Everything Everywhere All At Once, by A24, won all the major awards at the Oscars 95 this year. So, follow and trust A24. This was just to start off at somewhere; since the movie included the term ‘everything’, I thought I might as well mention it here.
What do we mean when we say ‘everything’? Or let’s make it first person: what do I mean when I write ‘everything’? What does this term include? Well, referring to a video I just happened to watch on Facebook, it includes the ‘golf balls’, the major things in my life; ‘the pebbles’, less major but still significant; and ‘the sand’, the fillers that fill the space left in my life - and my life is a jar that stores these different materials. So let’s break them down one by one.
Golf balls. My connection to God and how related I feel on day-to-day basis; maintaining my calmness by overcoming every other knocking disturbance now and then; performing my roles with a synchronicity: an individual of my family, a friend to all my friends, a teacher to all my students, an eager if absent reader to my books, a thinker toward my writings, a presence and mirror to myself.
From the days of revelations written in February, we’ve come to first of April. And the revelations have descended, been accepted, and is underway on its mission – the mission of being acted upon. If I have to rephrase the term now, I would call my days as ‘Days of Resolutions or of Resolves’ (since the word I am obsessed with currently is ‘resolve’) and I feel at resolved and at peace with life.
The pebbles. Money, salary from my teaching and overspending it on online shopping, also on tea and cigarettes; job, hopes for clearing CSS, having ditched the Fulbright (an almost contradictory approach towards avoiding going to abroad and staying in this apparently worsening country); nikah, the need to fill the void with permanence rather than the uncertainty of a relationship, to have someone to talk to, to go out to cafes, to kiss and to touch; the reunion of family and its very elderly effects on me (not that of innocent joy we felt in childhood, but a more grounded happiness, cautioned by the buoyancy it will bring, by the busyness, indeed the chaos); movies, TV, and making do.
Nikah is obsessively on my mind. I want someone to be mine, for my mind to be fixed and gazed at one specific person, in order to avoid and step out of the effortful gazing and daydreaming I habitually do on seeing every other pretty girl. But nikah, while appearing as a noble action, deserving and beautiful, is nonetheless a responsibility as well. And responsibility is scary, at least for me, at least for now. But as Viktor Frankl rightly points out: we are all, despite all the psychological and societal restraints, hugely capable of leading a life on our own choices and actions, even the against flow. When the responsibilities of nikah would descend upon me, I shall handle it contradictory to my family's half-baked beliefs. Admitted, I did not handle the drama and pain of breakup handsomely. Yet right now, as the breakup and silence continues, I am going through it as handsomely as one could desire. God willing, or as per His plans, if I keep rising (with hurdles here and there to keep my feet on the ground) then the story of my ex relationship would turn into a tale from a highly moving novel. Anyways, just as handsomely, I believe and also project, that I can handle the realities of nikah as well – and all the subsequent realities that shall ensue. After all, am I not in sagehood?
The sand, the fillers. Me thinking through my novel that now I think or believe I shall and must one day write; yet immediately I feel restless, doubtful, and unpleasant after thinking on the plot of my novel or on the characters (too much is my problem, not too little - but who knows, maybe too much shall become just the right amount). The routine: up till Sehri, the testing last hour before sehri when the eyes become heavy with due sleep; the school, academy and their engagements; growing crush on a few students and on a few teachers as well; prayers offered on default mode, despite my awakened spirituality; I am not clean in the religious way, I have to let the drops out or else I suffer from my own bodily desires and their impure effects on my thinking; the jest of smoking; troubled but now fine stomach; chilly weather, nice Ramadan; and an avalanche of busyness coming by.
Yet the prospects of delaying the nikah all together is equally as promising. Maybe in the time being, I will fall in love, earn good money, enjoy my single life in newer ways while remaining untied to any girl, have sex probably, travel as I please with friends, progress in my career and take on new responsibilities, and eventually become properly ready and less confused about nikah, and then to settle down finally.
Meanwhile, I am calm and balancedly engaged. So while the future prospects keep me busy thinking, or rather daydreaming, I don't let these thoughts get the upper hand and make me worry. I have arrived on the art of living a good life: hopefully one day I will be able to ponder upon it with clear insights, and write them down in order to pass it on to others. The coming future shall make many things happen, but don’t worry, I assure you that we will play our utmost part in making it happen our way.
Adios.
April 1, 2023.