First Post!
Housekeeping items, a reflection, and some nice quotes.
1 Housekeeping Item
Thank you all for voluntarily / involuntarily subscribing to my Substack!
What is this? I don't know yet. Hopefully, it is a motivating vehicle to get me to write more. It could be frequent, infrequent; funny, silly; inspiring, morbid; religious, secular; a hit, a flop. My current goal is simply to write once a week until the conclusion of this academic year (June?) and see what we get.
3 Upcoming Dates
03/22/2023 - Start of Ramadan
06/12/2023 - Ibrahim's Birthday
12/31/2023 - New Year's Eve
1 New Years Resolution
In March 2022, I started getting advice from respected people about engaging in service as a path to betterment. I felt in the remaining months of 2022 as though I heard the importance of "service" more frequently in lectures and conversations. Then at the end of the year, an elder in my family passed and stories of his generosity and kindness came flooding up from everyone. My uncle and I were reflecting on this and we agreed that this elder was mindful of his obligatory prayers but not exceptional; however, he did excel in actions of service. More so, the obligatory acts of faith or expected of us so we should not feel as if we deserve some reward for doing what is already expected. We should also treat people well.
In 2023 I hope to incorporate "service" more into my day-to-day actions. Service in my mind is more than volunteering, it's the treatment of others and going out of your way to make life and someone's day a little bit better. As best described by the late boxer Muhammad Ali and written on his grave in Louisville, Kentucky, "Service to others is the rent you pay for your room in heaven".
4 Quotes
The following are four quotes from my top book of 2022, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles:
“Alexander Rostov was neither scientist nor sage; but at the age of sixty-four he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate and our opinions evolve--if not glacially, then at least gradually. Such that the events of an average day are as likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew.”
“Surely, the span of time between the placing of an order and the arrival of appetizers is one of the most perilous in all human interaction. What young lovers have not found themselves at this juncture in silence so sudden, so seemingly insurmountable that it threatens to cast doubt upon their chemistry as a couple? What husband and wife have not found themselves suddenly unnerved by the fear that they might not ever have something urgent, impassioned, or surprising to say to each other again?”
“For his part, the Count had opted for the life of the purposefully unrushed. Not only was he disinclined to race toward some appointed hour - disdaining even to wear a watch - he took the greatest satisfaction when assuring a friend that a worldly matter could wait in favor of a leisurely lunch or stroll along the embankment. After all, did not wine improve with age? Was it not the passage of years that gave a piece of furniture its delightful patina? When all was said and done, the endeavors that most modern men saw as urgent (such as appointments with bankers and the catching of trains), probably could have waited, while those they deemed frivolous (such as cups of tea and friendly chats) had deserved their immediate attention.”
“No matter how much time passes, those we have loved never slip away from us entirely.”
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Until next time,
Ibrahim Abdur Rasheed