Coming into Wholeness!

I'm more coming to learn-to understand-that my journey is about coming into wholeness. Bringing the parts together and coming to terms with with who I am. Now this trip begins. Going into this new year I anticipate being much more cognizant of time. Being more responsible, more free, and more accountable.

Cultural Studies...

Presently, I'm reading authors that have influenced the discipline of Cultural Studies. I believe it is within the framework of Post Colonial Studies; furthermore, I've begun to spend some intimate time in the reading of Adler's How To Read A Book. He brings back the memory of when I recieved a letter from a girlfriend during my incarceration. I don't think-I know I haven't-read anything as intimate as I had read the letters from her. I read the letters over and over in every way. I studied the letters, the choice of words, and even how she punctuated the sentences. I'm realizing, this is reading. Not just trying to understand what she was saying, however, trying to empathize with what she was experiencing and trying to express, or communicate, through these symbols of words.

National Consciousness

I just finish'd reading Fanon's The Pitfalls of National Consciousness taken from The Wretched of the Earth. The picture that Fanon delineated I see so vividly in the African-American/Black Islamic Community; that underdeveloped nation, that gained its independence, but lacks the vision, the power, the intellect, that brought its colonizer into power. Are they conscious of the literature of combat? Resistance? I see that intermediary, that host, that has taken its position in line. I'm slowly coming to know my position as a revolutionary intellectual; however, still, I must define my own existence.

Wholeness....

I'm beginning to know, with that distinct certainty, academics contains my solace. Desperate for wholeness I give time to smaller minds...I get frustrated. How do you convey to one that you're looking for something in the anticipation? The anticipation between a title and a first line; the anticipation after the end of a sentence, moving back to the beginning of the next. Still, I stop to think what to type; when what I'm looking for is in the words that I freely, without thinking about it, put out. The positioning is constant....

Things are Calm

It's a beautiful, peaceful, calm, morning within. One has to remind his or herself to be conscious of the past, present, and future, simultaneously. My world of academics is weighty. I say that cautiously with a look of ponderance; however, it represents a good, challenging weight. There is no option, no plan B, to attend graduate college. The question is at what cost? What sacrifice? It's requiring more. It's requiring more throughout the whole circle of influence; however, IT CAN BE DONE! There can be know doubt....

Growth...

This represents the beginning of a new and final semester as an undergrad. I feel life in school. I have to examine that, because there are other elements that should bring that same feeling; thus, family and faith. I know it is school that is moving me toward my immediate goal: a master's degree. Ultimately, i anticipate a Phd in Post-Colonial Studies. This is something, no doubt, I see within the next five to six years. Everything from here on must take a back seat. The positioning is constant. We continually fight, race, position ourselves, to know our place existentially within this existence.

Colonialism and Islam

Concentrating on Post-Colonial Studies I meditate often on its relation to Islam. Better yet, how colonialism has effected our perception of self, which effects the individuals interpretation of Islam. I encourage listeners often to retrace their steps to the origin of their logic. The premises which it stands on. Ideally, we know Qur'an expresses, "No muslim is better than another...;" however, in the actual world, still we suffer from the disfiguring, the mis-representation, of our perception. There hasn't been enough dialogue, in my opinion, addressing this issue...

A Moment's Reflection

We are born into exile,
That we may know the most beloved.
This time is but a trial,
We collapse for what we covet.
The only Truth is The Omnipotent.

The Souls of Black Folk

I have just finish'd reading "The Souls of Black Folk" by W.E.B. Du Bois. Having have mused on the text somewhat, I find just cultural studies to a degree fascinating. To be cognizant of the many layers of the colonial situation as well as be aware of the Veil that Mr. Du Bois references. I have to ignore the minds that are part of the "conspiracy to silence" when it comes to the condition of Black folk. To empathize wholeheartedly with that middle-man trying to reach the European standard, at the same time, being disconnect'd from the root. How does one find elevated thought? How does one even know it exist without having been escort'd there by someone whose been will'd from an unknown space? One must clean the pipe from the residue that remains from colonialism.

The Development of a Community

As I reflect I'm finding an Orthodox Islamic community represents an excellent specimen for a case study for understanding the development of a group. Essentially, so much depends on the interaction of its inhabitants. We, humanity, were made diffferent for us all to make a contribution for the betterment. W.E.B. Dubois remarked about interracial cooperation referring to everyone contributing equally. What would happen if that elite part was to get up and leave? What would happen if the hegemonic group was to take its resources and leave those remaining to fend for themselves? This dynamic must remain an awareness in the forefront of the vocation.

National Consciousness

In the essay "National Culture" Frantz Fanon remarks on the significance of establishing a National Consciousness. This notion of a consciousness represents the ideas, edifices, movements, as well as, past, that shape a Nation. Studying the idea of Post-Colonialism I see the many layers that exist in the Islamic groups I've been affiliated with. How the colonialist works to cripple the colonized. How leadership does not really work to develop the subaltern. Not just because of a lack of knowledge; but, too, a spiritual penury that exist.

Bagger Vance

A page from Psychology of a Mark...Everyone comes to a crossroad in their life. I have come to know one is able to will the person into his life that allows him to make the right transition. Those that deny the truth contribute to their demise; hence, complacency...

The Prelude

Presently I'm reading the Prelude by William Wordsworth. The Prelude, it represents a poetic spiritual autobiography of his development. I don't focus on the interpretation as much as I try and focus on what it conjures up in my own soul. It calls me to embrace the solitude that i'm experiencing; the actuality, the imminent. What is the medium one calls to take him/her to a higher realm of thought? Does one choose to even go? It is in our soul to go. This is the divine we search for in nature. That feeling of exile we experience in our loneliness.

Crash

I think at times I talk with people as a form of intimacy. You ask these questions that you already know the answers too, yet still, you put the questions out there anyway. I have to begin more to delve inside. To search more for that realm, as Coleridge would put it, of abstruser musings....

Perspective

I'm encouraged to write more, while reading Edward Said's essay on "Orientalism." When one writes, with it, he (the writer) brings his, not just perspective; but, a psychology as well. One has to be cognizant of where he's at psychologically; and work towards dislodging the myths or Occident influence...

The Enterprise

I'm getting familiar with the Enterprise of Post-Colonialism. The dynamics of economics, culture, and psychology. As Edward Said would coin "the voyage in" versus "out." Being cognizant of this air of being above. Knowing the "Other." As Foucault would express the knowing/power/pleasure; but what is the manichean experience?