The Paths to Respect

(Sunrise from the top of Mount Batur, May 2011)


I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. Inspiration often arrives in unlikely places, but almost always at the bookstore, and I have serious difficulties in reading just one book at a time. I recently picked up the new anthology of short stories, Love, InshAllah about the secret love lives of Muslim American women. In the imminent rush to read the book, I inhaled it instead. Yes, it has generated much controversy. Yes, it’s about all types of loves and intimacies. Yes, it’s about all types of self-identifying Muslims. But at the very core of each story is a woman’s search for her place in the world, and that’s what makes it such an interesting book. One particular story that stuck with me ended with this quote: There are as many paths to God as there are people on this Earth.

A few days after finishing the book, I attended a leadership discussion with The Leaf Network, an organization supporting community and social action projects, where we reflected on the importance and difficulties of staying true to yourself at the intersections of faith and leadership. One of the speakers, also at the end of his talk, which focused on staying true to faith, said the same phrase as above: the number of paths to God is the number of people in the world. In two very different contexts, within a few days of each other, the world was handing me this idea to contemplate, and so I must.

In its vastness, it’s sheer size, and the number of people on it, our world is anything but uniform. It is anything but narrow. It is anything but a straight line from point A to point B. I like to imagine that when the author and speaker said the phrase above, they meant God and Love to mean the same thing because, in my mind at least, it’s one and the same. So what is this path they speak of so fondly? The path to Love is, I believe, a journey inwards. A quest to define what exists within (which reminds me of another favorite book, The Quest for Meaning). And as each one of us looks inwards, reflecting on the life that is outwards, we are each bound to come to realizations that are very different from one another. With that idea in mind, I am naturally confused by those who want to define an ideal, ultimate, or universal path in life. How can there be one type of path, one idea or goal of a path, that somehow applies to every one of us? When did we start focusing on building such narrow paths with such high, limiting, borders?

The point here is simple. Assuming that only one type of journey will lead 7 billion people to one goal is not only unrealistic, but also unforgiving. It makes zealots out of well-meaning people and builds our walls higher and higher against each other. It is high time we recognized that each person is on a different quest, journey, and path. Whatever the ultimate goal is - Love, God, power, success, wealth, compassion, or any other - there truly are as many paths to it as people who are trying to get there. Each person needs the time and space to find and create their own while realizing that it will be completely unique and different from any other person’s. So while we come to recognize these different journeys, we must also learn to move beyond tolerance and into the realm of appreciation, celebration, and respect. Because once we truly understand the concept of respect, mere tolerance becomes such an ugly idea. The paths are many and all are beautiful so let’s celebrate differences and respect individualities.

(A version of this article first appeared on the SpeakOut website)

Article: On the Road

From the very lovely 99 Percent website, an article on how to produce great work while traveling. A talk with some of my favorite authors Rolf Potts and Chris Guillebeau.

Morning inspiration from me to you :)

On writers

"It’s quite bizarre. Most writers are solitary beings who wrote because they were sent to sit in the margins for too long and now suddenly they’re thrown into the light where their straggly hair and obscure ideas are celebrated."

I came across this interesting article called The glamourisation of the writer. Enjoy: http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/readerblog/2012/02/22/the-glamourisation-of-the-writer/

On Being Alone

Alone

(On June 11, 2011, at Wat Pho, the Reclining Buddha temple, a man gives alms)

“What are you escaping from?”
Nothing.
“What are you looking for then?”
Nothing.

The idea of traveling for travel’s sake is difficult for many to understand. The journey, the concept of moving from one place to another, has always been more important to me than actually arriving somewhere. And for me, the best part of any journey is the time I spend alone. It’s those moment spent sitting on the train in the middle of the raw countryside in central Morocco watching the skinny grass-fed cows that stick with me. Mostly, it’s the reflection process that takes place in those moments. Reflecting on the days that past, the people I met, the conversations we had, the moments we created. Reflecting on the next few days, the hope of some more moving trials, the dream of interesting people, food, experiences, thoughts, ideas, of more chipping away of the shell. Reflecting on my life, my ambitions, the way my brain works, the way this life is supposed to turn out. This is at the heart of why I prefer to travel alone. This world is jam packed with incredible and interesting people and experiences, and I’ve been blessed to meet and know so many.

There is something about having that time to yourself that brings about a certain dialogue that can not exist in the presence of others - the dialogue with yourself. The emphasis seems to always be on fostering dialogue with others, which is important. But what about that internal conversation you never have? The one you always push away and tell to shush. The one you think is a negative invading process, that gut feeling, those ideas, voices, geniuses, whatever you want to call them. They’re there, waiting for you to perk up your ears and listen closely. Know very well that the less you understand about yourself, the less likely it is that you will ever truly know anything about others.

And so, spend time inside your own head, take long train rides alone, walk through busy markets with nothing but your thoughts, and maybe a camera or a notebook. Learn to spend 24 hours completely by yourself. Be balanced: you don’t need to disintegrate from society to do this, you just need to take some time off. Come to an understanding, and then keep that understanding and that conversation alive - with yourself. Unfortunately, there is a societal (mis)understanding that people who enjoy spending time alone must be introverted or shy or somehow dysfunctional. Because most of the world has no idea how to be comfortable inside their own heads, it shouldn’t influence your decisions. The word ‘alone’ becomes automatically translated into ‘lonely,’ which are two very different ideas, and is a clarification that everyone needs to understand well. Embrace yourself while working on embracing others. There is no reason to become a hermit in a desert cave to accomplish this. You can chose to stay home for a whole weekend, take a course without anyone you know, attend a concert by yourself, go for a swim, travel to the next city, country, continent, without knowing anyone there.

My dad recently warned me that I will soon become lonely in this way of life. He said it will become more difficult to keep up and in touch with friends and have a stable circle of loved ones, which is something I have already begun to experience. But it is not loneliness that I fear, it is not understanding who I am that keeps me awake at night. It seems the harder you try to carve your own path in this world, the less likely it is that someone will want to walk with you. The uphill trek to the top of the mountain - whatever that mountain may be - is a path by which most are either intimidated or discouraged. But find that courage anyway. Challenge that mountain, find the brave souls who are also scattered along the barren terrain, find the faint traces of the trails others have left before you and let them criss cross your own trail, and just keep pushing through, carving that path, making those new trails. Bring your eyes down from that peak and look right under your feet. And one day, you will realize that the best thing you ever did was that you stopped looking for something and had the ability to understand that the journey, and that dialogue with yourself, matter more than the destination. And that ultimately, each of us is on their journey alone.

(This article I wrote first appeared on the SpeakOut Poetry Blog on February 3, 2012: http://www.speakoutpoetry.com/building-bridges/alone/)

The habits that crush us

On the very lovely Zen Habits website by Leo Babauta, I came across this interesting article: The Habits That Crush Us http://zenhabits.net/crush/

It's a different perspective on why we have all those unproductive (and often destructive) habits. Enjoy!