What an artist must do...

"If you want a slice of life, look out the window. An artist has to look out that window, isolate one or two suggestive things, and embroider them together with poetry and fabrication, to create a revelation. If we can't, as artists, improve on real life, we should put down our pencils and go bake bread."

-Barbara Kingsolver (novelist)

Thoughts?

Relfections: combating mediocrity (phase 1)

I am faced with this challenged everyday. The challenge of rising above our ordinary selves in pursuit of achievment beyond ourselves and our expections. It is in everything we do--from the way we treat others to the relization of our greatest ambitions. It is hidden in seemingly insignificant acts that have the power to change us entirely. Recently I've been feeling this intensely. I am overwhelmed with ambition yet stagnant in accomplishment. I am not, however, hopeless. Just disappointed. My disappointment in myself has lead me to this conclusion...I need a spiritual makeover.

It brings me to the fundamental question that I ask and re-ask myself all the live-long day and am now asking you: what legacy do you want to leave? My answer has a dual-nature: one spiritual and hidden, one social and overt. It is this...I want to have been a service to God through worshipping Him and serving His creations to the best of my ability. I have relized that the majority of people just want to 'live their lives' and not be bothered by changing anyone elses, which is why people who dare to make a difference in the world are labelled 'extrodinary'.


Imagine for a second these extrodinary individuals (of those who are in a position to change someone else's condition) were the majority. Then humanitarianism would not be so extrodinary as almost every capable person would be investing their time, money and effort to a cause they feel passionate about. What if extrodinary became ordinary? Then I guess we'd all have to step up our philantropic game to be extrodinary. We would be full of beautiful legacies.

Now the challenge: daring to dedicate our lives (in some capacity) to changing lives. Giving back in some way. We have been given sustenence to share, not hoard. We have been given strength to strengthen others. Its a duty to reach out and share our provisions. Becoming giants in our communities takes what most people would call idealism because, as Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "you must do the thing you think you cannot do".

Often times people laugh, smirk, or look at me doubtfully when I tell them of my plans to change the world and I never understood why until I realized that most people that are at a position to change the condition of our world would trade in their legacies for a so-called comfortable life. May God save us from allowing the destruction of others and, in turn, that of our own souls.

Peace & love

Poetry and Promise

In the name of God...

Poetry and Promise
I write on it
with blood stained pens I write sonnets
ink diluted with tears
The brands of pens they fear, I use
ink of starvation and greed,
a fountain pen of abuse
I write as a witness to hurt,
jot down a heavy heart full of words,
A determined mind and restless spirit is what they nurse.
So charge me with a cause because im now willing to pay the cost
So
long
since
relief
How many lifetimes must we bleed?
Over-due
is
change
and over you and me is responsibility to make it happen
to save some part of humanity from collapsing
rescue some piece of our world
you chose the slice
then lets piece us back together for peace
and salvage our sleepless nights...
lets frame wrong and sentence it to right
lets rewrite our sentiments and fight
for solutions to our plight
compassion in place of the pollution of spite
in conclusion we might...
find a bigger part of ourselves
or in delusion regress to a love of wealth
a love of self is the catalyst of forgetfullness
Why must it take a tragedy to remedy our selfishness?
True courage is giving back to others until the self is spent
until you see through the lens of suffering
inspire those who hate...to love again.
Desire to feed every impoverished soul
make the unthinkable possible
its not only about leaving a legacy...
Its not to inspire vain applause and awe
but the ceasing of a moment of pause,
to reflect upon the glory of God
to see purpose in His cause
because we need to believe that we can redraw maps to freedom
and mark its destination in our hearts,
bleeding and beating like drums calling a revolution
I want to feel this more in my own soul's evolution
With poetry, I promise.

-Timaj (c)

Reverberations of late-night ponderings

bismillah,

For that which I haven't written,
those words that escape me...
is a home within my ribcage.
Stillness whispers to silence
and they understand a friendship deeper than rukus
I melt in their complexities
I am struck with awe at their dimensions and moments
revelations
that I wish we could hold on to long enough to cause a spiritual revolution
instead...pollution infects time and veins from the hypnotics of a spherical revolution,
delusion, subduing the pain with illusions we chose to sustain and we lose just to prove our disdain..
the situation paints cloudy skies
but the truth will soon reign (rain)
Hold this life in an hour glass
and the sand might shower fast
now we're cast into oblivion cause the power crashed
like stock markets in our hearts,
losing interest as our spiritual recession progresses
forgetfullness marks the paths that were stepping,
the waters that we're treading.
The earth cries for protection as we reck it
cries from justice as we paint its soil red with blood
as some walk on it barefoot and some with provision
some lay dead within it and some walk dead above it,
The sky cries firery sparks as rockets drop like tears
while we're clinically depressed from our psychological death
because we've pathologically slept on everyone but "self"
darkness has become our currency and we're currently in debt
In lands of the living-dead

-T

Urgency

bismillah...

I burn with the burden of billions of hunger pangs but know not how to cook relief
I yearn to be an opportunistic chef and whip up a digestible solution
I shiver with a chill born from broken shelter and exposure to our sweet "fresh air"
They yearn for the privilege of recycled air, and a mere blanket to cover adversity.

I run with the rage of ignited passion for reform, to inform of the worlds ways and the ways we can make way for world change
You run away from the pain of knowing pain, from feeling anything estranged from superficial pleasures in your day,
--you sweet escape into the so-called utopia invisible to eyes of the forgotten.

There is a secret choice we all make that is foreign to the knowledge of all other than two beings--God and our own souls...
It is the choice to carry the world on our backs.
I backpack the world and whenever I do not ache of it I wonder if I've dropped a piece of us, perhaps forgotten a piece of us to lighten my own load, to make it easier to bear.
...a convienece to my own soul.

Truth is, pieces of humanity have been dropped since the beginning of time.
You can find history on the floor beside the misery of suffering.
You can find it behind bars in a cell of innocent inmates.
Within wombs nursing a soon-to-be aborted child who could have changed the world.
We call these accidents, but truly they are turning points.
Choices...like the choice to be misinformed.

Education is the greatest gift to a nation for it breeds freedom.
Oppression only plagues a mind without the tools of independent thought,
A heart without the intentions of sacrifice for God,
A soul devoid understanding of its purpose.

So turn rage of injustice into action for a cause and its impact will first be seen in you.
I can bore you with numbers, urge you with shocking images but I won't because the need for this revolution cannot be calculated or viewed.
It must be felt within your being.

Ignite the world with philanthropic flame, then invite the world to your fiery passion.
Your mark on the world can be a mere ambiguous scratch inspiring nothing or a brilliant mural reminding the masses to recognize and preserve life

I refuse to be ambiguous in this world.
I refuse the ever-persistent offer of ignorance and oblivion and delve into peace and pavilions of thought where ideas are born and craddled to grow into hope
where action trumps distraction and conquers laziness of the soul

I pray to fight harder against myself for myself everyday
I'm grateful for the recognition that being a fighter is a part of what makes me human
It is an ancient struggle...
may generations live it better than generations before until the earth boils.

Hodan

Your presence in my life is like that of a birthmark
for I feel I've known you as long as I've known my skin.
Our bond transends memories,
It's like an imprint on the soul.
Distance seperates us only physically,
In spirit, we are roommates. <3