Muppie is as muppie does

So. When I began this little endeavor, I was totally and completely without any sort of gainful income. I was taking a course in journalism, but that was about it. The course, and reading, and writing all the time.

Not a bad life.

Since then, God in His mercy has blessed me with not one, but two jobs, plus a couple of small writing gigs (not regular….yet!). Plus, still the course. Now, part-time is supposed to be the chill person’s way of earning (in my naive naive mind of February). Turns out that juggling all these things is, um…it’s hard.

Which is why Writer’s Progress hasn’t been updated in so long, why my cat is feisty with me, and why I’m so tired today I can’t even think straight.

I’m happier to be working than my whining implies. It’s just…well, I feel compelled to explain my vacation from the blogosphere, however abbreviated. I feel that I have neglected myself, and you – whoever you are – and, worst of all, my writing. One of my major loves and dreams in this life. Which is bad. Bad bad bad. Writers are to write. It’s a very simple, straightforward idea, and I ought to stick to it. Tired or no. Busy or no. Writers don’t write only when they feel like it. They write because it’s got to get done. And it does. I need to stop starting things, and finish something. One thing. Do one thing well. And in a timely manner. Yes. That’s the ticket.

It’s odd; when all I had to do was sit in a cafe all day and read, stare onto the street, observe my fellow addicts, and think, ideas came easy. You’d think that being out in the world more, becing more “active” and social with people, would fuel the fire of thought. Not so. I’m shuttling myself between Cambridge and Boston  – home and work and other work and friends’ apartments and cafes. Because I am pathologically social and, well, love to read at small tables with a mug of steaming tawny liquid in one hand. It just ain’t the same at home in my sweats. I don’t know why, but it’s not. And the thing is that I’m so segmented between the ten things/places I have to do/go to in one day, that I end up feeling like I don’t actually get anything done. Not like a normal person does. Including, sadly, thinking thoroughly and well.

So despite being introduced into the World of Consulting (about which, before two weeks ago, I knew less than the average toddler), I am hopelessly, hopelessly without insight into the world. Or myself. Or religion, or literature. Maybe my brain has just given up. I don’t know. But hi, Dry Spell, what’s up? I’ve introduced him to Writer’s Block. They’re cohabiting happily in my living room. I think it’s getting serious.

Over the past couple of weeks, I would sit down to write something, and then think: no. I can’t write about that. It’s so trite. Or transparent. So I have a few drafts just sitting there collecting WordPress dust (dust collects at roughly the speed of light in my apartment). I’m not sure to bring them out or just let them lie. Obviously I’m letting them lie for the moment.

I am rambling.

Here’s my problem: I have indulged in being amazingly personal on this blog. Which I do not regret. I am a what-you-see(read)-is-what-you-get kind of girl and I’ve come to peace with that. But the reason I can be so deeply personal is because I’ve been writing about things that (get this) I can toss out there without really caring too much. Not because I don’t care at all. But because there’s nothing really riveting happening in my life right now, so there’s nothing to conceal. Baring my secrets is totally my bidness, and I can do it without really harming anyone else, or embarrassing them, or anything. Which. You know. Is nice. But so is having an actual life. One that you feel compelled to guard from the eyes of the world. Because it’s personal. Which would lead one to think that I have a problem.

Dicey. Do I want to write, or live, more? This is kind of sad, but I waver. Actually that’s really sad.

Case in point:

When I was in college, way back in the early days before Facebook (ah, the days!), my college had this thing called PlanWorld. The fancy computer-literate people would post various images and links and things, but most of us Neanderthal liberal-arts folk were of the text-only persuasion.

I had just transferred in from an all-girls school, and the tiny tiny cliquey, jock-ridden world of rural Amherst was a bit of a shock. Plus the witty banter was like nothing I had ever heard before. It was the only social currency, and boy were these kids LOADED. It was clever, it was sparkling, and I stuck out like a sore thumb.

An acquaintance from high school kind of adopted me in a fit of pity, and I promptly engaged in accidentally seducing one of his best friends. When I became aware of this one fine Saturday evening, to my very pleasant surprise, I was totally taken in by this guy. To the extent that you can be, in the basement of a dilapidated brick dorm, with a keg in one corner and a blue strobe light in the other, and some guy named Chaz stripping in red-faced, drunken, this-will-embarrass-you-when-you-wake-up-tomorrow glory to the cheers of a circle of miniskirted, tanktopped coeds.

So. You know. Not the stuff of romantic legend, but a boy does what he can. And a girl can’t blame him for Chaz’s last keg stand. It wouldn’t be democratic.

The next day, true to my transparent, exhibitionist, shout-it-from-the-rooftops self, I wrote about my unbridled, democratic enthusiasm on my plan. And my own personal Don Juan read every word.

Which sent him running for…well, the campus is on a hill. He was running for the lowlands. Which was sad, because I did really like the guy. Silly Lizzy, mucking it up again. Story of my life.

At nineteen, I was too naive to understand why transparency isn’t always the best social option. I’m not sure how well I’ve learned my lesson (I still have this notion of everyone in every room I’m in being able to read my every thought, no matter what I say), but I’m certainly putting some effort into it. This all gives me a new appreciation for Jane Austen’s spinsterhood. I wonder if a married woman would have had the moxie to write what she did. It would have been personal. But as the casual observer, she was free to comment on what she liked. Was it worth it? Is it? Can it be?

I more function as a casual observer of myself, or my past, than the people around me. Because the present – well, let me put it this way. Writing is precious. But so are people, and my relationships with them. And I don’t have strobe lights to detract from the charm of it all anymore. So I am stuck, and I’m not ashamed to say that much.

(…and Joe, if you’re out there somewhere reading this, I’m sorry about PlanWorld.)

Between obscurity and notoriety

I once had a conversation with someone who didn’t write a book because he wasn’t sure that his intentions were pure.

Wow, I thought. Not me. Fear of renown has not scared me off anything – but perhaps it ought to.

Sincerity is something, perhaps oddly, perhaps normally, that I find elusive. I don’t know how to put my finger on it. And the lack of knowing plagues me. I’m trudging ahead, doing what I do, feeling as I feel, without much self-editing. I wonder if it’s time to take a step back and check myself.

Usually, when faced with the dilemma of my own sincerity, I simply pray for it. I’m not sure how much more I can manage. I even cringe away from uttering things like “Oh Lord, you know that I did such and such for Your sake alone” even when I am alone in prayer. I am afraid of myself, and afraid of the One Who created me and knows me better than I know myself. What if I have told myself a pretty and convenient lie? What if I told myself that, for instance, I started this blog for the sake of God alone, and what if, underlying that, even stronger than that, a love of praise and desire for recognition drove me to it? How would I know? Not knowing, I am inclined to think that baser things drive my actions – hoping, all the while, that I am wrong, and if not, that God will forgive me and improve me. And who am I to say what I meant by this or that? The more important something is to me, the more various my attractions to it. I feel that to to identify one driving force for something so important, so personal, and so inevitable as my writing would be to deny the complexity of my humanity. Right now, anyway. I am not so good, I am not so pure, and I am afraid of such self-assured declarations.

Do we totally understand our own selves?

Something may remain painfully unclear to a person for months or years that is plain as day to his peers and family. Alcoholics deny their alcoholism. Cumpulsive gamblers tell themselves, “I can stop whenever I want.” Am I any different – are any of us any different? If I understood the most inner, deepest motivations I have for all of my actions, and could identify them immediately, wouldn’t it be easier to rid my heart of its imperfections? Isn’t part of the insidiousness of sin that we sometimes don’t know it’s there?

The Qur’an calls those who deny belief, even while they hold it somewhere deep in their beings, “blind”. With honesty, and admission of that belief, there comes sight. “The likeness of the two parties is as the blind and the deaf and the seeing and the hearing: are they equal in condition? Will you not then mind?” [11:24] But I am more inclined to think that this phenomenon happens in gradations. Among the believers, the seers and hearers, some are undeniably better people and more committed to their faith. So I shy away from stark dichotomies. Is it right to think that because I see with the eyes of a believer, my spiritual sight is 20/20? I feel as though I am still waking up to the world, and things are revealed to me slowly, as I grow. With time, I am learning to polish the glasses of belief, and things that were vague in the distance a year ago become clear, and yet more things remain farther, beyond my reach, but between me and the horizon. I see myself for what I am through experience as it unfolds; it was not all done with a thunderclap the moment I became honest with myself and sighed, Yes, I am a Muslim.

So am I sincere? Am I sincere in all the ways I should be, in writing, in waking up in the morning, in the friendly exchanges I have with my fellow Muslims and my fellow Americans? I don’t think so. But I’m not sure if that is reason enough to stop.

I was raised in the theater – as a dancer, then as a singer, then as an actor. Then as a writer and director. I haven’t been involved in theatrical projects per se since graduating, but I believe that it would be foolish – just plain stupid – for me to say that the exhibitionism that drove my involvement in those things from the age of three does not now play a part in what I do, or attempt to do, publicly. The sound of applause was familiar to me from an early age – the smiling faces, the admiration, the feeling that I am real because these people see me. Or: I have done something, because they have witnessed it. I did not imagine my life. Did those feelings of comfort die two and a half years ago, because I began along a spiritual path? No. Surely not. And this is not my theory; I know it. If I write something and receive a compliment, when I blush and smile at it, it is twofold: I’m enjoying the praise, and censuring myself for basking in it.

Part of the reason, I believe, that I became a Muslim, was a recognition that all of the applause was transitory, illusory, and ultimately meaningless. The older performers I knew behaved, with some very notable exceptions, like overgrown, grayed toddlers. Unable to stop themselves, they threw embarrassing, diva-esque tantrums, and then recovered themselves as if nothing had happened. The rest of us, who were younger, less acknowledged, and only partially infected by the same need for attention, were left to feel ashamed for them. I dreaded becoming that – so I sought a forum for my heart that was richer than the stage.

Still, fleeing from something does not equal being freed from it.

Jane Austen asserts something very simple and very remarkable that I believe we learned to ignore by the time I showed up in the 1980’s (and perhaps long before that, too). In Mansfield Park, when Henry Crawford proposes to Fanny, and she refuses him, she explains herself by saying, “I do not trust him. Like many charming people, his enjoyment lies chiefly in the admiration of others. His sole interest is in being loved; not in loving.”

The problem with rushing to praise is that she is a fickle lover. Sometimes the truth will gain you some of people’s love; sometimes it will gain you hatred, insult, and pain. Perhaps living in a democracy, we’ve been trained out of the idea that truth is not arrived at by consensus. Truth is sometimes unpopular. Lest we forget it, the struggles of our dear and beloved Prophet (may the peace and blessings of God be upon him) remind us – so too the persecution of Galileo – or more recently, those valiant champions of the Civil Rights movement: Martin Luther King, Jr. and our blessed brother Malcolm X, may God have mercy on him.

The danger of love of praise is that we will pander. That with time, and addiction to admiration, we will begin to edit out those things we may have been previously committed to, but may not be popular with the masses. We water down whatever it is we wanted to convey, and excuse the adulteration in the name of wider dissemination, or slow introduction, or any other number of things. It is a very dangerous temptation, it is a very slippery slope, and it faces everyone with something to say and some sort of public face. The tide of popularity carries our souls away with it – poor Britney is the saddest testament to this. What she began trying to do, and what she has actually done – it would take a true cynic, I believe, to deny that the aim and the reality have parted ways for that poor woman.

And yet, despite all the danger that lies in making any part of one’s self public, we seemed to be called to act. It does not take a rocket scientist to look at the world and see that the forces of good, righteousness and truth aren’t exactly running the show. And who will speak out for justice? Who will stand for something other than profit, or sex, or the profit of sex?

As afraid as I am of myself, I get lost in feeling a crushing love for all the world, and a responsibility…to try…to do something. Something. Something not toting the line of meaninglessness, of greed, of celebrity-obsessed ingratiation. Something that supports the idea that there is more to the world than accumulating as much of it as possible, more even than doing no harm, more even than helping one’s fellow.

Someone asked me recently why I write. Glory be to God, I thought, why do I write, indeed? I was overwhelmed with my own self-ignorance, my lack of certainty in my intentions, and also with my love of my family and friends, my feeling for their hearts, and my desire to bestow upon them whatever I may have that is good. I write because I must. I write because I am obsessed with the memory of myself three years ago, and what scared me, and what inspired me, and I write to that girl: I write to console her. I write because

‘This is my letter to the World/That never wrote to Me –’

Because I need something, because I myself, feeling misunderstood, want to at least be able to say that I made an effort to be understood – whether or not it works is up to God. I write because I did not understand Muslims, and now I do. I write in the belief that I’m part of a group of people at least attempting to bridge the gap between Muslims and Americans – or attempting to expose the assumption that there is some contradiction between those identities is false. Because when I’m talking to someone, trying to say, “I’m American, I’m a patriot,” and they’re very busy telling me, “You’re Muslim, you’re different, you’re making life difficult for yourself, you crazy! You gave up your White Card,” I drive home feeling despondent, and only working against that tide will soothe me.

I write because I love reading, and want to read something I can relate to. I write because I meet wonderful people, and love them, and feel I’ve been blessed with this most beautiful faith, and on the off chance that it is something that will touch someone else’s heart in the way it has touched mine, I want to say to those people: It’s scary as all hell, but it does turn out okay. I write to remind myself of things I’ve forgotten. I write for the friends who encourage me. I write because my heart is bursting with love for God, and I can’t keep it in anymore.

I don’t know if I would be better off if I was more guarded, or more private. But I’ve never been secretive about much – either before or after becoming Muslim. I suppose it’s my personality – which doesn’t mean that it’s a good thing – so I can’t, won’t, and don’t defend my own sincerity. That’s not what this is about. I pray for it – I ask you to pray for it, especially if you’ve found something here that you feel has benefited you. God alone knows my heart, and putting it – and this, and all I do – in His hands is the most I can manage right now. It may be that I change my mind later, and that would be alright.

In the end, I’m hoping that there is something in here worth saying. I’m hoping there’s a point. I’m hoping that the best of what I have to offer comes out, and that this isn’t, deep down in the cockles of my heart, an attempt for popularity. How sad I would be, if that were the case. How disappointed I would be in myself.

We take refuge in God from sharing with Him anything in our worship knowing of it, and we ask His forgiveness for what we share with Him without being aware of it.

May God protect my heart, and yours, and grant us freedom from wanting that which can bring no gain. May we all have the best of intentions in all of our actions, and may He reward us according to that which is most noble in our hearts. May He correct, in His mercy, what is wrong with us, and help us to guide each other in love. Amen.

One thousand words

All students attending Harvard College between the years of 1941 and 1945 were given a very special assignment that, as far as I know, no other college has ever required of any other student at any other time.

One thousand words a day, on anything, to be turned into a box in the President’s office.

The box was dumped into an incinerator every day. The students doing the writing did not know this; in fact, no one even knew the purpose of the assignment until much later, when an alumnus asked.

The theory behind the assignment was that writing is not a gift, but a skill. And like so many other things, it must be honed, and improves with practice. The mind, with use, becomes supple, like a muscle that is stretched every day.

Turns out that these students contributed more to American literature than any other group in history. Bamn. How’s that for practice making perfect?

It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that we can’t excel in things that we do not do. And also that improvement comes with practice. And yet this is the only experiment of this kind that there is. I wonder why. Why don’t all colleges take up this practice, knowing what it can do? It’s amazing to me. No one read those pages. They were a secret. They didn’t get graded, commented on, and handed back. There was no critical element. And yet those pages, lost to us forever, of which there remains no evidence today, appear to have made all the difference.

It is not unlike prayer.

I’ve often been disheartened because I don’t always feel what I believe I’m supposed to during my prayers. I don’t concentrate as well as I feel I should. I don’t feel deeply the significance of every bow and prostration, despite the fact that I spend a lot of time outside of my prayer thinking about what makes these things profound. But maybe that’s not entirely the point. Maybe I’m not supposed to have arrived yet. Maybe I’m being prepared by practice – by a practice that, often, no one sees and there is no evidence of. When I pray the afternoon prayer by myself, I can hold up no proof later. It’s a secret between myself and God. But it is wrong to assume that there are no repercussions to a habit that, however imperfect, is consistent.

Non-Muslims are sometimes critical of the literalness of the prayer. Five times a day, at particular times, in a formulaic way. Seems as though it might go without being heartfelt. And what is a connection to God if not heartfelt? What is the point of a prayer that issues from adherence to a timetable, not from your toes?

Valid questions – but I believe there is significance to the fact that Islam asks of us this simple, regular routine. Anyone can perform the prayer; the movements can be altered for the sick, handicapped or injured. It is ground zero, step one. Islam would not have succeeded as such a widespread religion if it asked something extraordinary from the get-go. It doesn’t. It does not ask major contributions to the field of American literature. It asks for one thousand words a day, on anything, that will be thrown into the incinerator.

I derive great hope from the idea that prayer, like writing, is a skill that improves with practice, because I do feel dissatisfied with my prayer, my character, and my heart. I wish for these things to improve, but so often get lost in the how. Maybe the answer was right in front of me the whole time. God tells us: pray, and your prayer will improve. Call on Me, and your call will improve. Bow to Me, and your bow will improve. Until finally, we feel these things as we ought. When we say, Allahu Akbar, God is Greatest, eventually, we will feel in our hearts that He is Greatest. The tremor of this truth will ping along every cell in our bodies, because we have told it to ourselves so many times. It is like language immersion. You go around thinking everything is meaningless until one day you recognize one word. One meaning. And then another word. And eventually everything takes on meaning. God is organizing our lives for us so that our religion will take on real meaning; it is not something we declare, and then leave to atrophy. It is something we stretch, and polish, and build on. We’re not graded on day one. It doesn’t matter where we start; it matters where we end up. Here is the way to get where you want to go: prostration, five times a day.

I don’t mean to say that these rewards will come with only adherence to the letter on our part. If we pray our prayers, but regard the practice as meaningless and routine, without end and without purpose, we can’t hope to reap the same rewards of a person praying with the intention to improve. I can write “the” one thousand times on a sheet of paper every day, but if at the end of four years I am not a better writer, well, what did I think would happen? Spiritless participation will never be the same as sincere striving. But even so, even so. When we are working on sincerity itself – there is hope, there is a system, and there is wisdom at work behind it that we cannot hope to grasp. Perhaps it is enough to have faith that God’s wisdom is in every prayer, even when we feel ourselves lacking. That there is meaningful experience accumulating, even if we lose track of our own progress. The blessings we accumulate may visit us much later in life, or even after death – just because we don’t see immediate benefits to something small does not mean that there is not something magnificent at work.

Glory be to God, Who made it mandatory! May we improve by the system He has so wisely laid out, and become a generation of great contributors to faith and life.

The wisdom of fools.

I’ve been neglecting my writing. Last week, I had the excuse of a midterm. This week, I am ashamed to say that my only reason for staying away was an inability to think about anything other than Jane Austen.

You see, I am jealous of Fanny Price.

Fanny has the good sense that no one around her seems to. At eighteen, she has the forbearance to consistently refuse the man pushed on her from all sides: her rich, benefactor uncle, the cousin she is in love with, her friends, her parents, and all her acquaintance together. He has been a libertine in the past; he tells her he has changed. She is the only one to not believe him, is cast out and called a fool. In the end, he runs away with her married cousin and vindicates her refusal.

It’s possible that I am Fanny’s opposite. I believe the things that people tell me, have faith in everyone’s ability to change (hey, I’m a convert – if not me, who?), and let optimism conquer reason without putting up much of a fight.

These would be admirable qualities indeed – in a world of people who spoke only the truth, changed all the things they intended to, and lived up to expectations. Sadly, this is not the case; disappointment abounds, and it is often mine.

I know many people who are not like this. My brother, for example. He is good and wise, and it seems that he was always so. He is purposeful and deliberate. People more than twice his age seek his advice. Whenever anyone meets the two of us, or hears me talk about him, that person always assumes he is the elder sibling. Always. The reverse is true. It is also true that I am often a fool – so the mistake is understandable.

I once found myself in a situation that was truly pitiful. I fell for a man who (surprise!) said he had changed, and talked about his ability to refine and improve himself a great deal. I was impressed by the commitment to improvement he was always chattering on about. What undaunted struggle! What courage!

What blindness.

My family dutifully raised their objections, as did my friends. All and every one. And I, the loyal lover, defended my man to the last. I defended my own flawed reasoning with logical dances I can’t hope to reinvent. My elaborate maneuverings of love were so impressive and impromptu that when family recounts them for me now, I’m aghast. Really? I said that? Idiot.

A funny thing happened amidst these objections. I noticed that I was unhappy in love.

It would be so great if this didn’t feel so mournful…

Unhappy in love is an unfortunate combination, and is fraught with danger. The danger is that one will say to oneself, I don’t care. I’d rather be with him than without, no matter how miserable I am. Perhaps even more perilous is the suggestion, It will get better. He’ll change. We’ll learn to get along.

I’m not sure why, or how, but remarkably and miraculously, neither of these tempting thoughts won out. I got out. I got out fast, and reflected later on all of the building evidence of my own unhappiness that I did not see at the time. The mounting pile in the corner that suggested, oh so massively, that the man I loved was not actually the one I was involved with, but an elaborate invention we had both spun out of hope and breath and forgiveness. It was so clear in retrospect.

Foresight? We’re fresh out. Try the hindsight store next door; bitterness is on sale, and self-loathing is half off.

I’m seven years older and a good deal more experienced in relationships than Fanny, so what gives? Why does her presence of mind elude me in all the most important ways, in all the most important moments?

This is what I was thinking as I was walking to the post office today. Why wasn’t I just born wise? What is the purpose of all this fumbling towards sense? Couldn’t I have been more like Abdullah? I would have been spared a good deal of false starts and heartaches.

Then I thought: Because I’m a writer. Because I’m a writer, I was born a well-meaning, good-hearted, foolish girl. Because I’m a writer, I have some comic foibles that entertain more than myself. Because I’m a writer, there is a path to wisdom. If it had been easy, there would have been no story to tell. There would have been no point in speaking. If I were all alone, the Buddha on the mountaintop (to steal from Reality Bites), there would be no one up there to relate to me, and no benefit to all my wisdom. Because I’m down here mucking it out, I get to tell stories that are also, on occasion, lessons. It is a peerless joy, purpose. I can say, Here is point A: silliness. If you want to get to point B, which is marginally less foolish, I have recently discovered the secret to doing so, and it is X.

Actually, it is Islam, but that’s a little tangential.

My current suggestion is to read Mansfield Park. It is an incomparable study on patience, modesty, and the will of God making things turn out all right in the end. It still shocks me. Every time! It all turns out all right. Sometimes we just have to ride out the rough wave of sticktoitidness. Definitely holding to your principles is key. Holding to your romanticism, or your faith in the fancy promises of others…not always a great idea.

I know. I read it in a novel once.

 

Hope for the hopeless.

How’s this for a blow to a writer’s ego:

43/60 on my first paper. Broken down:

16/20 for content.

12/20 for clarity.

15/20 for conciseness.

Taken together, a grand total of 72% success. Um, whoohoo?