wondering, mumbling and a world crumbling

Lately I read a book called 'Maya', by Jostein Gaarder. He's a Norwegian author, and I've read two of his other books called 'Sophie's World' and 'The Solitaire Mystery' respectively. He usually puts in pieces of philosophy in his stories, and it makes for quite good reading. With this book he appears to hold a very firm 'evolutionary' and atheistic standpoint (or at least the characters do), but that's not quite what I want to observe today. No, I want to do a little bit of my own philosophy, which has probably been done before, but if it has, I'm not aware of it. So, we've heard on inumerable occasions Descartes' legendary premise Cogito Ergo Sum , 'I think therefore I am'. Now many people criticise this as flawed logic, that even if one is, it doesnt necessarily depend on them thinking , or some other convuluted twisting of thoughts and the merry-go-round usage of reasonable logic. Today I was thinking on the issue...

'Dont you ever feel lost?', an old man asked his wife, as they lay in their beds one cold dark night. 'But of course not, now I lay here with you', she replied. How many years they'd lain together, and parented, full of pain and delight? Never thinking past the necessities until the moment one of them died. The ancient scissors snipped the cord of life - an umbilical tube connected to the realm of life, and edge-of-the-seat pre-eternal existence. The life squeezed out, til the body just crumbles to the floor through the hands of the wife, all panicked grief and superstitious insistance. 'It cannot be', she cries, 'why couldnt it be me?' and she screams her anger at a power she cant percieve, and no longer deny. 'That's what some had called a 'cross to bear'', she supposed she had to agree, but on what then is there left for her to rely? She hadn't thought about herself in all that time, even in grief giving her all to the chil...

I saw a funeral yesterday, it was my friend's great aunt - so no-one very close to me, but I went along for the experience and because I'd like to think someone would be bothered to follow my funeral. It was the first Muslim funeral I attended were I saw the burial. Amman has a giant graveyard outside the city, where everyone who dies in this city finds their place, and we arrived in the late afternoon. The weather was chilly, but there was an amazing yellow/orange sun, so the shadows were growing longer, as the dirt was shovelled over the body. I couldnt help pondering on whether or not the dead person is worried about the cold.. So, a man gave a speech after that to remind us of death, and that our grave awaits us. Our life is as a mere day, in terms of how we will come to see it. And we return to our mother's embrace, and an interrogation by the two angels Munkar and Nakir. They will ask us, 'Who is your Lord?', What is your religion?, and 'Who do you say thi...

Today I am sick, and I was sick yesterday, but this has served to make me hyper-sensitive to things one wouldnt usually notice. Being unable to eat properly for two days, I was feeling quite low. My head was throbbing and swirling, and dizzy, and if I tried to get out of bed it would spin (not literally, you understand, but the fluid in the balance-centre was out of control). I had been lying half in and out of sleep, trying to decide if I had it in me to make some soup, which would have involved at least 40 mins for the potatoes and lentils to be properly cooked - and at the same time I wasn't sure if I'd be able to stomach it. My other option was to make some hot lemon and add ginger, but I thought this wasnt solid enough. The time came for the dawn prayer, and I was quite unable to get out from under the covers, but eventually I controlled my self, and denyed Satan, and made my way to the sink to make ablutions. Then I prayed (very weakly) but in that state it seems easier t...

Through divine intervention or whatever, I've come to realise that sometimes my writings become difficult to understand - if the reader doesnt happen to be me. This is a little problematic. At times I tend to use complicated words (that even I dont understand) which seem to jump at me from the depths of my sub-conscious, and at the time of writing I think they are suitable to get the meaning across that I intend, but instead it comes out as blurred pretentiousness, and murky inclarity (sorry, there I go again). But then, I hadnt reckoned on the fact that most people simply dont have the time to really sit and think about the intricacies of my word formation, as everyone has a busy life to get through, and to waste precious moments trying to decipher my little codes cannot be expected. So in present and future writings I will try to come out of my ivory tower , and step into the caring, sharing world of making oneself understood - hopefully by moderate language useage, and clearer e...