An Isolated Incident, and the feels it made me feel
Every book you read, leaves you feeling some kind of emotion. Sometimes, the emotions are so strong, you start crying. I started reading An Isolated Incident right after the Peshawar massacre, and when I had started the book, a few pages into it, I was crying; the picture Soniah Kamal creates is too real, too suffocating, and too hurting. And now, as I sit having finished the book, I am crying for all different reasons. It is rare that you come across a book that leaves you feeling so much, that you need to hug your family members and cry with them. An Isolated Incident touches the heart, my heart, and while I may not be in the same position as its vivid characters, I am able to empathize, and sympathize, and cry with them.
An Isolated Incident made me feel all kind of feelings I want to talk about.
I have never before felt the need to connect with a family's fast, my family's past, the history of a family. Always having ignored history, the book reminds me why, for all the selfish and personal reasons, one must know the individuals' points of views that shape a legacy of emotions, actions, and ignorance. It may seem useless to know all about our past when the future is so uncertain, but there is a need to know about the history so we can connect with each other; parents with their children, and the chidren with their parents. That said, knowing about our parents will help us understand why they do what they do, and where they stand as parents when they seem stubborn and cold. There's always a reason, and it is up to us to understand why our elders are the way they are. What shaped us into getting us where we are now. And that's not just about the text book-isk histroy, it's the history of the individuals who make up the family, who give us our names.
It is our culture that shapes us into a part of the society, and we need to preserve it. We need to let it live.
When we go on the journey of discovering ourselves in this light, we get closer to the ones we love. We start seeing things much more clearly. If it were HD before, or not, it would take us to 4K. Family is important. Love is important. We need to understand that taking that jounrey is what will make us better at who we want to be. Even if it is just a "couch savior." We have to learn to connect the dots of our past, and in turn better our future. Love is the strongest feeling in the world, and when love is as pure as a mother's love for her child, or that of a toddler for his/her parents, mountains can be moved. We just have to get off our asses and do whatever we can to not let everything fall apart.
This is where honesty comes in. Honesty will be the glue to the bond of love with the relationships we hold dear. I know it is naive, and I also understand that naivety is underrated, but naivety itself is such a powerful tool to creating a life that gives one the motivation to know more, to understand more, and be more. This naivety is the driving force behind the change we want in our lives.
Things will happen in our lives that we cannot control. Life will bitch slap us. Hell, it will beat us to death. But we have to know that even after death, there is life. It cannot get any worse. We just have to come to terms with the reality of the harshness, without it letting our hearts go cold, and get back on our feet. It is only then will we be able to go on after death. Staying dead is much worse than dying. Life is always there to embrace you. You just have to embrace it back.
Header image: Express Tribune
An Isolated Incident made me feel all kind of feelings I want to talk about.
I have never before felt the need to connect with a family's fast, my family's past, the history of a family. Always having ignored history, the book reminds me why, for all the selfish and personal reasons, one must know the individuals' points of views that shape a legacy of emotions, actions, and ignorance. It may seem useless to know all about our past when the future is so uncertain, but there is a need to know about the history so we can connect with each other; parents with their children, and the chidren with their parents. That said, knowing about our parents will help us understand why they do what they do, and where they stand as parents when they seem stubborn and cold. There's always a reason, and it is up to us to understand why our elders are the way they are. What shaped us into getting us where we are now. And that's not just about the text book-isk histroy, it's the history of the individuals who make up the family, who give us our names.
It is our culture that shapes us into a part of the society, and we need to preserve it. We need to let it live.
When we go on the journey of discovering ourselves in this light, we get closer to the ones we love. We start seeing things much more clearly. If it were HD before, or not, it would take us to 4K. Family is important. Love is important. We need to understand that taking that jounrey is what will make us better at who we want to be. Even if it is just a "couch savior." We have to learn to connect the dots of our past, and in turn better our future. Love is the strongest feeling in the world, and when love is as pure as a mother's love for her child, or that of a toddler for his/her parents, mountains can be moved. We just have to get off our asses and do whatever we can to not let everything fall apart.
This is where honesty comes in. Honesty will be the glue to the bond of love with the relationships we hold dear. I know it is naive, and I also understand that naivety is underrated, but naivety itself is such a powerful tool to creating a life that gives one the motivation to know more, to understand more, and be more. This naivety is the driving force behind the change we want in our lives.
Things will happen in our lives that we cannot control. Life will bitch slap us. Hell, it will beat us to death. But we have to know that even after death, there is life. It cannot get any worse. We just have to come to terms with the reality of the harshness, without it letting our hearts go cold, and get back on our feet. It is only then will we be able to go on after death. Staying dead is much worse than dying. Life is always there to embrace you. You just have to embrace it back.
Header image: Express Tribune