Paper Clips

So many tasks, so many tools...

As most of you know, I play a lot of hockey in my free time. I don’t like to let it define who I am but I understand that people will think that hockey is a priority in my life because of how much I play. What some people fail to understand is that hockey is just one of my many activities. I do a lot of things and am always looking to supplement my activities with new ones that will be of benefit for me both in this life and in the next.

I spend a lot of time reading and writing – admittedly, my writing has decreased in the last couple of years but I still make time to do it. My reading, conversely, has picked up even more and I plow through books like cows do grass. My arsenal of books in my growing  library is impressive considering some of the titles and yes, I read every book that I purchase. Fiction and non-fiction, I read. Secular and religious, I read. Graphic or abstract, I read.

This blog serves as a major outlet of my writing since I stopped writing poetry a couple of years ago but I intend to resume writing short-articles on sociopolitical issues in the near future. I’m getting there… slowly…

I also spend a lot of time listening to music. I keep myself up-to-date on all the latest albums and listen to them while I work or travel. I also spend a lot of time thinking and being free from music – time for solitary thought is precious and important to me – as it helps me keep on top of tasks and be at peace with myself. I think I learned/inherited that trait from my father who once explained to me the importance of solitary thought when I asked him what he was doing sitting by himself looking out the window. Nonetheless, listening to music is an activity too and I don’t slack on that either.

I like to travel as well and make time to do it one way or the other. I’ve been traveling more the past couple of years – Vancouver, Chicago, Orlando, Miami, Washington – and I intend to expand my travels shortly to parts of Europe and Asia. Stay tuned for that…

There are many other activities that I do but I think my point has been made – hockey is simply just one of my many activities and it can’t be used to define who I am when I spend a lot of time on other activities. It’s all about multi-tasking and convergence for me and I can only hope and pray that I can do more and reach higher plateaus… because in the end, life is too short to not make the most of it.

“To sacrifice oneself never made sense to me cause life is really the only and last gift we’ve all received…”
- Dredg (Pariah)

Whaddup Shorty?

I can't possibly be that ugly...

It’s hard enough to find the right person to marry without having to go through hoops to approach someone. How does a Muslim approach someone they like without giving the wrong impression and violating cultural norms and expectations? The last thing I need is a situation emerging in which I’m being stoned to death.

At a recent wedding, a pretty girl caught my eye. One of my cousins asked me during the evening if I saw anyone I liked and in an effort to play it cool, I replied “naah”. My cousin responded with “Yeah, same here, no one here of interest.” I have a feeling that he saw the same girl that I did and that we both probably had our eye on her the entire weekend… damn… competition against someone I’d rather not have to compete with…

…now that I think of it, I probably violated some sort of religious expectation by checking this girl out but hey, it is what it is. How else am I to find someone? If I see a girl I like, I look at her. I could have approached her and tried to drop some lines like “Whaddup shorty? Whacchu sayin’, girl?” but I doubt that’d work coming from prim-and-proper me. I could play it all Islamic and ask to speak to her parents for marital purposes but why would I want to talk to her parents if I can’t even talk to her? What a convoluted way of finding someone to marry!

So what did I do? I made a point of “accidentally” coming across her at some point during the function in order to see if she might at least acknowledge me. And so she did… she looked up at me after I was “accidentally” in her way and we shared a smile… a polite smile but a smile nonetheless. Woohoo! Progress! One of my other cousins saw this and tried to tease me about it but I ignored him while he revelled in his own humour. I got my smile in… now maybe, just maybe, I might get a hello or a “how do you do, ma’am?” in next time…

…fortunately for me, Muslim weddings have multiple functions so I got another opportunity to see this pretty girl. Thank God for the convoluted marital process! At this second function, I decided to scope out the girl a bit more and make a play… but I decided to settle for the conventional Islamic route instead. I told my mom about her and apparently, as most mothers seem to do at this point in their sons’ lives, she also noticed this girl and was intrigued by her. Now we see what comes of it. Maybe I should have just tried dropping those lines instead with this pretty girl… at least that way, I’d keep the “mother-factor” out of it. Daah! What a can of worms I may have just opened…

“It makes me wish I was a banger… I come and retaliate…”
- Dredg (Saviour)

Harvest Season

Apples, oranges, pears = hearts, lungs, livers...

Life begins before we know it and ends before we’re ready to call it an end. However, that doesn’t mean that our deaths can’t help others who aren’t prepared to accept death quite yet. There’s a serious shortage of transplantable organs such as lungs, hearts, livers, stomachs, kidneys and more and many people are forced to wait for an organ to become available for themselves.

I’ve been thinking about it for some time now and I feel that it’s important I donate my organs for others to use once my time is up. I have no use for them once my life is over and they’ll just go to waste in my wooden box six feet below the ground. Would it not make better sense to give those to someone else in order for them to continue living? Who knows – maybe a part of me will continue to live on and make a difference in the world.

Then again, there’s always the chance that the black market may get a hold of my organs instead and sell them off to the highest bidder…

“Trying to move down in this grave, trying to believe in every faith as another bridge to clarity…”
- Lacuna Coil (Daylight Dancer)