'talks have failed again.'
'what? i thought you said things were under full control this time around'
'only apparently'
SIGH. 'what now'
BIG SIGH. 'what else?'
'god damn... why cant we just settle for something? or forget it altogether?'
'lasting peace or endless uncertainty? its ur choice.'
'never know peace came in so many pieces.'
...

random rumbling at 0113

its 1.13 AM. up so late (or is it so early) after a very long time. usually i switch to staying up at night and sleeping through part of the day in summer, when the night is too short to sleep through. earlier today went for karate classes for the first time since leaving melaka. thus was planning on sleeping early, but here i am listening to 70's music, and blogging, and thinking what am i doing? at 0119 hrs.

last month i was in cannes. my first attendance to a major conference. met a few old friends from aalborg, and realized conferences are more than just just conference. there is also a socializing, making contacts and traveling aspect to it.

traveling with my colleagues, one other thing i realized is how alcohol became the number 1 industry in the world. we usually had dinner together, followed by the gang going for a drink at a cafe/pub. a few casual drinks and each of them were counting like 30-50€, excluding the wine at dinner. i even saw a wine that costs over 500€ a bottle (75 cl).

but that was last month. now i am back in trondheim, my adopted hometown for the next three/four years, spending dreadful days with all sorts of theories (matrix theory, information theory, communication theory) for breakfast, lunch and dinner. [sometimes i really ask myself - how on earth did i end up being a researcher!!!]

okay, i guess thats enough rumbling to make a post. (thus i can continue claiming to be a blogger;)

its me again

thats the usual me. absent for a long time, once again.
wats happened in all this while???

well, first of all i (sort of you can say) recovering from a long negative peak in my efforts at trying to be who i am. the thing is i am sort of lost as to what it really means to be who you are. i wont really say confused. its that i more or less know what it is (theoretically speaking), but trying to put that into perspective of everyday life as a practicing and God fearing Muslim (alhamdulillah).

there is a hadith stating that our heart is like a white sheet to begin with. as time goes on, and we start sinning, black dots appear on this sheet one by one, until one day no traces of the original while remains. by definition, Islam is the deen-fitrah (the natural life style), which means being who you are should really go hand in hand with being a Muslim. but by now my heart is pretty black (may God help me) and which sort of made things complicated.

thats one good reason. but i guess there are more. i thing that i can think of the society i come from. back home you are born with a pack of expectations. become successful in life (ans success means being an engineer or doctor or such - and get a white collar job), get a beautiful wife and bla bla bla. i have been living abroad on and off for some time now, and i have come across many people who are really following their heart when it comes to doing something with their life. so i am sort of caught between two boats..... of course the "financial safety net factor" has a big role to play, but then again - where there is a will, there is a way.

life isnt really meant to be "and they are living happily forever ..." - and there is no fun to it. so i have no complaints.

the quest for survival goes on, and he laughs best who laughs last. i have my fingers crossed.

[photo credit: my dear friend shabbir ahmed the chemist]

life

life is like a wheel moving forward
each point returns to kiss the ground
but its a different ground at each kiss

series 1.2 - success vs happiness

[two weeks just passed like that since the previous post. time DOES fly]

how does success interact with happiness? are they contradictory or supplementary? can one be happy and successful at the same time?

well, i see it this way. happiness doesn't necessary mean success, for one can be happy without being successful, in the sense we usually know. but it surely is a criteria of success. could we say one is successful when he has all other than happiness?

then again, these are two different criteria. happiness, on one hand, is generally accepted as a state of contentment and ease of mind, whereas success is a very relative term and depends on the individual and how she/he gives importance to different aspects of life, and to what extent.

thats bring us back to the question of success and its measure. is there any universal measure of success? something bigger than life to measure success by? a criteria that takes into consideration all that we take at face value - our wealth, status and others; as well those that are hidden behind our carefully orchestrated outlook - our happiness, sorrows, pleasures and the likes.

is there?

[-> series 1.3]

series 1.1 - success story

in bangla, we have a saying 'gari, nari, bari' (literally car, woman, home) to roughly denote the so called criteria of success. are these all that there is to success? or does success have other scales and units? other meanings?

fame and power are usually counted among the scales of success as well. and thats why people who has it all yet goes for powerful positions or at least ceremonial post of honour.

man is mortal. yet we go at great length to make sure our legacy lives on. thats human nature. the best way someone lives on is through his/her progeny, the offspring. thats why we take pride in the achievements of our little ones, and are hurt at their stumbling.

like living beyond life, being respected is another of mans greatest yearnings. but unlike the former - over which one has little control, someone can earn well respect through his/her personality and positive actions.

so i would put these two, progeny and respect, as two other measures of personal success. and probably the two that matters most. after all, one may be rich and powerful, but whats the point if he/she is scorned at and despised behind the back; or has none to survive him/her.

[-> series 1.2]