New Year Message for 2011 (and beyond...)

There will never be peace on earth.

Never.

Ever.

...Not in a million years.

The only time we will get peace on earth is in the distant future - many millions of years hence, when the sun has grown fat and mushroomed into an obese red giant, and swallowed the earth whole. This last gasp of breath - this final death rattle of the earth, will usher forth a sort of peace for the wretched mass of miserable-striving humanity. But it will be a peace of non-existence - that state of care-free nonchalant sleep stamped on the face of sleepers.  But for all intents and practical purposes my statement still stands:

...there will never be peace on earth. As long as there is an earth there will never be peace on earth.

I know. I know. It's a rather pessimistic and sobering assessment ain't it? This is supposed to be the merry season of cheer and Christmas and mince pies!

Perhaps (you're thinking) Wasim is just having a bad day and his thoughts have taken up a darker hue as a result of some gloom that has overcast his mind. Or perhaps, Wasim didn't get any Christmas presents and wishes ill, sulphur and brimstone on the whole world! Yes, tomorrow morning Wasim will wake up with a more cheerful head atop his neck! - that is what you are thinking right?

Wrong! No, I am not having a bad day. In fact my day has been rather good. I have no complaints to make today (and who would I complain to anyway?). It has all gone rather well. I didn't wake up with a nasty headache. I got a good nights sleep. I bought a new toy which I am giddy with excitement with and on the verge of reviewing (watch out for the review!)

Yet, despite the above, I know deep down, that there will never ever be peace on earth.

I do wish - I really do - that a day would arrive when people would once and for all set aside their differences, embrace one another, see each other in each others eyes - and live happily ever after...but alas this is a pipe dream. We will never get peace on earth because the human condition will not allow it. Our inheritance will not allow it. An inheritance we have accumulated; that has been steadily hoisted upon our shoulders, over many years - and in everything we do, every breath we take, every love we embrace, every child we create, every satisfaction and pleasure we satiate, we will never get peace whilst we live and there is breath in our lungs.

You see life is not about peace. Peace is not its 'purpose' or raison d'etre. We don't exist because of peace. We exist in spite of it. We exist because of struggle. The struggles of the past and the struggles of the future to come. Life is struggle incarnate, life is want, life is craving, life is coveting - these are the nasty bedfellows; the demons sitting broodingly on our shoulders, weighing us down - our shoulders hunched, our mouths agape, our eyes distrustful, our hearts shrivelled like dried apples, our earthly hopes dashed, our lives (seemingly) without purpose.

We live on a world that spins on endlessly in a cold dark vacuum of nothingness. Have you seen Space? Do you have any idea what Space is like? I do. Mulled endlessly I have over it. I know Space intimately. For it dwells up there and has made a home inside my breast. It courses through my veins. We are alone - utterly, maddeningly, heart-breakingly alone in the vast ocean of stars. There are moments when I feel this with such force - with such brutal honesty - that it is like an icy grip on my heart. A feeling of utter desolate bareness. Like a once fertile landscape blighted by some natural calamity.

Yet...there is hope. A little hope. A little slender green shoot of hope that takes root and grows forth from the black desolate earth. A green shoot that crashes through the soil and takes aim for the skies!! A green shoot that knows all too well that all is utterly vain, yet it still strives and thrives. A green shoot that sees itself as the engine of innovation, as the answer to the indifference of the universe, as a big 'Fuck you!' to the whole of Creation. Yes, a big wet slap in the face of Time. Against a backdrop of a forest of black burnt-out trees this green shoot rejoices! Ah yes how it rejoices! Rejoices at the miracle of its own existence! How it could be, how it could possibly happen, that this green shoot could despite the odds - deign to exist!

Hey you little green shoot - how dare you defy - entropy!

Do I have a message for 2011 and beyond?

I do:

Go forth and exist. And continue your defiance! We are all; each and every one of us, green shoots, in a spinning sea of emptiness.

V.

P.S: and (for what they're worth) my resolution(s) for 2011 are: Write more, take more photographs, read less, look out of the window more and go on a very long wander somewhere...far out.

On Talent

If you can't excel with talent, triumph with effort.

Dave Weinbaum

Talent is cheaper than table salt.

What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

Stephen King

However great a man's natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious

Albert Einstein

Use what talent you possess

the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

Henry VanDyke

_______________

I don’t know for sure if there is something real that we can call talent. Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. What is sure is that there are people debating for one option or the other, and being very adamant about their beliefs.

For me, if there is such a thing as talent, it is the ability to make the best use of your time, when doing something you deeply care about, by engaging in regular practice, study and dedication. Talent is also seeking help from people who are where you want to be, because the experience of someone who is more experienced than you is one of the most valuable assets you can find. Finally, talent is not giving up when faced with difficulties. Talent, in other words, is the ability to focus, work hard, seek guidance and not give up.

I believe that these are qualities that we all have. I believe that all of us can focus our efforts on regular study and practice. I believe that we can all look for help from those more experienced than we are. Finally I believe that we can all find the courage necessary to not give up in front of difficulty. Therefore, I believe that talent is something we all have. All we need to do is decide to use these abilities, decide to nurture them and allow them to grow rather than leave them unused and ignored.

Talent is overrated. Believing that talent alone could do the job, is a falsity. Study, practice and focusing on specific projects - that is the key. Study under the guidance of someone who is where you want to be; regular practice with a subject that you are passionate about; specific focus on projects that you care about and that are important for you and that you want to complete.

In closing, I want to say this: What matters most is not where we are right now. It is not the skills we have today or the images we are able to create right now or the writings we are able to invent. What matters most is: what we believe about ourselves. Why? Because it is this belief that will determine what we can become, what we can achieve in the future. It is this belief that will shape the road ahead, it is this belief that will influence which path you are going to take.

_______________

Mince Pies, Christmas and Other irreverent thoughts

Mince Pies

Who loves Mince Pies?

Answer: I do.

Let me tell you about my Mince Pie fetish. Marks & Spencer's started selling Mince pies this year on 1st Oct. How do I know? I know because I notice these things. That's 3 whole months before Christmas! I remember picking up a box and looking at the best before date: 22 Oct! Who buys Mince Pies in Oct for Christmas with a best before date of 22 Oct?

Answer: I do.

Why? Because I have absolutely no intention of keeping them till December. I have every intention of eating them. As I said I really like Mince Pies. Which is why I am wholly surprised to learn that most people don't, and that most people only eat Mince pies on account of a Christmas-thing-to-do. But to start selling Christmas stuff a full three months before Christmas seems to me a little bit exuberant! That's Christmas for a whole 3 months of the year! 

Single slices of Christmas cake

There was something I noticed the other day. Single slices of Christmas cake. Not two slices for maybe a couple who can't be bothered to bake a whole cake. But a single slice. For one person. A slice for you and no slices for your no pals. For those spending Christmas alone. Ahh....it (almost) made me cry.

A Christmas Nativity Play

I remember this very clearly. I was at Primary school. Probably about 6 years old and we were having a school nativity play. My teacher told me I couldn't play Jesus in the play because I was not the 'right' religion. I remember feeling there was something wrong with me! (I still do). I remember going home and telling my mum. She said it was OK because I was 'supposed' to be a Muslim and we didn't celebrate Christmas. I remember my mum telling me about Islam and that Jesus was really a Muslim and about the prophets and all that. Even as a 6 year old I loved reading books and absorbed them like sunlight. So I absorbed everything my mum told me but even then I had a nagging feeling that my mum didn't really 'believe' these silly stories! I had already come to the conclusion that the Tooth Fairy was fiction and Father Christmas didn't really exist. So why should I believe in this God bloke! What did he ever give me. He seemed more like a stern father who told you what you could and couldn't do. He never really sat down with his children and talked to them.

How to avoid big family fights on Christmas

We all have family relations we can't stand - right? People you absolutely loathe, have nothing in common with, can't stand to be around - people who's every comment, every gesture - makes your gears and teeth grind and your blood erupt in volcanic eruptions. If you have such relations, and there is no chance you will ever be reconciled with them, and they are close relations whom you must invite around Christmas (cos if you don't a small nuclear bomb will go off in your family), here's what to do. Invite them. Oh yes, invite them round! But also invite a ton of other people too. Invite everyone together even the unwanted guests, that way you can lose them in the crowd, ignore them in the milieu. You don't have to speak to them at length as you'll be very very busy. You'll loose them in the midst of everyone! Excellent! Job done! Genius!

The Art of the Hoody: Farah Vintage Duffel Coat

I bought this the other day. I love it. It's an old English classic with toggle style buttons. It comes in midnight blue and is warm enough to keep the arctic chill at bay. The hoody is great if you want to keep your ears warm. There's a neat little badge, adjustable button cuffs and two large pockets at the front to stuff your cold hands into. Perfect for this arctic weather. I must admit it has got something 'Jonathan Creek' about it, but in a good way. It's not at all a geeky look and heaven knows I'm not a geek. And of course it looks cool!

Movie review : Of Gods And Men

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction." The speaker is Luc, an elderly Catholic monk played by 79-year-old Michael Lonsdale, quoting a pensée of Pascal. He does it at a moment of crisis and ambiguity: does this thought apply to the Islamist mujahideen who are threatening to kill him and his brothers? Or should it rather apply to these future victims, secretly infatuated with the idea of a martyrdom that will fan the flames of violence for generations to come?

That reference is the sole, perhaps pre-emptive, concession to secularism in this stunningly passionate and deeply moving film by the French director Xavier Beauvois, based on the kidnapping and murder of monks in Algeria by fundamentalists in 1996. The movie is in fact saturated with faith and belief, and part of its power is the absolute conviction of its cinematic language, an idiom of severity, austerity and high seriousness, imitating the spacious silences to which the monks have devoted themselves, and boldly supporting the validity and meaning of their dilemma. Of Gods and Men is a modern tragedy that doesn't require the audience to share its belief any more than something by Aeschylus. It climaxes in a quite incredible "Last Supper" sequence, in which the monks share red wine to the accompaniment of Tchaikovsky's Grand Theme from Swan Lake, playing on an old tape machine in the corner.

Beauvois's camera does nothing but pan slowly around the table while this happens, minutely watching these men's careworn faces as they absorb the mystery of their own deaths. It is an overwhelming fusion of portraiture and drama.

Lambert Wilson plays Christian, the head of a Cistercian monastery in Algeria: a spartan order devoted to contemplation and prayer. Their community has developed a happy relationship with the local Muslim villagers, based partly on the free outpatient clinic they provide. They have a quiet, supportive respect for each other's traditions. But dark forces are gathering: intolerant jihadist forces have already murdered Croatian construction workers, and are rumoured to have the Catholic monks in their sights as the ultimate prize. Theirs is a regressive, brutal worldview – and a cynical police chief, irritably preparing to wash his hands of the imminent bloodbath, tells Christian: "I blame French colonisation for not letting Algeria grow up." The monks must now decide: should they stay or should they go? Is going cowardice? Is staying arrogance? Is martyrdom their destiny?

The monks themselves are permitted little or no backstory. Their lives in France are hardly touched on. Some are very old, especially Amédée, heartbreakingly played by 83-year-old Jacques Herlin, whose face is set in an unreadable expression, perhaps a gentle smile of acceptance and grandfatherly tolerance, or a rictus of suppressed pain. Perhaps he has been here all his life, perhaps not. When Luc is asked by a local young woman – for whom he is a confidant – what love is like, he replies that it is an attraction, a desire, a quickening of the spirits, an intensification of life itself. Beauvois allows us to believe that this chaste monk must, poignantly, be speaking about his love for God, and that his advice is at once truthful and naive. But no. He confesses that he had been in love a number of times before he found his truest love, and so we are shown that Luc had known and lived in the secular world – presumably as a doctor, for he runs the clinic – before he joined the order.

Of Gods and Men strives for simplicity; cinema is usually about dynamism, attraction, ego, but this movie concerns the renunciation of these things, in art and life. But it is also about the question of how to act when this life is violently challenged.