Life in Death.

Dear readers,

I woke up this morning to the biggest tragedy.
Robin Williams is dead.
He committed suicide.

 It is heartbreaking to think of what his family must be going through.

As someone who has been through depression I can say that it is not in the slightest bit easy.
People tell you "Snap out of it." or "It gets better" but it just doesn't.

Robin Williams once said; "I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone."

He was so right. Every word rings the truth. Being human means being vulnerable and people often misuse that very trait that they possess. It must take a person to be pushed to the very edge to have taken such a drastic step. I do believe it is true now when people say that the happiest people are the ones that are broken inside.

Depression is something everyone should be aware of. If you have a friend or even someone you know who is depressed or considering suicide please PLEASE help them or report it to someone who is in the position to help them, waiting will only make it worse and yes, it will also partly be your fault if something happens to them. You can't help somebody who refuses to help themselves but you CAN try.

Depression is merely more than just a bad mood. It is related to the body/mind. People feel completely alone and down, anxious and a deep rooted sadness which might not have any apparent cause. It is simply not true when people say that "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." It does kill you. Slowly but surely until you are just trying to get through each day.

People tell others that they're just having a bad day or that they will get through it but what those people forget is that our bodies are merely hosts which are being inhabited by our souls. We will all die eventually. It is the only thing certain from the moment we are born. It is as I like to say, inevitable.

I think everyone fails to realise that no one is put here without a purpose. And while we are here we should try as much as we can to make everyone's lives a little easier so that they can fulfill their intended purpose a little more peacefully. Another important thing to remember is that one of their purposes may be to help someone else who is meant to help another and so on and messing with that balance well....would anyone want that?

“Some friends don't understand this. They don't understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you're wonderful just the way you are. They don't understand that I can't remember anyone ever saying that to me. I am so demanding and difficult for my friends because I want to crumble and fall apart before them so that they will love me even though I am no fun, lying in bed, crying all the time, not moving. Depression is all about If you loved me you would.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

Be that friend. Be that person. Be there. Keep showing up no matter how hard it gets. You might be the start of a chain of purposes.

Until next time guys.
XXO,
Sara Malik. ©

Bereft.

Helloooooooooooooooo readers. I trust your week has been good and now the weekend is here!
Honestly there isn't much to do but somehow I get by. :)

Lately, I've been feeling bereft, which happens to be the title of a poem written by one of my favourite authors, Robert Frost.

Where had I heard this wind before

Change like this to a deeper roar? 

What would it take my standing there for,

Holding open a restive door,

Looking down hill to a frothy shore? 

Summer was past and the day was past.

Sombre clouds in the west were massed.

Out on the porch's sagging floor,

Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,

Blindly struck at my knee and missed.

Something sinister in the tone

Told me my secret must be known:

Word I was in the house alone

Somehow must have gotten abroad,

Word I was in my life alone,

Word I had no one left but God. 

Source(s): StudyMode/Enote.

The poem describes a night in the life of a lonely man. The title, "Bereft" indicates that he has lost someone, leaving him "…alone" in his life. There is no evidence to suggest that the speaker is either female or male, nor is there any reason to doubt that the poet is the speaker. The speaker is very aware of sounds and movement around him, as one would be if alone. He believes that nature has orchestrated a "sinister… tone", because the secret of his loneliness has been discovered: "…my secret must be known". It seems to the speaker that nature is taking advantage of his solitude and attempting to intimidate him with its "roaring" winds, its "somber clouds" and its "sagging floor". The tone that is created at the beginning of the poem is an almost frightening one, as all the details of the dark night are listed. 

Although the poem is intended  for someone I personally relate it to myself. Being alone opens up ones attention span and thus they are more alert to their surroundings noticing the most trivial things about life. To say I have never completely felt alone would not only be dramatic but false. But grief as it is widely known is followed by wallowing self pity. 

Recently in my Neverland, a 19-year old boy, a fresh graduate and newly licensed driver met with an accident which took his life. Not that I was personally acquainted with the guy but I'd seen him around. He was somebody's son. Somebody's friend. But that's just putting it mildy. Truth be told? He was somebody. He had dreams. He had hopes. He had plans. Things he wanted to do. And he wasn't even given the chance to do that. 

So yeah, I'm feeling bereft and also extremely selfish because here I am with my whole life ahead of me. Or a day for all I know. 

I used to be obsessed with Archie Comics and although when I look back they were just about the constant love triangle between Archie-Betty-Veronica.( Yes, I always rooted for Betty) The only good thing I picked up was "Carpe Diem" which is Latin for "Seize the day". 

If you do the Maths(which I absolutely despise) one day is equivalent to 24 hours. Wow. A lot can happen in a week let alone a day. You can read 2 books. People are born. People die. You get the picture.

Anthony Robbins puts it quite simply; "Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don't try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human."

It is said that you should not worry about tomorrow because tomorrow has its own worries and with this I wholeheartedly agree. If we had all the time in the world human beings would all have the trait of patience but I think somewhere at the back of our minds we realize that time flies and this builds up anxiety and brings out the humanity in us which is desiring more than we can have or achieve.

But nobody ever said our imagination should be limited. After all, we do have opposable thumbs and the ability to think and strategize. We can achieve anything and everything we set our minds to. We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken. Remember you only lose the game(yes, life IS a game and a dangerous one too!)when you give up. Life's too short to even care at all! Play it smart.

Carpe Diem my dear readers. 

Seize the day. 

You might not get another.

Until next time,

XXO

Sara Malik. ©

Acquiesce.

Ciao my dear readers,

This week has been extremely exhausting and don't bother asking what I did because I myself don't fully recall, but thankfully tomorrow is Thursday which marks the weekend in my little Neverland which is Bahrain.

As usual I was researching all the possible things I could write about when I came across a site with interesting words. The one in particular that stood out to me was:

Acquiesce.

To consent or comply passively or without protest.

I've found that everyone has a dream and often that dream well....remains a dream.  People start out with big dreams and plans and eventually resign themselves to a fate that they believe to be theirs they become content working a regular job and living a regular life. Until one day they stop and look out at their life realizing that it's not what they had always dreamed about. They've gotten stuck in this monotonous, never-changing life that doesn't live up to what they'd hoped. And now in this realization, they start to lose that optimism that kept them going before of being something more.

More simply put- If you've heard the song Pompeii by Bastille you probably never gave much thought to the in depth meaning.

But it goes a little something like this.

Whether it be via large contributions(wars, poverty) or small ones(failed relationships, hopelessness) we inadvertently are the causes of the downfalls in our world. Our vices(greed, lust, wrong doings) are clearly visible in our everyday lives. Our world. Our life. We. Are all incredibly and fatally flawed. We have several hamartia's.  Over and over in anyone's life, there are problems and difficulties. Yet, when we "close our eyes" (stop thinking about the problems themselves), we realize that despite our recognition of these flaws, we really haven't changed our attitudes at all to help make things better ("nothing's changed at all"). For that reason, we keep making the same mistakes over and over again — we've "been here before," and we're making the same mistakes again, one reason why the metaphor of Pompeii and it's destruction is brilliant for this song. We want to change everything that's going wrong, when maybe we should be looking to change ourselves and our own shortcomings. 

One of the most powerful lines of the song conveys this message — "Where do we begin? The rubble or our sins?" In other words, do we just clean up and hide our messes, or do we dig for the root of the problem first? It seems to suggest that the first option will lead to continued failure and an endless cycle of destruction.

When you think about it the answer is right there in the title. 

Clouds rolled over the hills, bringing darkness over Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted. 

The people were caught in their vices and in their daily activities, in poses as the dust of the eruption settled. 

And, perhaps most unsettlingly: 

Does it almost feel like nothing's changed at all? 

Well, of course it would. If a person from Pompeii, in the days when it was alive, visited the place as it is now, with the people frozen in time under the ash, they might almost feel as if nothing were different, when in fact nothing is the same at all. 

It's kind of disturbing when you look at it like that.

When did we start giving in and giving up? 

I doubt that if we were to start our lives over as kids that we would begin viewing them in ruins. There is hope. There is light. There is love. We are just too caught up in what's going on to plan ahead. To tell ourselves that this too shall pass. And it will. We will keep moving forward. We will keep dreaming. Our old dreams will still be dreams that we desire to accomplish. Life goes on and it doesn't wait for anyone.

In the same way we too will go on with our lives building cities from the ashes. 

Don't settle for acquiesce, guys.

DREAM AND ACCOMPLISH!

Until next time,

XXO

Sara Malik.©

                                  

Heroes.

Hello dear readers,

I have been extremely busy and I apologize for not posting. My grandparents have come down for a visit and I have been spending all my time with them. I will try my very best to post more often! :)

"We can be heroes just for one day."

When one talks about a hero they are referring to  a person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements or notable qualities and rightly so because this is exactly what they are taught to believe. But despite this notion I strongly disagree.

Like any good writer I had to look up the definition to ensure that I wasn't giving out false information and also for my personal knowledge. As children we're given the impression that heroes are the Princes and people we read about in stories. As we slowly transition into adolescence heroes are those that carry out noble acts like helping an old woman cross the street or standing up to a thief for a stranger and then finally when you reach adulthood heroes are DEAD.

When I looked further into the definition I found that a Hero is someone who is the chief character in a story and this struck me as perfect. A lot of times we are so caught up in other peoples lives and trying to shape and mould ours to be like theirs that we forget about the thing that really matters. OUR life. We're still living after all aren't we?

The real heroes in my opinion are really the people that go through a lot and still keep going. Those that have to willingly forfeit a lot of things in life. Those that don't manipulate their way out of a situation but rather handle it gracefully. Those that eventually accept that it is what it is and carry on with their life smiling. Those are the real heroes. The real hero is YOU. 

Heroism is not about doing heroic things but rather about being yourself. You are the chief character of your story and you can take control of it. I've always been able to convince myself that I am NOT a hero up until now but I realized that ultimately demoralizing myself was the only thing standing in my way.
Heroism is endurance for just one more moment.
And not only I, but everybody out there is enduring something or the other.

More simply put, someone once said that everybody is insane but some people are just better at hiding it.
I don't believe this is true. Everybody is surely insane but it is this insanity that drives them to want to do better. Like Albert Campus once said; "Heroism is accessible. Happiness is more difficult."

I read once in a book called Paper Towns that the human anatomy is made up of strings. The author says the following:

"Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean, look at it, Q: look at all those culs-de-sac, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters."

It is the exact same thing with heroism. Everything and everyone appears hunky dory but you can feel the urgency in the air. The urgency for the paper to be torn and exposed. In other words, the urgency to be yourself. Not everybody will like it, not everybody will care but it is what most definitely makes you a hero.



As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said; "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." 
You, my dear readers are the true heroes.
Not Robin Hood.
Not Superman.
You. 
Good old you. :) 

On a lighter note, I have been complaining ALL Summer about how I haven't been swimming and yesterday I finally went! Summer sure feels good.

Until next time,
XXO
Sara Malik.©