somewhere 'twixt the kinetic and the potential

Hey, I'm Danya, a 20-year-old nomad from Saudi Arabia. I post things that amuse me or cudgel my brains, and things about my life that serve to amuse you or cudgel your brains. But mostly arbitrary shit.

[thoughtknots]

Just had my very first legitimate panic attack

Heart palpitations and constricted breathing and all.

Procrastination really just does not fly here in Stanford. Just a warning for anyone considering coming here to kick it wid me.

P.S. Oh yeah, I'm alive.

P.P.S. For now.

P.P.P.S. Where is everybody?

P.P.P.P.S. Fucking kill me.

P.P.P.P.P.S. But actually though.

[thoughtknots]

Questions I have for people who travel in heels

why?

why?

[thedailywhat]

Afternoon Snack: At the Berlin Zoological Garden, an adorable elephant calf playfully annoys its mother.

[thanks e.s.!]

[thoughtknots]

So. Valid question. How am I supposed to concentrate on packing now that I have the newfound knowledge that this creature is actually out there. It exists. Somewhere. On planet earth. Where I live.

[thoughtknots]

Thought I’d give you guys a sneak peek at what my room does not look like anymore. Pretty much everything has been packed either into a suitcase or a box. So here are a few pictures of my room and my favourite things.

One look at my walls and my bookshelves will tell you everything you need to know about my complex: I am a minimalist trapped inside the body of a pathological junk hoarder. I can’t throw shit away, but I wouldn’t save any of it from a fire either. Which explains why I still have the sign my best friend was holding up during my graduation ceremony, and lopsided arts and crafts from grade school.

It doesn’t feel all that strange leaving this room, actually. The junk may tell a different story, but I’ve only collectively lived here for a year, give or take a month. I was in Europe when my family made the move, so I didn’t even choose any of the furniture, except for the bed (but not the bedding - this was my mother’s closest interpretation of “plain white stuff”). I don't even have curtains. Come to think of it, I’ve never felt all that strange leaving any place. Motto: “The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure, while always arriving. Saves on introductions and goodbyes.”

[thoughtknots]

I fed you so many times but somehow I want more.

me to my stomach

[thoughtknots]

What's a decent amount of clothing to lug halfway across the world for college? How many shoes is too many shoes?

[shiannennaihs]

[atomos]

[thoughtknots]

Visit Original Link

2Pac (ft. Dr. Dre and Roger Troutman) - California Love

So my flight has been changed to Wednesday as per requested by the sponsors. This may be the start of a beautiful, healthy relationship. It's like they know I haven't started packing yet. Cranking this up as I continue not packing.

P.S. I've received roughly 40 messages RE: my suicide post. And so as not to spam you with them, I'm just going to take the time to say I appreciate each and every message very, very much. It's both honoring and humbling that you guys have trusted me with your thoughts and feelings and that you found any meaning in my word-vomit. I'm going to share a few of my favourite ones.

"Dear, I've read your 1.5hr written/typed message to that suicidal anon.. and, I just want to wish you, both of you, a good, wonderful life. Even if there's not much detail on it, I can really relate to what you've said there. I've been in a series of misfortunes too; still coping with it, though very slowly and warily. cheers to tough people like you. :3"

"I read your response to the young Saudi girl contemplating suicide and felt compelled to write because, well, the kindness and thoughtfulness you showed her was truly great. In a situation where most people would offer the prescribed dash of inspiration along with truisms of why suicide generally isn't the answer, you instead opened up. I like that about your writing: you seem to be carefully but deliberately vulnerable. That takes guts and I respect you for it."

"I've always known that, no matter how my world is crumbling, I just have to read your posts and everything's going to be ok. I don't know why it slipped my mind for so long thus suffering unnecessarily. Now, I'm here, and I'm smiling and crying and praying that somehow someone else would be so lucky enough to experience the phenomenon that is Danya and, for once and perhaps for the last time in his life be certain that the world is beautiful after all. (And by beautiful I mean your boobs)"

[allennonsense]

[thoughtknots]

Visit Original Link

Shampoo - Trouble (Power Rangers: The Movie soundtrack)

HEY GUYS. HEY HI HOW YOU DOING? Wanna talk about how fucking ecstatic finding this song on my old mp3 player made me? Wanna talk about how it brought back memories of the iconic YO YO RANGERS (like the Power rangers, but the Yo Yo rangers, because my older brother was going through what we now refer to as his Gangsta Rapper phase. WE FIGHT CRIME WITH RHYME - that was our motto), and how my younger brother always begged to be the Pink Ranger? No? Yeah me neither pff whatever gur I hate to see you go but I love to watch you leave etc.

[wildflowerenigma]

[animalstalkinginallcaps]

[thoughtknots]

animalstalkinginallcaps:

PAUL, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? IS THAT LOU? YOU KILLED LOU?

HE WAS 27 YEARS OLD AND COULDN’T FIGURE OUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “YOUR” AND “YOU’RE” STEVE! WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO? IT HAD TO BE DONE!

[thoughtknots]

On kicking your own bucket

Or in other words, suicide. Remember this anon? Anon is not anon anymore, but will remain anonymous to the rest of you, unless they feel comfortable revealing themselves. Here are the subsequent messages I received from Anon. I'm going to answer here, namely because of Tumblr's shitty new character limit in messages, but also in case anyone else in a similar state of mind is interested. Scroll on by otherwise - this is the longest wall of text. It should be, I spent 1.5 hours typing it.

"I didn't realize you had answered the suicide question until now, and I'm not sure I can totally disclose everything to you in a 500 word limit, but wrapping it up with a bow tie: you're my inspiration and everything I want to be when I grow up even though I don't know you, and you don't know me. I read about your mom...I'm having certain troubles with my dad/whole family, and as a Saudi, no one looks kindly on "I want to runaway from this family" scenarios.

I don't know what to do, but I thought if someone like you ever went through what I'm feeling I have to do, then...I don't know. This sounds cheesy, but I just wanted to find comfort in your words, whatever they were going to be. I asked anonymously because I didn't want it to seem like a pity party on my part; I just genuinely wanted to know how you got through it."

Here's the thing. You are not the first person to ask me if I've ever considered committing suicide, nor are you the first person to tell me they've considered it themselves - and I'm pretty sure you won't be the last. But you have the unconventional honour of being the first stranger to ask me this question/confide in me with those thoughts. And this brings me to the first point I'd like to highlight: these thoughts are a lot more common than I'd imagined they were a few years ago. We're all just very scared of opening up about them because we are all so very scared of sounding pathetic, or like we're giving out pity party invitations. It's just weird to me, I'd say we are in a very strange time and place in history. Cynicism and dark thoughts are praised in art and general culture, but as soon as we hear about someone thinking of kicking their own bucket - we instantly look at that person through a newfound lens of condescension. Suicide is never an answer, apparently. But you have so much to live for, right. Basically, if you are a tortured artist decked in black and eyeliner, you can speak of how alone we all are and how we are all doomed and worthless, and you can go around spreading your cynicism and your irony - and people will call you sophisticated. Educated. Deep. Creative. Worldly. I'm not saying I don't appreciate that kind of art, because a lot of times I do - but if you're just a regular ol' Joe struggling day by day having thoughts within the same realm of despair, you earn the "gobshite" title. You are a pampered pansy who complains too much. You are a quitter.

I suppose the by-now obvious answer is, yes, I have considered committing suicide. But no, I didn't go through with it... or this would be a little awkward.

I don't know what your exact circumstances are, love, but whatever they are, I don't think of you as a pity party. I don't know what your troubles are with your dad, and your family, but I'll tell you my story and hope you can relate. You mentioned my mother, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned her a few times here, but never much in detail. My mother can probably serve wonderfully as Exhibit A in a psychology lecture about child abuse. She has severe anger issues, but I for some reason struck a certain chord of hers and subsequently received the most of her bludgeoning. Basically, when she gets angry, she loses all sense and coherency. Scratches, bruises, broken bones, burns, ripped out clumps of hair - regular marks I had to bear as punishments for mistakes I made, ranging in seriousness from staying in the bathroom for too long to lying to her, and occasionally for no mistakes at all. I never quite understood what it was I'd done wrong, or why I was being singled out in this treatment, but I did spend a good portion of my childhood and teenage years wondering why on earth my mother hated me.

Then came 6th grade, when I began doubting everything I'd been raised to believe in. All my life I'd felt like I had this itch inside me whenever people spoke to me of a divine creature controlling us all, but I didn't scratch the itch. I was too scared of what might surface. The thing is, and this is something you, as a Saudi, will understand better than anyone else here - a "faith crisis" in this place is not the same as a faith crisis elsewhere. Apostasy does not only mean total alienation from everyone in your social life, but possibly the death penalty. As open-minded as Muslims can get, this is one thing that they (at least the ones here) cannot understand, let alone accept. I couldn't just go around announcing it to people, "Hey, guess what, I'm not a Muslim anymore, isn't that the bees' knees?" And the remarkable thing is, as I've come to learn, nothing tortures you more than not having the freedom to be yourself - it slowly eats away at you, until you don't even recognise who you are, which is the state I eventually deteriorated into. Again, I don't know what the nature of your circumstances are, but I'm guessing this is probably how you feel right now. Like you don't know who you are anymore. A lot of people go around saying they don't fit in anywhere, and let's give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they don't. But what's different in our case is, sometimes we do fit in somewhere, but it doesn't fit into what our society views as acceptable - which paradoxically excludes us from the group we fit into, bringing us back to where we started. Not fitting in anywhere. And possibly breaking laws, which could get us killed. Cute, yeah? It's a lot of pressure for anyone to handle, let alone a 16-year-old (which is how old your profile says you are?) Let's go back to our story though. Having silently proclaimed myself an ex-Muslim, I began to live somewhat of a double life, "praying," fasting, doing pretty much everything I used to do, but only because I had to maintain the part. And I hated it. It made my insides crawl. And it was strange, going from having the purpose I'd been taught I had (that we were created to worship God) to not having any sense of direction, nor the freedom to admit it. 

So there was that, coupled with being my mother's punching bag, then dealing with a close friend's death, which was the last straw in the haystack that broke the camel's back. Or something. I went from feeling overwhelmed to being completely jaded. I was entirely removed from my life, like I was watching someone who was me but not really me playing me - which is essentially what I was doing. Hardly anything warranted a reaction from me anymore, unless I was faking it. I worked overtime to arrange facial expressions that would pass as semi-normal, just so people wouldn't see through me. Friends stopped being comforting, and being on my own wasn't either. And I guess that got me thinking, if  I can't be with people and I can't be by myself, where does that leave me? It came to me one day when I was in the car with my family, and my dad swerved to avoid what would have been a bad accident. Everyone reacted the "normal" way - gasping, screaming, thanking God for their safety.. But I was disappointed. Then slightly surprised to realise: I'd wanted that accident to happen. You are right about the running away thing, it's not only "not looked kindly on" here - it's downright impossible. Especially for a 15-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia, which was my age at the time. When you run away, you need a place to go, and there isn't one here. In short, suicide was not only an answer - it seemed like the only one. As far as I could tell, I'd never asked to be born, so why waddle away in misery until death "took me" - why not approach death myself? Knock on its door and be all, fuck you fuckhead, what's taking you so long? 

I remember, with surprisingly pristine clarity, many of the thoughts that lingered in my head at the time, but most of the days from that period are a blur now. Nothing distinctive, just me going through the daily motions, occasionally pondering the best way to go about killing myself. Which is why I can't, as badly as I want to, tell you how I went from that state of mind to how I am now. There was no singled out event, no one 180-swerving "life changing" moment, no milestone.. Nothing significant changed in my life to make me feel it was all suddenly worth it. I know this must be the most disappointing anti-climax of all time, except for 90% of the movies in Hollywood, but it's true. I can only tell you what I know now, and hope you eventually relate. 

A lot of people say happiness is a choice, and I agree. But just because you choose something doesn't necessarily mean you can get it. Like say you go to the arcade, and you see a Pikachu inside a claw crane, and you want it - you choose it (I choose you Pikachu). So you drop a coin into that machine, but all the claw grasps is air, or a rabid-looking dog or something. And what the hell are you supposed to do with a rabid-looking dog? So you keep dropping coins into that damn machine, to no avail, until you run out of coins. You chose Pikachu. But you didn't get him. Perhaps it's not the best example out there, since you probably won't want to kill yourself as a result, unless being the world's greatest Pokemon Master means that much to you (I'm looking at you, Ash) - but you get the point. I hope.

It's okay to feel like you want to kill yourself. Yeah. It is. I don't know what the latest school of thought in the mental health world has to say about this - hell, I've never even met a therapist/psychologist, but this is just me talking. I may be making a grave mistake here by saying this, but as long as we're being honest... It's okay to feel this way. It's not even abnormal if you ask me. In fact, it's probably one of the most rational thoughts human beings have ever deliberated. I mean it makes more sense than "Smile and the world smiles with you" (in actuality: smile and the world asks "What the fuck is wrong with you?" – woman on the subway RE: me smiling at her. I'm still a huge fan of smiles though. Dunno what bug that woman had up her ass). When you can't run away from yourself, you want to end yourself. It's a rational train of thought. I think the reason we subconsciously label people who want to commit suicide as "crazy" is that we, as a species, are usually terrified of the unknown, and, by default, terrified of death. But life is unknown too. We don't know what's waiting for us around the corner, and sometimes we don't even know what we wish to find around the corner. There comes a time when the blankness of the future is so extreme, just a black wall of nothingness: not even of bad things – not like there’s a cave full of monsters that we're afraid of entering the future. It's just empty. So we become terrified of life. And death becomes the alternative. 

We're always searching for the meaning of life. God, Jesus, Allah, HaShem, Buddha, big bangs, big booms, and why the fuck are we all here? But I think, above that all, what we all truly desire is the experience of being actually alive, you know? Not why do we live, but how do we live. While the former question is so impossible to answer it's almost rhetorical, the latter is attainable, making it possibly even more frustrating if you still can't answer it. After a tiring life of catering to other people's expectations, how do we live for ourselves?

I guess that's the question I attempt to answer every day. I still have to keep a lot of things to myself, I still can't totally be myself openly with the people who surround me on a daily basis, but I'm okay with that. It gets really hard sometimes, and sometimes I have to visualise a specific person in front of me, and punch them in the face, repeatedly, but then I get on with things. At the end of the day, it comes down to this: I know I'm alone. We're all alone. Not necessarily lonely, but alone. We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. And as long as I'm happy with the person I choose to be, as long as I'm comfortable with my own beliefs, then I don't need other people's approval. Sure it would make life easier sometimes, but it's not the pivotal center everything revolves around. Even family. We love them, we hate them, we want to kill them - but if you really think about it, they're just people you share DNA with, through some weird demographic, biological coincidence. And maybe you're trapped with them for the time being, maybe they'll never understand you for who you are, but there will come a day when they'll stop weighing you down. I promise you that. There's so much more out there. Always new things to see, always new things to uncover, and the more you learn, the more you learn you don't know. And that's the beauty of it! Motherfuck, all the things we don't know! Sidebar: Did you know that one of the theories surrounding black holes is that, should a man ever enter one and avoid destruction (pretty much impossible, but whatever), he might find himself in another universe? Traveling backwards in time? Because black holes seem to behave exactly like the rest of the universe, only in reverse: The universe is continually exploding outwards, whereas a black hole is forever imploding, turning in on itself. Doesn't that just blow your mind? I know it does. Screw everyone else. Fuck 'em if they don't approve of who you are. Just keep being, okay? There's shit waiting to be known out there. Don't dwell around people who get you down. Surround yourself with humans who make you laugh and think and accept. Love them, but don't depend on them. They're variables. The only constant factor is you. Everyone comes and goes in waves, except you. That's why it's so important to be okay with that, and the concept of aloneness.

Another thing that I believe is important to indoctrinate is the concept of wholeness vs. happiness. There's nothing wrong with being happy of course, but just the idea that we should live our lives as an endless pursuit of happiness seems a little faulty to me, because it breeds a kind of phobia - a fear of sadness. "Turn that frown upside down," "Move on," "Cheer up!" - we're kind of insinuating, as a society, that happiness is the default state of mind, when it really isn't. Failure, sadness, heartbreak - it all contributes to who we are, to our wholeness. It teaches us more than the "default state" we celebrate: happiness, success, victory. As a matter of fact, if anything it probably teaches us how to get there. So don't ask yourself whether or not something is contributing to your happiness, but whether or not it's contributing to your wholeness. And if you're having a particularly rough day, chances are it is.

A lot of days are going to feel like you're just struggling to keep your head above the water, and that's absolutely fine, too. There's so much emphasis on looking like we've got our shit figured out, but let's face it, we don't. Just the fact that you called me an "inspiration" made me want to sob (and maybe I did blubber convulsively onto my keyboard, we'll never know) – because half the time I have absolutely no clue what the fuck I'm doing. I approach life like a game of Minesweeper, clicking away on boxes furiously hoping I don't get blown up. And I learn things in the process. I meet people. I read a book or two. Watch a movie or three. Fall in love once or twice. Fall in shit slightly more often than that. I cry until I laugh. I laugh until I cry. I make other people laugh. And I don't compare myself to other people. I compare myself to who I was, who I am, and who I will be.

You said you wanted to find comfort in my words, and this was probably a lot more words than you'd bargained for, but I hope that means a lot more comfort, too. I'm here if you want to talk about anything at all. Now smile. I won't ask you what the fuck is wrong with you. Because everyone has things wrong with them. And shit, that is really okay. So okay.  

[thoughtknots]

How to make tea, starring me

Make tea

Throw tea bag into trash

Throw stirring spoon into trash

Leave the kitchen

Walk 3 steps

Halt, realise what you've done

Put body in reverse

Go back to the kitchen

Get the metal spoon out of the trash

Enjoy your tea

[thoughtknots]

You are my sunshine

My only sunshine

You make me happy

When my fridge is empty

[art-of-equanimity]