As he bids farewell to his father and remembers the journey to a new continent

Today was the day that my father once again left us after staying for about 29 days, a relatively long stay as he usually stays for maybe 3 weeks.

Bit of a back story I suppose, but here goes.
I believe it was back near the end of 2000 or some way through 2001 that we moved from the country of Turkey to a small country called Qatar in the Middle East. (More on that some other day I suppose)

We lived in that incredibly hot country for about 5 years. It was probably a relatively dark time, I was very much shunned as that country did certainly seem to be overly religious and also very racist towards me. Either way, I had a good group of close friends and I was definitely sad when it was time to leave.

My dad had a really good position with this company called AES, he was managing a power plant and every day he drove about 45 minutes to get to it. (Not significant, but in that small country, he literally went from one side of it to the other) For a good 5 years, my father lived with us in a house. The whole family was together back then, and times were good. Our cousins also lived there and we had a large group of family friends.

And then a point came, where my dads company wanted to reposition him to Nigeria, where they were attempting to open a new plant and needed some big hands on it and so on. My dad really liked his position, and didn't want to lose his spot in the company. But at the same time, he didn't want us "growing up in Nigeria," he was hoping for a better education for it.

So he did something that I've always admired him for having the courage to do and that is, send us to Canada (where his brother, my uncle lives) and go him self to work in Nigeria. It is here that I Have started my own new life, where I have met friends and done things I would never have previously thought possible. It is here that I have grown to be what I am today.

We arrived in Canada on December 21st 2005, I remember that I actually liked the fact that we got "Pizza" on the plane, and at that point there were TVs for every chair and such. None the less, a long flight is one to always make me exceptionally dizzy and motion sick.

Getting off the plane, the first thing I really noticed were all the signs in a strange language which would be French. When we left the air port, it was snowing and there I was in light sweater or what ever with my bag full of summer clothes from a hot country. we met our uncle then and lived with him in Missisauga for a while. At some point, we rented another apartment in Missisauga and started attending school over there. My parents went house seeking and eventually only found a house they liked enough here in Richmond Hill.

My dad of course, always has grand plans and his plan was to buy a house here and some day he'll retire or try to find different work in Canada. So that's what we did. None the less, for a few years it has been him working over seas and visiting us ever so often. Maybe every 3 or 4 months for a few weeks.

I've actually been to Nigeria to visit him as well, and that was a bit of an adventure because that of course is where I got my HATTY, and where we went on a Safari and various other stuff.

Either way, it was a very very personal thing for me to see the conditions of a country struck so deep by poverty and corruption, I was followed by guilt for living a good life around the general population there. I think it was a very humbling experience for the younger me :)

Back to topic, my father constantly worked hard and then he would visit for happy times. This continued for maybe 3 or 4 years and eventually my father moved with his company to South Africa where he stayed for a few months. Since then, my father has left AES and is now working in a different company. He left it because his friend was doing something in Pakistan and he wanted to work in his rightful home for a few years.

So today is a bit of a silent day in my house, my brother is off to university and my dad is off to another continent. My little brother of course never actually gets off his computer and my mom is sad. I think apart from my dad, it has the biggest toll on her, which I guess would be obvious.

Being at this stage of your life without your father is always a very limiting experience, there are things I wish he could teach me, or talk that I wish we could share. Of course, what it really does is make me appreciate him that much more. I realize just what it means to have a father and this makes me truly feel for those who aren't as fortunate.

I can't say my situation is too bad, it isn't. Many have it so much worse. But the fact remains that I miss my daddy ever so dearly. With my father not here, I feel a lot of more responsibility on my shoulders, as if I am really the man on the house. This was always true, as my older brother is a bit of a dunderhead and not attentive enough to do anything. Now however, that he is gone I feel this burden weigh ever more heavily on my shoulders.

But we live on, let me tell any one who actually reads this, love your parents. Appreciate the hard work your fathers put in for you and the burden your mothers bear.

And he dreams of an eternal life

Can you imagine a life that would never end? One where you could experience everything that is to happen on Earth, where you could witness the very history of a planet and universe that is still in the making. A life where you could gain more knowledge than is humanly imaginable, that would be an eternal life.

Wouldn't it be absolutely horrible? I'm sure that most people agree that they don't want to be immortal, at least once you have matured enough to a point. Immortality would cause you to live your life in a continuous cycle, you would watch every thing and every one you love pass, eventually, there really would be no meaning to life. It is the fact and belief that life is short that inspires men to do great things. Can you imagine being the last human alive? (I'm assuming immortality means you can't die no matter what happens to you)

I can't even begin to describe how horrible it would be, to me the life span of a healthy human is pretty ideal, one wouldn't really want to live too long past a good age anyways, there isn't much to do and eventually you must fulfill your role in the cycle of life and that is dying.

Note: Imagine being immortal and while immortal, you're caught in an Earthquake or something and suddenly you're trapped under a ton of debris. Of course the rescue workers give up on any survivors and there you are, for eternity, trapped in a little space D:

Despite all this, I dream of living on in the lives and times of others, to exist and not be forgotten for as long as man kind is not forgotten. Being forgotten is my biggest fear, often my worst nightmare is lying in my death bed, with no visitors or anyone.

I do dream of an eternal life, an eternal life where the accomplishments I accomplish in my life will live on into the lives of others. Into the lives of human beings living a few hundred years into the future, this is my dream. To exist and be remembered long after my time has passed. That, my friends, will be how I attempt to gain immortality.

Is it not the ideal thing? to accomplish much in your life, to be rewarded and loved for your accomplishments in a time that does not belong to your generation? To continue on where most men stop? To continue your journey, without the burden of being alive to experience it?

There are ways to do this, I could live on through my creations, where the innovations and creativity that I instill would be remembered and improved upon in the future, to have a new standard for things. Allow me to give examples: Beethoven is remembered through the grandness of his great Symphonies and expression in his music, he changed how music was written after him, if it wasn't for Beethoven, the music in our lives would be so very different. Another example, Michaelangelo is remembered through the pieces of art he created, the innovations and greatness of his works such as "David" are remembered today and will be in the future

Another way of course, would be to do great things in life, save lives and the such. To be remembered for your good deeds and goodness of heart like Florence Nightingale, or create something that will set a basis for all in the future to work on such as Louis Pasteur.

Of course, there are all kinds of ways to be remembered. If you truly accomplish something amazing, you can be remembered for all of human life, an example would be the great Pharoahs or the greek scholars.

This is my dream my friends, a dream which I suppose is more likely to not be accomplished, but it is a dream that I will strive for in life. I will make my life the best I can by seeking to extend it into the lives of our children's children. I also believe that one must do great things for the sake of goodness, for helping humanity. I know that only if I succeed in my goal with good intentions that are right, then I will be remembered and that is my dream. To earn immortality through actually doing something good in life, not just immortality but actually earning it, living my life to it's fullest and then continuing that into another life.
I dream of the day when I gain my immortality.

And he remembers that fateful evening

The memory is still vivid in my mind, we had just recently moved to Doha in Qatar, and we were living in a guest house with various other people from my dads work. I came home from I think school and walked into the room, the first thing I noticed was the absolute silence, it was the TV room, with the TV on my right and all the adults were sitting on the couch. As I turned to the TV in question, I saw a burning building and did not at first realize its full significance.

I was a confused young lad, but a quick explanation from my dad cleared things up. I remember shock, disbelief, excitement and lots of confusion. I asked my self why any one would want to kill them selves in such a scary way. I admit though, I think I was a little bit excited about the concept of America being under attack, alas I was a young lad and young lads are easily excitable by war and the such that doesn't involve them. What really bothered me at the time, was that they attacked the tallest building in the world, so now it wasn't the tallest any more. My young mind failed to realize the innocent lives that were lost in the incident.

But as I grow older, I continue to realize the complete significance of this event. 9/11 was the turning point of the millennium, it was like an omen for this new millennium; a bad start. It is what set the foundations for everything that has happened in the 9 years since the incident. Just imagine, if all that money spent hunting terrorists had been invested in AIDS research or world hunger? Imagine if all those millions effected by the after shock of the event; being the whole population of Afghanistan and every Muslim on the planet as well as the families of those lost in the tragedy, were not effected? Imagine all the dreams that were broken. the dreams for a better world which could have been fulfilled. Imagine all the great people who were prevented from obtaining their rightful jobs or positions due to the event, imagine what they could have done. Of course I'm actually seeking some of the smaller less obvious points here but as we all know how significant this event really is. I can really go on about this, but I don't see any point in doing so.

There were a few positive things that came out of the event, we are now safer than ever from terrorism and I'm pretty sure they added safety features in skyscrapers amongst other things.

That being said, we cannot undermine the killing of ~3'000 innocent people. Today, it does not matter who did it, or why they did it or even how. Today, it is these lives that we remember, lives that were simply going off on an ordinary day of work to never return again. Normally I would say that we all die at some point in life, and it is fates decision to choose when. However, just imagine what a cruel and horrible way to die that really is.

Without undermining all this however, let's talk about what has become of the world. I find the way that the Americans have started to justify this has really come out of hand. A prime example would be the Community center that a group of Muslims were trying to build close to "ground zero" Which actually wasn't really that close. Now obviously I know that this was over hyped by the media who obviously wanted to hide some other important thing. However, it is really the reaction that gets to me.

Relatives of those who perished in the event I think for the most part don't mind it so much. They understand that their loved ones did not die to be used as an excuse to limit others from their religion or culture. It is those Americans who live far, mainly not even in the city who are creating the uproar. It really is more of a psychological reasonings, were the media presents a single point in a specific way to make it more of a fact than an opinion.

I supported the building of the community center, not as a Muslim but as a human being. I know that to the Muslim community of New York, this center would serve a grim reminder of events passed, of events that they are then thought to never allow to happen again. I realize that I don't actually live in New York, but neither do most of the critics. This is where they say to me, "But you don't live in America, you don't understand the pride we have in our nation"

But then I ask you my friends, how can you have such a large amount of pride in your nation, but have no faith in your fellow Americans? Americans that are no different than you in the pride of their nation, but only different in the religion they follow.

What I believe 9/11 really did to destroy this decade, and the next few, was dash all hopes of peace. Things were finally looking up, sure, there were many civil wars around the world, and sure there was still USA in Iraq, but it all seemed like it could be ended. And then terrorism struck and it succeeded in its true goal; to strike terror into the hearts of people. Doing so, it ensured a never ending war, because my friends, terrorism can never be ended unless you get over the fear of it. It is only when a terrorist sees that his plan would not have the desired impact, or a suicide bomber realizes that his life will be lost in vain that it will stop.

Another interesting thing I would like to note, is the worlds reaction to this event. I realize it was a tragedy, but I honestly doubt the reaction would be so big if it wasn't the United States that were attacked. I guess some sort of an example would be the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A marginally larger number of innocent people perished in those bombings, and to me, they were terrorism at its worst. The whole purpose of the bombings was to display a new weapon, to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy, to force them to surrender by scaring their people. The bombs were used on completely innocent cities, cities that were not directly involved in the war, but rather were simply a location for the population to live their lives. Now I can go on, but the point is that while the world reacted to this in one way, it was not nearly as decade changing as the relatively speaking, smaller attacks on the World Trade Center.

Why is that? Is it because this was the year 2001 and that was 1945? Is it because "alls fair in love and war?" Or is it because it was the powerhouse of the world; the United States of America that no one dares stand against that was attacked?

(p.s. this post was mainly written on 9/11/10, but I wasn't able to publish it until the 12th)

He continues his pursuit of knowledge

Grade 11, hard to believe but here I stand, I can't say that I finally made it, because I didn't. I am simply on another stepping stone of a long journey, a life long journey that will never be complete; the pursuit of knowledge.

Knowledge is one of the few things in life that I seek absolutely, that I seek to no end. It is the same with many people around the world, to me it isn't about being successful as much as it is for the sense of fulfillment and peace of mind one enters0 when obtaining knowledge. It is a funny thing, knowledge; no matter how much you learn, you will always know so little. But alas, that is the way of life.

And so it is, that I am in grade. 11. I can't say much about the year, after all it only started around 3 days ago and I already got to skip a day (today for eid) On top of that, my schedule is very very messed up. Observe the fact that I do indeed have 2 spares which isn't as bad as many, but worse than most. This means that I can't really say I have the current courses permanently as they are very much due to change. And that, is a real bummer because of how much I love my math class =[ Either way, I guess I wait and see.

I actually kind of designed this year to be a test run to see which subjects I'm more likely to go into when going into university, between Business and Sciences. (More on my future aspirations in another blog post) I hope that I am still able to obtain the necessary courses for my test run to be successful, and also the necessary ones to ensure that I am able to get the Business endorsement. If not, one may be expecting another blog post with a nice long rant about the guidance department. :)

Moreover, on the topic of time, it passes by a bit too speedily and almost every body agrees with me here. It is not an opinion but rather a fact, I was thinking to my self about how Dance of Death (released in 2003) was released 7 years ago, that's mind blowing, 2003, 7 years? 2003 is meant to be "last year" What is going on here my friends? Why does time mock us; encase us in it's seductive charms before spindling away without a trace and naught to re live it by but in a memory? And is it not somewhat ironic that the preservation of time in memories is just another on the list of things that time decays?

I will miss the days of my life so far, they have been the best of times for me. The only thing I can do about it, is set an expectation and continue to create great experiences. I must cherish every moment of the present without worry of the future or the pains of the past in my side.
I must live for the moment, or else not live at all.

A new era in his life

A few days ago, my brother left for the next stage in his journey; university. This single event has created a new section in the on going life of my family. Every day I watch my mother eat herself through worry and my dad glow in his personal pride. The house too feels exceptionally empty, and I can't even imagine what it will be like once my dad takes his leave back to Pakistan.

But how does it affect me? I suppose it is pretty significant. I've lived with my older brother my entire life, I really haven't known many days when we weren't in each other companies and there were periods of maybe a few weeks, but few of them. This in turn I suppose caused us to grow pretty close and know each other really well, and in turn gave us an ability to be really open minded with each other, to be able to talk about just about any thing. This isn't really a "guy" thing, so I guess my brother was more like my sister.

But as always, things are due to change and they do change. I feel stranger in my own home these days, I often find tad bits of scientific facts, or musical news or anything that I want to tell some body but I cannot, little pieces of information I would have told my brother. I find my self lacking someone to have an "intellectual" conversation with at home.

It's just one of those things to get used to I suppose, but it will be weird for a while, I don't really have as much of an outlet anymore so I'm guessing that this will cause me to start talking about stranger things more often with my friends, some thing I might want to avoid for want of mutual happiness.

So I didn't actually go to his university and drop him off, I guess it probably has something to do with the fact that I was fasting, it was a 3 hour car ride and it was around 5 in the morning and I really felt like sleeping. Of course, this isn't an excuse as I really didn't want to drop him off the night before, was I simply too lazy? or was I scared of saying the good byes? Probably neither, but who knows :)

Am I exaggerating in this post? Probably quite a bit. It's a deep thing I suppose, and pretty cheesy. My brother isn't meant to read this any ways, if he does every piece of information here becomes invalid.

I actually do have quite a bit of blogging to do to catch up, yesterday Christie sent me a quick mockery making fun of my lack of updating and then ran away before I was able to reply and now I must make up for it :D