Random Autumn Thoughts

Edouard Marty - 1943

Here are some random thoughts I had recently.

  • Letter writing creates a unique four-way conversation across time: There's me writing to you now (before you've read and received the letter), future you reading it (connecting with past me who wrote it), while simultaneously thinking about present me (at the moment you receive it). We are lucky now the mail take a day or two. In the past, when mail took months or years, any of these connections could be severed. For example, future you might die and never receive the letter. Future me (at the time you read that letter), might be a me you hate, a me that died. Letter writing implies tremendous faith in the world order, in the continuity of our relationships and feelings.
  • The role of a journal: To keep things forever &/or to delete them forever. I heard of an absolutely horrific story. I recently heard a troubling story about a friend whose wife kept a 15-year journal documenting only his mistakes throughout their marriage. It breaks my heart for him. 
  • Life doesn't come with an instruction manual, but it comes with a mother. For those who lose that guidance, the absence is profound.
  • My relationship with faith has two distinct sides. My love for Prophet Mohammed feels simple and pure. I can't let go of Islam because of him! He offers salvation, nothing more and nothing less. But my relationship with God feels complicated, full of tests and power dynamics, rewards and punishments, heaven and hell.
  • I experienced my first 24-hour music festival, and it exceeded all expectations. I primarily went to see the Saami Brothers perform Qawali (a form of Sufi ecstasy music that affects my mind in mysterious and lovely ways). The entire experience was magical: drifting in and out of sleep to live music, watching children peacefully sleeping nearby, and experiencing music at sunrise and sunset. After 12 years in NYC, I can't believe I only just discovered this festival. I'll return every year as long as I’m alive.
  • Some therapists are just like ChatGPT. Sometimes people turn into a nightmarish version of themselves after therapy. You need a bold therapist who is not afraid of calling you out on your shit. Your therapist should’nt be just validating you.