november, 2021

a month goes by once more

dear reader,

its been a few months since i last wrote to you. august came by. september bid its way. october did not make sense. the last few months have gone by in a whirl, leaving me dazed but also, like i’ve done absolutely nothing meaningful. every month, i sat down with myself and wrote. and wrote. and wrote. every word i had written will now never be read by anyone again. there is some comfort there; knowing what i have to say will be said, even though it is heard by no one.

i thought to myself, to write something beautiful is to say something meaningful. something that truly mattered. something i had learned over the course of a month. a stark realization. a terrible truth that could only come with a unique human experience. but the reality is this;

our days are not worth writing. my days are not. i twist romantic tales out of sunlight streaming through my windows, even when my curtains are close. i do not like to live in the ordinary because there is nothing to be written about, nothing meaningful about what it means to be simple. i dread questions like “how are you?” because i have nothing left to say.

even now as i write to you, there is an invisible audience, someone who persuades me and encourages me to write. there is a camera still somewhere where i am hunched over my laptop, buried deep in the duvets piled in my bed. there is rain everywhere. a single heel is left stranded on the floor of my bedroom. i try to look pensive, deep in thought. i twist something romantic. the lights in my room are dim. i have terrible posture. i realize i am human just like anybody else.

even as i write this, i wonder if there is some merit that comes with being honest, even if it is difficult to speak to anyone. but ive realized one thing over the year; it is a difficult thing to be human and perhaps, to exist in a time like we do. it is painfully lonely, almost excruciating. but the loneliness subsides when i realize we are lonely together. and it is a cruel irony, how we find warmth in that as well.

---

to read in november:

a little life by hanya yanagihara

the midnight library by matt haig

under the whispering door by t.j klune

---

a few months ago, i was listening to another on being podcast episode featuring sociologist nicholas christakis who spoke greatly of how humans were wired for goodness and how goodness was something found threaded in all of us.

christakis talked of how the act of being good was wired inside of all of us, how love acted as an evolutionary force. how looking out for one another and taking care of each other was embedded deep inside of us. christakis talks of how looking out one for another is a task unique to humankind and how it has helped us preserve for another for a very long time.

i then came across all about love by bell hooks that talked of love as a radical and transformative force. about what love had taught us and how it should be taught. i’ve also been following (i admit i haven’t been up to date on this one, haha) a course of love as a force for social justice on coursera where we learned about how the basis of love and care, the idea of looking out for another and wanting powered and channeled revolutionary movements.

i came to the realization that we need each other more than we know. that we have always needed each other. that we have always had each other as well.

it was a comforting thought, i realized. especially in a time where i know so many of us feel alone. the idea of us being there for each other and being there for ourselves, whether we even knew it or not, whether it even mattered, whether we had done this all our lives and will continue to do so— it will all work out in the end.

we have always recognised each other by our voices, by our face, by the words we say and the way we hold ourselves together. even as i write this to you, there is some part of me that is convinced i care for you because i do. we have always had it in us to be there for one another. we must be there for ourselves.

in june, i promised to myself i would write a letter every month. august came by. september bid its way. october did not make sense. but i welcome november better than i have welcomed any other month. perhaps, this too will be a month that goes by without me even realizing. but there is a part of me that welcomes it.

i do not have to be honest. i do not have to think. somehow slouched over my laptop, writing as i have always done with the lights dim, i realize i am human, just like everyone else.

and the thought comforts me in more ways than one.

i hope it comforts you too.

with love,

fawzul

P.S i didn’t forget your playlist this time either