[Draft post of Nov-29-04 - now completed.]Mouth foaming, brush vigorously laboring at inadvertent gum destruction, face pulled under the cake of an ubtan mask, and the mind? Busy with The Da Vinci Code. Of all other places that it can wander off to during the nightly cleansing ritual, the mind chose to discover the territory of cryptology.
I was realizing with wonder how our words represent us? Several years ago, I read something by Harvard philosopher Richard Heck. His principle interests lie in the areas of philosophy of language, logic, and mathematics. He explained how words are used to encode concepts that exist in our minds. If I am correct, he talked about sounds and the origin of language? To summarize, language is used as a code to represent the concepts that exist in our minds. This is why some concepts - such as "mother" - have nearly universal phonetic representations: ma, mama, maan...This is interesting. I reached the conclusuion that language is a map to the territory of mind. (Thank you anyone else who's put it this way before me. I love the meeting-of-minds thing.) I had first stumbled upon that theorem more than a decade ago in a Reader's Digest collection of essays on the human mind. An author was suprised how his mother was able to guess that one of their friends was pregnant. "Didn't you hear? Her language was all about nurturing and children and care!" This is the best thing about the language-mind relationship: we can reverse-engineer the language to figure out what's going on in the mind. Such as when too many if's, but's, umm's, and err's are peppered in the speech, we are dealing with a confused and unsure personality. AND what's even more curious is that if we pick up a certain pattern of speech only if to imitate, it will begin changing the mind! Do not copy any iffy personality, even for fun! There were a deeper purpose behind those manner lessons. Perhaps an addition to the topic statement is already in order.P.S. Ok, thank you Google! I have found the link to Richard Heck's interview here.
In Sophie's World, Sophie is given two bottles in a scene reminiscent of Alice in the Wonderland. One bottle contains blue liquid, the other red liquid. Sophie takes a sip of the blue liquid, and suddenly she begins to see everything in sharp detail. She sees every tree distinctly in the forest, and every leaf and twig distinctly on a tree. The red liquid merges all perception together in one whole. The microcosms merge to make a macrocosm - and Sophie no longer sees trees, but the forest.I sometimes feel I am on a permanent high of the blue liquid. I see many things, all apart from each other. Which is a remarkable shift from my life long habit of perceiving things in general, bunched together. Anyhow. Thanks to my new perceptual outlook, I have a faculty quite opposite to color blindness. What can one call it? Color splashiness?Ah, that's not bad at all. Meanwhile, the reader of Quest & Lust will have to tolerate the deranged palette. : )
Well. I am staying up late. One nasty habit that I had dropped once I realized I need to live. But it's back, now that I have decide to learn, talk, and write about life.
Since I have time to spare at the expense of my well-being, I might as well practice a little handwriting. And this is the pointless purpose of this post.
Must I not sleep?
I want to write a book on what Islam really is all about. Islam happens to be the faith I practice, but right now, it's sounding like the name of some boy next door.
Islam.
How's Islam doin' today?
Hey, how are you Islam? Where've you been, haven't seen you around lately?
Hey Islam, where do you want to go today?
All right. So. I want to write a book about Islam. Which will require a few more years of research and perhaps validation of myself, too. I am, after all, concerned about reviews; and anticipating the debates and counter-debates that will inevitably follow. I need to maintain a convincing upper hand.
There will be, as I see, a tremendous increase in the knowledge pool of the ignorant and the knowledgeable alike. This will be the way things and lives are made better. This will be my contribution to the world. This will be my great road to salvation; my ticket to pearly Paradise.
One cold December night last year, I was emaciated, fatigued, and lonely as a plant transferred out of its mother ecosphere. As I lay sunk in bed and stared at the ceiling trying to find Happiness and Purpose - I realized, Oh! This is my life.
As in, you know, this is my room. This is me and my four limbs and the rest of me. My mind. My heart, when it feels kind enough to be my own. So if all of me is here, and this is my existence, then where, possibly, can be my Purpose? Happiness? Meaning of life? When, exactly, will be the time that I start living what I believe in?
Silly, isn't it? I have to find happiness, and THEN I will be happy. And then I have to find a ready-made tangible purpose, and then live it.
I have to write a book on Islam, and then, MashaAllah, Alhamdolillah, I will be a great Muslim.
As if.
UPDATE: A fish needs a bicycle. A Lust for Life needs your feedback. Yes, move. Move!
The lights went out yesterday. I thought the candle looked worthy of being found in my quest for beauty. It is now a part of the ever-mounting treasure.
This (below) is a b&w look at the candle and its melting wax. Gives the candle the look of a gothic tower.
I then blew the candle out, and lit it up again. The act of lighting fire - the act of creation: snapped! 
Sometimes, it's fun to have the lights out. You see entirely new things. Things of beauty...
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