rightfully mine. My college degree mostly made me painfully aware of the possibility that I struggle in futility. This is not something I am willing to easily accept.
Questioning order is infinitely constructive for the privileged, for people that order benefits. But of course they are the least likely to do so. That leaves it for those who order has forsaken. But after a certain point, for those that order has forsaken and has left to question it, all order becomes an enemy, life becomes meaningless and their questions become a threat to no one but themselves. This becomes a sort of order itself, created and supported by human error and subterfuge. It is unsettling to realize that you are not of the former group, though you've been a confident, straight "A" student your whole life, when you are in the middle of college.
I have to believe that order can be good. I have to see it. When a library patron is scanning a shelf that I ensured was organized, when someone comes in for something and I know exactly where it is, when I can learn from my mistakes rather than feel like everything I do is a mistake, it helps me feel that I can earn my place as a positive aspect of a constructive order.
Obviously, I don't think the objective way that libraries are ordered is a way that people can be ordered because people are not objects and what is just for objects is not just for subjects. Order should contain justice because a belief in order requires a belief in justice. This belief in justice is apparent in religion, and so religion has been called "The opium of the masses," and "slave mentality," Marx and Nietzsche respectively, for it's support of unjust order through a belief in cosmic justice. But that's what's called "blaming the victim," in my book, and it's ridiculous to blame disenfranchised people who can empower themselves by believing in any greater order.
So as it turns out, not all minimum wage jobs are soul-crushing.
*You can be a patriarchal feminist. You probably are one if you think matriarchal societies and lesbians are all feminists. Chew on that now.
Friday, September 9, 2011
9/11: 10 Years Since And It's Time for A Muslim President
Good afternoon, my fellow Americans.
Well, actually, I should be honest,
I’m not an American citizen.
I’m a permanent resident, by chance,
patiently awaiting citizenship since I was a child of two.
But, please, hear me out:
Well, actually, I should be honest,
I’m not an American citizen.
I’m a permanent resident, by chance,
patiently awaiting citizenship since I was a child of two.
But, please, hear me out:
Imagine me,
ten years ago,
seventh grade gym class,
the teacher comes in late,
interrupting my musings
over whether my sneakers made my feet look big,
saying, to the other teacher,
“No, they need to know.”
ten years ago,
seventh grade gym class,
the teacher comes in late,
interrupting my musings
over whether my sneakers made my feet look big,
saying, to the other teacher,
“No, they need to know.”
We fall silent.
He says,
“Guys, a plane flew into the Twin Towers
down in New York. It’s really bad.”
Imagine,
the words meant nothing to me.
I didn’t hear anything else he said.
Gym class moved through its usual motions.
As the day went on, I saw it on TV.
A friend of mine said he was worried
because his dad worked nearby.
As the day went on,
I wrote a poem, watching the second plane,
for the thousandth time.
He says,
“Guys, a plane flew into the Twin Towers
down in New York. It’s really bad.”
Imagine,
the words meant nothing to me.
I didn’t hear anything else he said.
Gym class moved through its usual motions.
As the day went on, I saw it on TV.
A friend of mine said he was worried
because his dad worked nearby.
As the day went on,
I wrote a poem, watching the second plane,
for the thousandth time.
Later, I was asked to read it at a school assembly.
I was nervous, but that day, I understood I had a responsibility.
I joined the school newspaper
to answer questions from people I didn’t know.
Was I was related to Osama bin Laden?
Did I have explosives hidden in my basement?
Did I believe in Jesus Christ?
I was nervous, but that day, I understood I had a responsibility.
I joined the school newspaper
to answer questions from people I didn’t know.
Was I was related to Osama bin Laden?
Did I have explosives hidden in my basement?
Did I believe in Jesus Christ?
The next year,
I joined school government and was elected into office.
The next year,
a friend told me she wanted to be trusted and,
in an act of self preservation,
shed her most protective layer; her hijab.
The next year,
I wrote poem after poem,
trying to understand.
The next year, I began volunteering in my community.
I joined school government and was elected into office.
The next year,
a friend told me she wanted to be trusted and,
in an act of self preservation,
shed her most protective layer; her hijab.
The next year,
I wrote poem after poem,
trying to understand.
The next year, I began volunteering in my community.
The next year, I watched Fahrenheit 9/11,
and completely distracted from Michael Moore’s snark
by the violent war imagery,
I cried like a baby.
The next year,
I became a media junkie,
holding my breath at every Muslim name,
praying to God,
that this person
was someone like me.
The next year,
my teachers chose me
for the Frederick Douglas and Susan B. Anthony Award.
and completely distracted from Michael Moore’s snark
by the violent war imagery,
I cried like a baby.
The next year,
I became a media junkie,
holding my breath at every Muslim name,
praying to God,
that this person
was someone like me.
The next year,
my teachers chose me
for the Frederick Douglas and Susan B. Anthony Award.
The next year,
I went to college.
I wanted to study civil rights
and this made my parents very nervous.
The next year, Barak Obama was elected
and my mom said,
“May God protect him.”
The next year,
I wanted to be a writer,
but I didn’t want to write about exotic food,
or men with beards and guns,
or women who were a pair of kohl darkened eyes.
I went to college.
I wanted to study civil rights
and this made my parents very nervous.
The next year, Barak Obama was elected
and my mom said,
“May God protect him.”
The next year,
I wanted to be a writer,
but I didn’t want to write about exotic food,
or men with beards and guns,
or women who were a pair of kohl darkened eyes.
Last year,
some people demonstrated against the construction of a community center,
because it would house the prayer of Islam,
prayer of, in English, peaceful surrender,
which they believed could taint the sanctity
of the nearby sacred space known as Ground Zero.
some people demonstrated against the construction of a community center,
because it would house the prayer of Islam,
prayer of, in English, peaceful surrender,
which they believed could taint the sanctity
of the nearby sacred space known as Ground Zero.
The Pew Poll found, this year,
Muslims are the most diverse religious group in America,
the most optimistic religious group,
and a group as loyal to America as they are to their religion.
This year, a GOP hopeful said on television
that any Muslim serving under him
would have to take a special loyalty oath.
Muslims are the most diverse religious group in America,
the most optimistic religious group,
and a group as loyal to America as they are to their religion.
This year, a GOP hopeful said on television
that any Muslim serving under him
would have to take a special loyalty oath.
I read somewhere,
that you aren’t culturally considered American
unless your family has been here at least two generations before your birth.
Every morning, all through school,
I pledged allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America,
And to the Republic, for which it stands,
One nation, under God,
With liberty, and justice for all.
that you aren’t culturally considered American
unless your family has been here at least two generations before your birth.
Every morning, all through school,
I pledged allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America,
And to the Republic, for which it stands,
One nation, under God,
With liberty, and justice for all.
I’d like to thank you, my fellow Americans,
who’ve been as good on their pledge as I have.
who’ve been as good on their pledge as I have.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Reasons for disliking people:
There are two reasons for disliking people:
1. Because they are too busy loving or hating themselves to care about you.
2. Because you are too busying loving or hating yourself to care about them.
I rather choose liking people because the logical variety is more interesting.
In either reason, the cases of loving are less damaging than those of hating.
Depression is when you are forced to hate someone and the better reason is the first but you mistakenly choose the second. Luckily, this mistake only effects you internally, a realm over which you can have complete control. If you can learn to trust yourself, again.
1. Because they are too busy loving or hating themselves to care about you.
2. Because you are too busying loving or hating yourself to care about them.
I rather choose liking people because the logical variety is more interesting.
In either reason, the cases of loving are less damaging than those of hating.
Depression is when you are forced to hate someone and the better reason is the first but you mistakenly choose the second. Luckily, this mistake only effects you internally, a realm over which you can have complete control. If you can learn to trust yourself, again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)