[weltenwellen]

Mary Oliver, from “Hum, Hum”, A Thousand Mornings

[dawnsfragrance]

it’s such a relief when your soul no longer clings to an unattainable person. when your heart has come to accept that your fate was only meant to collide for a brief moment in time. you finally let go of their hand. and get on...with your big wonderful life

[theoptia]

Susan Sontag, from As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980; July 23rd, 1966

Text ID: I am alone—I ache—

[aabbiidd]

[tkkatherineblog]

[mrcheyl]

[7tny]

[noorshirazie]

“love, when unrequited, grows lonely. it roams the desolate streets as an outcast, in search of the companion it never had.”

— Noor Shirazie

[noorshirazie]

“i write of you a little too often, a little too well. perhaps i should pace these heavy recollections so they do not reawaken. i must only remember you in cautious intervals, if ever at all.”

— Noor Shirazie

[adeles]

#same gina same

[mod2amaryllis]

ok ok ok ok ok ok can I just have a quick lil moment of your time?

This shit.

So Hunchback is far and away my favorite movie from Disney’s Renaissance, and it always makes me so happy that yes, people seem to appreciate it, people seem to love it, but I’mma go into exactly WHY it’s my favorite, and WHY I think it’s so crucial, and WHY I think it should be required viewing for young boys specifically.

We all know that a huge bulk of the media we’ve grown up with consistently has that one frustrating message:  Being the hero means you’ll get the girl.  Many boys let this mentality bleed into reality.  We have “nice guys,” who feel that their niceness entitles them to romance, when obviously that discredits a female’s personal choice.  We all get this, we all know this, and a lot of us get that it’s a toxic message.

So check out our hero.

He’s an incredibly good person who isn’t conventionally attractive.

Check out our lady.

Super good person, conventionally attractive.

The movie so deliberately builds up Quasi’s hopes.  There’s a whole fucking song about it.

But Esmeralda, who is her own person with her own motivations and preferences, chooses another man, who is also good and also attractive.

A lot of people criticize this aspect of the movie, the fact that Quasi doesn’t get the girl BECAUSE of his appearance.  But my argument?  This is the best damn message a movie could ever send.

Because when things get dicey, when Esmeralda’s life in in danger, when Quasi would be putting his own life on the line, he knows that romance is no longer within the realm of possibility.  He knows he won’t be “getting the girl.”  He knows this, and he allows himself a moment of bitterness, he risks falling prey to the “nice guy” trope, and he almost succumbs.

“She already has her knight in shining armor, and it’s not me.”

BUT THEN HE DOES THE RIGHT THING.

He has NO ulterior motive for saving her life.  NO ulterior motive for opposing the man who raised him.  And he doesn’t know that he’ll get any reward, he knows he could straight up get killed for his actions, and yet he still acts.

And there’s no bitterness. There’s still so, so much love between him and Esmeralda, pure awesome platonic love, and love between him and Phoebus, and just fucking love all around, it’s amazing.

I’ve heard so many people express distaste at Quasi not ending up with Esmerelda.  Like he was cheated out of some kind of reward.  But have they watched the ending?

Does that look like a man cheated of his reward?  Does he look like he “lost” to Phoebus?  No dude, that’s a man who has everything he ever wanted, and that’s also a man who didn’t “get the girl.”

If that’s not an essential message for young boys to hear, I don’t know what is.

[anakinskywaalkers]

I’m not a good Muslim & it’s ok

A few months ago, back in October, I went to my first Islamic conference (as an adult) and I wrote a post about it in which I mentioned not feeling like a good Muslim for the majority of my life. I said then that I would discuss this matter at a later date but I totally forgot until today (at work actually, when it hit me lol). 

I know nobody really gives a shit what I say on here but I believe writing down your thoughts is an effective way of managing and understanding them so bear with me. Okay, so I’ll start from the beginning. I grew up in quite a religious home, Like my mum taught the Quran to local children in our house, my dad has an entire room (plus more) dedicated to his Islamic books, my parents perform prayers 5 times a day, but they’re very intellectual and didn’t ever force me to do anything, they just practised their faith in front of me. So as you can imagine, I grew up talking about my religion, engaging with other Muslims and had a generally positive outlook on my faith. 

However, I don’t really know what happened during my time in school, I guess you could blame friends, health… TV…  Music? for taking me away from my faith. I couldn’t recognise the person I had become by the time I left for university. I ended many of my friendships with other Muslims, I stopped participating in Islamic events (well all except RRE) and I really just distanced myself from my faith. Bear in mind this all happened WHILE I wore the hijab! I think the worst thing I did was neglect my prayer, I did other things alongside but that was the worst. I started feeling like I didn’t belong in my family, I couldn’t participate in their debates, in their discussions, I truly felt like an outsider. And sometimes I still do. It took me about two years to understand where I was spiritually, and by then the only religious duty I was performing was wearing hijab. I suppose you’re wondering why I didn’t just take it off, I’ve been wearing the hijab for 10 years now… So I barely notice it haha. 

I’m not exactly sure when I realised how badly in shape my faith was, I didn’t have an epiphany or have a breakdown. I just remember driving home from uni and thinking ‘I have a car, friends, a job, university, family, and so much more so why am I not happy?’ I think then I sort of started to realise that hey, that one thing you’re missing from your life is faith. I was stuck because I didn’t know how to reconnect with my faith, no let me rephrase that, I STILL don’t know how to reconnect with my faith. It’s been two years and I don’t know if I’ve made any progress. Do I thank God? Do I perform my prayers? Do I give charity? Am I a nice person? I didn’t know where to begin so I started doing little things like remembering God and saying thank you as often as I could. 

Right now, I don’t think I’m a good Muslim. I still struggle with my prayers, I don’t thank God enough, I’m selfish, I gossip, I swear, I commit a multitude of sins. But why do I not give up? Why don’t I say, ‘I can’t do this, Islam isn’t for me, I give up’ because in those trying times, I remember my favourite hadith in which the Prophet PBUH said, ‘Allah says: O son of Adam, even if your sins were to reach up to the clouds in the sky, and then you were to ask for My forgiveness, I would forgive you and think nothing of it’. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is that although I’m a bad Muslim, it’s okay. I wish people had told me that from the start. Faith is a journey, there are ups and downs, the point is we don’t give up. I’ve had to understand that everyone is different. Some people find it super easy to get up and pray, others find it easy to wear hijab. Allah gave us all different strengths and weaknesses and for that, I am very grateful. I now know what my strengths and weaknesses are and like The Maine sing, ‘control what you can, confront what you can’t’ I’m going to promise myself to work on my faith, to let myself love God and to be thankful. 

[lovechangeseverythang]

[alliebringsthepop]

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, White Nights

[yescene]

During Hajj on the day of Arafah this couple was walking in front of me for about ten minutes. The man was walking very quickly as if he was in a hurry but the woman he was with was walking at a much slower pace, you could tell she was exhausted. He started to walk at her pace for a bit but then stopped abruptly and offered to carry her. She said no and hugged him. He kissed her on the forehead, walked at her pace and continued to rub her back until we got back to the tents.

[mobeenhakeem]

[wnq-writers]

“Tell me your secret. How do I stop thinking with my heart?”

— MJL