my internal struggle.

I have struggled with the notion of identity for a long long time. I wish I was like most other people and had taken on what ever was handed to me without questioning it or going into too much detail but as it is i have always been an extremely curious sort of a person and I think about things in great depths.
 When I was young i used to wish i could stop my self from thinking but no sir no matter how hard i tried to conform to the right image i just could not go against what i felt was right in my own gut, so whilst growing up there were many phases, times when i became very religious and than i d go back to being very liberal in my dress and my speech etc. Living in Pakistan without my father for most of the time growing up was very hard as it was due to many reasons, one main one was that my mother had decided to live by her self without any handouts from any one. Women living without men is a break from the norm on so many levels, it seems to me it scares society for some reason, those women automatically become harlots, wanton etc before any one even tries to understand the reason why they are there in the first place. Growing up and being the eldest i had to go out and do; many of the traditionally men things, like going to the super market to get grocery, going to pay bills, there were many times during those trips that i got teased verbally or at worst slapped in various places by the passing by men.  One such incident i remember very clearly is when a guy on a bicycle hit me on my bottom as i was walking back from the shop and made a very rude comment. I came home and cried and vowed i wont let any one touch me ever again. The next time some one tried to pull the same thing i had grabbed him from his collar and gave him a good thrashing, using unholy language all the while. I was happy that i had defended my self but upon coming home when i told my mom she got very very angry with me and i understood why the next day when that man stood outside our gate with a smirk on his face. I knew than the ruse was over cause he could see we had no man in the house.
 It is said that the refinement and civilization of a society is seen by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens and when women are safe it means men are safe too. I always conformed to the social norms, wearing huge chaddars etc when i would go out, it did not stop people from doing what they wanted to do, saying what they wanted to say. So i would get very angry and decide to not take the chaddar any more and than i d get more judgmental comments and eyed like i have committed the biggest sin on the planet by those who were closest to me. I have just one question to ask, how is ones virtue defined by what is on their heads or what is on their bodies. Virtue should only be define by what is in ones heart and mind, how we treat those around us.
 I think it is hi time we stopped playing God and let people make their own decisions, their own choices without making them feel bad about those choices. Every one is struggling and every one is fighting a battle so instead of being judgmental try and understand the fear they must have been going through. Why are we so stuck on the rituals of religions and not on the Golden rules which are the same in all of them. Why is a women who is covered suddenly better and more virtuous than the one who decides not to be, why is covering up one self such a big part of being muslim anyways, Reading the Quran there is such a lot of variation in the explanation about covering up the hair and more and if there is some mention of it, it is in two parts of the whole book while the message to not judge, not have bad intentions for any one, to promote peace as in every chapter of the Quran pretty much.
 I had recently done the abaya here one of the major reasons for that was that when i moved here after my marriage i felt quite awkward in the community, ofcourse a lot of that is attributed to my own struggles with my identity etc but non the less women are very quick to be able to decipher how some one looks at them. So i too decided i wanted to cover up but the more i read and thought about things the more questions i had as to why the current rhetoric in the religion emphasizes the women to take a back seat and just crush her soul, On close inspection i did not find that in the older traditions and views plus in all honesty i do not feel i need to tell the whole world i am Muslim by putting a scarf on my head, neither do i feel that i have to keep the guys lust in check by being very demure in dress, their desire is their own problem not mine. After much internal struggle i decided to stop taking the abaya. The judgemental eyes were there like always but well one decision i have made through my personal growth through all this stuff is that i cannot control what other people think, it is their stuff not mine. I do not need every ones approval to feel good about my self. I have a right to my body and I have a right to dress it how I choose to. Allah cares more about what is in your heart and not what is on your head. 

Darkness

As a child I was always afraid of the dark. When I was old enough to write the first things i learnt to write was Allah and I would write it a hundred times and paste it all over my room to protect me from the darkness because darkness bought with it monsters and dreams things that went bump in the night.
 As I grew older I learnt that one had to be brave and not let the darkness scare you. As I got older still I learnt of a new kind of darkness, the one which lurks within all of us. What are we to do with that darkness let is dwell, not disturb it or rattle its cage. What does that darkness signify anyway, the shame, the guilt, the fear we all feel because we all are vulnerable human beings yet we pretend we are braver, stronger, faster than the other guy.
 The question that has been festering in my mind is why we are afraid of the darkness. The dark in the metamorphic sense within our souls or the darkness of the night. If we think about it all good things really come out of the dark. The seed is under layers of dark soil before it erupts and comes forth as a plant, a flower, or a tree. A baby is in the darkness of the womb before it comes into the light of the world. It is darkest before the dawn tears out of the night.
 I think our darkness completes us. It is only when we have allowed our selves to be comfortable with out own darkness, our own fears, our guilt, our shame, our vulnerability that we realize our true potential. We realize our own humanity and hence the humanity within others. The question than become how does one allow one self to be comfortable with the dark within. For that to happen one has to get thoroughly uncomfortable, to step outside of our comfort zone and think through the hard questions, face the fears we are never willing to face head on. The fears that lurk within us of our own inadequacy, It means letting down our own guard and the plastic masks we wear in public and examine our belief systems. Thinking is a painful process for many people we would rather be indulged, told how to live a life rather than take a path less traveled and find our own answers which may not be in agreement with the rhetoric of the time.
 However, looking back at history one finds many examples where geniuses have come forth when they were ready to embrace their darkness.Darkness than is not something to fear but to embrace to get comfortable with because it is only when we are ready to accept ourselves completely, that we are able to reach our true potentials. It is when we embrace the pain, the fear, the shame that we have experienced in our lives that we will feel adequate and will allow our selves to be vulnerable, to connect, to communicate with other living beings and it is only at that juncture that an ordinary un-examined life becomes an extra ordinary life.