Thursday Evenings (1)

Thursday is the one day during the week at which I could fully relax and not worry about anything (sort of). So, I thought, why not spend this free time doing something that allows my mind to break free from this hectic reality? & so I decided, starting this week, that I would weekly blog my thoughts about whatever it is that captures my attention!

A while ago, while I was blogging my time away on tumblr, I came across a picture of a wall somewhere in Palestine. Someone has used a thick, black marker to write on it the quote:
 "نحن احياء و باقون... و للحلم بقية". This translates to "We are alive, & remaining... & the dream is not over". Even though, as usually happens, a lot gets lost in the literal translation of this quote, but that is not the point. Once I read it, I immediately recognized that it was said by the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, who is one of my favorite writers to ever exist. When he said this, Mahmoud Darwish was talking about the Palestinian dream of freedom and how it will continue to live, in spite of everything, in the heart of every Palestinian as long as they're alive. The intended meaning of this quote is truly worthy of admiration. However, when I first read it, not so long ago, I wasn't aware of the fact that the author was talking about the Palestinian dream. I interpreted it in a very personal way, a very beautiful one, nonetheless.

The phrase "و للحلم بقية" kept resonating inside my head. The dream is not over... the dream is not over... the dream is not over. What dream? you may ask. The strange aspect of this is that I truly have no idea. I have vague visions of where I want to be and who I want to become. I have too many dreams intermingled together in a way that makes it difficult for me to recognize any of them as a separate entity. In all honesty, I may not have known what my specific dreams were at the time at which I read the quote, & I might still not know them now. But for some eerie reason, the phrase:
"و للحلم بقية" fills me with a sweet feeling of hope.

There's a certain pleasure in the uncertainty of life. A perfect life which is all planned out is boring, in my view. It's beautiful to realize that the unpredictability of life could result in you achieving dreams that aren't even defined in your mind at the moment. As long as you're alive, it's all possible.

Find Your Voice.

You are sick of writing and deleting what you wrote over and over again. Nothing ever sounds as eloquent as it did inside the deepest bits of your twisted mind. You have all these thoughts, rushing around your head at the speed of light. They appear abruptly, attempting to make you recognize them and hold on to them. But soon enough, they disappear into the void of non-existence. You are on the verge of giving up on self-expression all together. You are starting to lose faith in your talent and get absorbed into the societal norm of feeling mediocre. But you aren't mediocre. In fact, you are far from being mediocre. I'm strong believer that each and every individual has the aptitude for greatness. & as cheesy this might sound, the key to unlocking that potential, is believing in it's existence. 

"The greatest enemy to creativity is self-doubt." - Sylvia Plath 

More often than not, I get discouraged because no matter how hard I try, my writing never sounds like that of brilliant writers like Sylvia Plath or John Green; to name a few. When I write, I don't usually sound like a philosopher who is unlocking the secrets of human consciousness. I sound more like an average over-dramatic girl who just turned eighteen and is feeling rather foreign to this awful world of adulthood. Not that there's any wrong with that. After all, that is exactly what I'm. I'm nothing more than your normal girl who is trying to make sense of the crazy world around her and all the events that keep popping up out of no where. The point is, just because we are ordinary, doesn't mean that we can't produce something extraordinary. 

One of the things that absolutely fascinates me about the human mind, is the idea that each and every one out of the 7 billion people who inhabit this planet, has a unique mindset and mental perception. These mental perceptions might be similar in some people, but they're never identical. Our perception of the world is determined by both genetic factors and life experiences. No one has the same genetic factors as another person. And even if they do (as in the case of identical twins), they would not have the same life experiences. Basically, each and every one of us has a unique combination of thoughts. Almost like a fingerprint, it is made up of similar looking lines, but no two people have the same exact combination of shapes and curves printed on their fingers. Your mind is entirely unique to you. Well, you might be wondering how this is related to self-doubt when it comes to creativity. Here's the thing, you might not be able to express your thoughts like the famous writers and poets, but this doesn't make your words worthless. Believe it or not, you might have the ability to write about certain things that the most recognized of writers weren't able to write about. This does not make either one of you more talented than the other. Rather, it makes you different. Since you have unique life experiences and mental perception, there are certain words which could only be written by you, regardless of your level of training or talent. & since words have the potential to change the world, there's a certain change in our world that could only be caused by YOUR words.