Our Umrah plans have been cancelled. The uncle that we were supposed to go with has become seriously ill and he’s in no state to travel. I’d appreciate it if you guys put my uncle on the Blogistani Dua exchange. He’s a genuinely good man who I love like a father.

It’s interesting what a difference love makes. The death of a person you don’t love is barely a footnote in your life, but when a person you love dies it’s a whole sad chapter. You feel hurt by it, even though love is intangible, it has a physical effect on your body. I don’t just mean tears, I mean a sudden pang in your stomach or chest, a head-ache, or nausea just from even thinking about it.

I know that it’s a typical angstful teenager thing to go, “If you don’t love someone they can’t hurt you.” (I think that may be an actually quote from Squall Leonheart in FFVIII, the quintessential angstful teenage hero) That’s true, but it isn’t a very useful theory. First of all, because once you love someone it’s nearly impossible to un-love them, even if you start hating them. Then you just love and hate them simultaneously.

I think that love and hate must not be opposites, because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to exist in the same place. Like light and dark. One thing cannot be both light and dark at the same time, one number cannot be both positive and negative at the same time, but one heart can hold love and hate in equal quantities without them canceling each other out.

It’s not that I’m feeling particularly angstful, (angstful is our made-up word of the day kids) or teenagery. I’m long past my teenage years. (gasp!) I was just thinking about what it would be like if my uncle died, and how sad that would make me. I shouldn’t be sad though, because I know that Islamically speaking, I should hope to be reunited with the good people I love in the next world (provided I don’t act like a Cursed Infidel, he he) but it still makes me sad. Humans are programmed to be that way. If they weren’t saddened by the deaths of their family members, then that would mean they didn’t love one another. If they didn’t love one another, then, well, I think the whole world would go to hell in a handbasket faster than it already is. Much faster.

See, this is what happens when I blog when I’m tired. My brain leaks out, and it’s made of second-rate materials. It might leave a stain. Better go clean it up.

posted by Abez @ 9/22/2003 11:04:00 PM