New Year: Stories of 2014

Today, I would like to say something brief.
The year is almost over.  It is 8:30, on December 31, 2014.  And I can't believe it.  I'm sitting here on the roof with all my jovial relatives, and we're having a bonfire.  I've heard when you die, you see your life flash in segments before you.  There is a reason they play slideshows at graduations, and conferences, and weddings, and funerals.  I see all of it here, too.  I don't know whether to look at the bonfire, feel the present, and then move on, or just to hold on a little.  Look back and recap for a second.  Maybe both? The relationships, spirit, philosophy, school, reading, writing, internship, individuality, insignificance, boredom, unity, and Zen, and history, and quality, and euphoria: what I see in the fire past the children playing on the roof sums up my year.
That's in no particular order, by the way.  I don't ever go over anything in a set number of days.  In fact, I don't even go over anything: I am all of those things.  I explored relationships, and how everything is one.  What the implications are of this, and how it all fares in the scope of time.  The funny thing is, if you were to ask me about all of that right now, I wouldn't have much of an idea what to say.  I also feel a condescending and fake side to it: as if it's all misguided.  Please do not judge me as a fake.  Because I actually care about all of this stuff.  Do not take it away from me.
And what I feel is the infinity behind all of these experiences and ideas.  I'm on this trip in part to aid the transition to the new year by adding some new cool experiences, but I don't want to let go of 2014 just yet.  It's been the calm before the storm, because next year is going to be hard.  There is a lot going on.  But I don't want to think about that now.  All this has happened this year, and now, that is what matters to me.  I will always have fluctuations regarding how important I think I am, and so will you.  Soon, this paragraph will seem like a useless series of words that are nothing compared to the brilliance of this vast populated world.  But it doesn't matter right now if there are seven billion people on this planet. Right now, what matters is you.  How big and sprawling your year has been.   For a second, I want you to forget about how important you are.  There is no need to feel small, since you have many stories only you can tell.  Seven billion is just a number.
I've shared.  Now it's your turn.  Reader: tell us, how has your year been?  What stories can you tell? More importantly, what did you get out of them? Think about your answers carefully, and leave them in the comment section below.
With that, I wish you all the power to live 2015 and on to the fullest.

Happy new year!
   Ahsem Kabir

 Image From:
http://www.123newyear.com/new-year-messages/

Update On What's Happened: A Train of Thought Which Goes On Tangents I Hope You Think Are Interesting

Hello again,
I am not volunteering in schools for my charity drive until January 5th, but there are still some cool things that have already happened, so I would like to use this blog entry to keep you up to date about them.
The journey was very long, as we have travelled halfway around the world, 'we' being my mother, brother and I.  We left home Thursday at ten am, and did not arrive to where we were staying till six pm on Saturday, counting time zones. (Time zones are a big accomplishment, and are so ingrained in our everyday thought that we hardly remember they were invented by humans in the 1800s. It kind of makes you question what is inherent about us, and what isn't, and to how far of an extent this goes.) On the flight, like usual, I read, slept in contorted positions, and stared into space. That's about it. While flights are physically draining, the comedian Louis CK helped me realize that I should be grateful I even have the opportunity to fly, because it's about as amazing a human accomplishment as time zones are.  In the past, it took 30 years to get to California, and you'd be an entirely different group of people when you got there, so I should really suck it up and look how far we've come.  Sure, there are advances yet to be made, and I am not really even the most optimistic of people: not even close. All I'm saying is that I think it is nothing short of a miracle that I am here to tell you all this today.

It was very helpful to our physical health that we were able to stay in Doha for the night.  But like I said in my previous blog entry, I woke up at 2:30 anyways.  I felt so clear for the next few hours: except that I was hungry.  We took a shuttle to Doha's Hammad International Airport, which, by the way, is a wonder: everything seems to hit a perfect ratio, aesthetically.  The main square has a giant statue of a bunny who is impaled by a lamp. It's kind of violent. I don't know if it's purely for looks or not, and I can't tell you what it symbolizes. Yet.  It looks artsy, though.

We flew to Dhaka starting at 10 am, and before that, I had a mediocre tuna sandwich from a cafe in the terminal.  I used to dislike tuna, but I've really broadened my tastes in the past five or six years.  It is again a miracle that I have food, since many children do not.  I will see this when I volunteer for schools.

For those of you who have flown: you know that feeling of relief and happiness you get when the plane wheels hit the ground?  Well, this was no exception.  I was ready to stretch, and explore a new place.  Maslow was wrong this time: though my physiological fulfillments were shot, nothing else 'above' them went too far down.  I was glad to see they had made improvements to the city since I came two years ago.  Things seemed to be renovated and cleaner.  

It was interesting to observe the road rules.  In many developing nations, there are no crosswalks, and people just walk across the road.  Oddly enough, according to my uncle, accidents are not very common in Dhaka.  But traffic is terrible.  Nonetheless, it still makes me question the true merits of the organization we've become obsessed with.  Is there not a beauty to some entropy? Do not tear me up: it's just a thought.  I'm not here to have a debate, because I am terrible at debating.  You can make of my idea what you will, but I advise you against taking it too literally.  Isn't this picture beautiful?

We will be staying with my maternal grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins.  My grandfather came from Bogra, another region in Bangladesh, and I didn't see him until this morning.  So far, I have been reading my books, writing, doing math, talking to my cousins, and going to a few restaurants. I have been reading Great Expectations, A Brief History of Time, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower: three very different books.  I like to compare and contrast Charlie's mode of thought with my own. Charlie often writes about what goes on in his life, and the train of thought comes from there, while I write about vague ideas.  He is a true wallflower, but I am not really much of any one thing. Sometimes, I am a wallflower, sometimes, I am a windbag.  Someone told me I am random, and someone else told me I seem meticulous.  Someone said I need to shut up, someone else told me I was reserved. Someone said I have a mental age of five and seventy-five at the same time.  I am just quoting people to share a little something about myself: I am an adjustor to my surroundings, as I remain in this arbitrary construct of a human.  Please don't think that means I see myself above everyone else, because chances are, a lot of you guys kind of have the same thing going on.

Yesterday seemed long, like it had several universes.  I slept in the afternoon, and did all those things I talked about earlier for the rest of the day. My brother Sahir, and my cousins Raeed Zainuddin and Reethee Ghafoor are trying to become Youtube sensations.  I guest starred in one of their videos, and will probably do several more.  You can watch this video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyANWeSwcvc.  Check out their other videos, subscribe, leave a comment: whatever you like.  (The sound quality is kind of amateur, so preferably, use headphones.  It picks up at around 30 seconds.)

Meanwhile, I am very proud of the Miami Valley School.  The Middle and Upper School together collected about 104 pounds of school supplies.  Though the high school didn't make three suitcases, I am thinking about performing a song and dance on the first day back anyways just for effort and principle, because the kids will appreciate the supplies regardless.  Nothing is written in stone yet, since I am having a conflict between my thinking and feeling self.  This is what you've collected:

That is pretty good.

I guess that is all for now.  Leave comments, and share this blog.  I hope you enjoyed what you've just read, and that you made something out of it.  

Stay cool,

  Ahsem Kabir

Images from (respectively):

http://blog.vanillaforums.com/philosophy/3-ways-a-vanilla-forum-is-better-than-a-flight-from-london-to-vancouver/

My phone

http://www.henderson-art.co.uk/art-detail.php?id=chaos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perks_of_Being_a_Wallflower

Great Expectations

Hello all,
I decided to start this blog to think about and share some of the experiences I will have over this Immersion in 2015.
It is currently 2:45 am on the last Saturday of the year, and I am writing from Concorde Hotel in Doha, Qatar.  Today, I have to make the flight to Dhaka, and my wake up time is around 5.  I should sleep, but I simply can't do it anymore.  Around half-an-hour ago, all of a sudden, a wave of anticipation and hunger overcame my thoughts to the point where all the baggage accumulated from the journey of the past two days seemed to vanish.  There was then an entirely new set of emotions at hand.  At that, I went to the restroom (more specifically, the bathtub) and read a chapter of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: the chapter where Pip finds out that he is going to inherit a fortune.
I might be misinterpreting it, but I am like Pip in that I have Great Expectations.  There is potentially a fortune of knowledge and wisdom to inherit in the experiences laying ahead.

Great Expectations, on top of the notebook in which I will draft and transcribe these blog posts lying in a bathtub

In our Immersion meeting last December 8th, I wrote in my free write that my primary goal is to become wiser.  Wiser about the process of thought, wiser about the role of relationships, and wiser about how the world works, just to name a few.  They are all connected, regardless, and sum up everything in some variation or another.
Hopefully, the experiences I have will start something in my mind: a new rooting of my passions.
But those are all selfish ideals: this blog is more about you, and what you make of it.  I'll tell you what I can: try to leave this blog open ended, and you can take it for what you will.
Let's get started.

Thank you for reading,
   Ahsem Kabir