My biggest war 2025

Despite all the good habits that I've cultivated over the past year, I still couldn't develop a habit to effectively beat proscratination. The severe lack of discipline and motivation is not something I take lightly. But despite my awareness of the issue and the desire to get rid of this terrible habit, I still can't figure out the way to resolve it. No matter how big or urgent the task at hand, I'm still terribble at planning for it, even worse when it comes to execution. I found several heuristical ways to deal with it. One is to "Deny yourself the pleasure" which I actually picked up from a rightwing Christian twitter page. The whole quote is about something to do with working hard to glorify God and deny any personal pleasures that would derail the invidual from the said task. The second is "Frontload everything" which I came up with on my own. The idea is to do a task the at once it is received. I kinda had the flow going for a while using the above "mantras" but now I'm back to my old self. I am terribly ashamed of myself.

Unfortunately I increasingly feel that the most effective driving force for me is suffering. If there's somebody who would yell at me or humiliate me or threaten my life or livelihood if I don't do something, then might finally have the willpower to do it. I swear that this is a disastrous behaviour that could ultimately lead to my destruction, yet I still persist.

Seriously, what is really wrong with me? Is my mind or soul really broken that even when the truth is made clear to me, I still deny it? Considering that this is the only thing that I haven't managed to conquer for the longest time, I believe this would be my biggest personal battle ever. The most pivotal battle in the war against myself.

Therefore despite having not figured out my resolutions for 2025, I'm laying down here my first and foremost resolution:

"To stop procrastinating and do everything ahead of time."

Nobody can save me but myself.

About being 32

I saw a documentary by the New Yorker on Youtube about Frank, the 99 year old lawyer who was trying his last case. He passed not long after in 2022. He refused to retire and as he aged, he went to his office and court with walkers and drank Boost for nourishment. The people who were born in that period were really made that different. They were as tough as they came and their tenacity would put anyone from the generations that came after to absolute shame. It reminds me of our own 99 year old strongman, Tun Mahathir. May Allah swt grant him happy life for the rest of his days and in the hereafter.

Anyway, it shed a tear at the end of the documentary when it showed that Frank had passed away.

I used to fight back emotions and feelings. But at 32, I don't hold back any tears anymore. I'm constantly reminded of my parents and grandmother and uncles and aunts and how they have aged so much since I've left home. I reminisce about my childhood years and become sad when I realise I can't go back in time.

The thing about being at this age is that, you've been around long enough to see the world changes, the people come and go, and the people who stay grow older as you too grow older. I resent the fact that the world has changed so much so that the world that I grew up in no longer exists. I try as hard as I could to make things stay the same, no longer seeking to make a change "for the better". Perhaps it's nostalgia playing its tricks on my mind.

All the above makes me determined that soon I will go back to my home state Terengganu for good. True I can't make it turn back to the place that I grew up in, but at least I can try. And even if I can't stop the wave of change from sweeping across us, at least I'd be there to try to keep it from also taking away the nice things in its wake.

Inshallah, I will work to that end and may Allah swt grant me this.

On group feeling and economics

For most of my adult life, I've always considered myself a liberal.

However, since last year, I've reviewed my position. Part of it is because of my newfound interest in Islam, and another part is because I've read more on history and politics. Much of the politics that we have today stems from the enlightenment period in European history. The belief that man controls nature, and not the other way around gives rise to the liberal political order that we see today. 

In fact, liberalism to me is unnatural and ungodly. And that includes its attendant concepts such as multiculturalism and diversity. Ibn Khaldun already wrote in Muqaddimah that a civilisation is a result of 'group feeling'. Malays have been taught that this group feeling (asabiyyah) is a bad thing and that the Prophet pbuh had spoken against it. Ibn Khaldun wrote that the asabiyyah as chastised by the Prophet pbuh was the bad kind and un-Islamic. And that asabiyyah is not in itself a bad thing. It can be good or bad, depending on whether it adheres to the principles of Islam or not. A good asabiyyah is one that gives Muslims strength and purpose in politics. It's the kind that makes a tribe put its members' well-being at the centre of society. It's the kind that protects a tribe's members from attacks by other tribes. Not to mention that it is only natural that we like being among people who share our skin colour, language, religion, and the tastes for food. This is as natural as it is in the animal kingdom. Liberalism, being a concept born out of humanism, denies this fact because it's just a humanist trait to disregard nature and God, while regarding man as the most powerful being in the universe.

As a Muslim, I'd like to practice my religion with freedom and by that, I not only mean to be able to practice the individual obligations (fardh 'ain) but also the societal obligations (fardh kifayah). Sadly, in a multicultural country such as ours, we are forced to abandon or set aside our obligations because we need to consider the non-Muslims. The non-Muslims have a totally different worldview from the Muslims. Much worse, they see Islam as an arresting factor towards development. Never mind that their idea of development is one that propagates usury, exploitation, manipulation, and all other kafir practices that are not only harmful to other men, but also the the environment. A kafir feels no qualms to destroy nature solely for profit, while Muslims are not allowed to do so by the word of Allah swt Himself.

Even more sadly, there are Muslims who believe that this twisted idea of development created and promoted by kafir can be defined as in line with the teaching of Islam. They foolishly believe that development in this manner is encouraged by Islam, based on the distorted understanding of the Prophet's call to join trade. Again, this is a dishonest understanding of the Prophet pbuh's teachings to justify their greed for material wealth. 

To summarise, Malay Muslims must unlearn and relearn 2 things.

First, asabiyyah is not only good, but vital to the survival of the ummah. They understand very well that the ummah must unite but fail to understand that this is in fact a call to revive the group feeling that had given us centuries of golden age.

Second, economic ideas as created by the kafir must be fully rejected. Even a compromised solution such as partial participation in this type of economy is detrimental to the ummah because we cannot win at this game since the game is flawed in the first place where Muslims will always lose since it's against our teachings, and when we lose, the kafir will say that the reason we fail is because of Islam, when in fact it is for the reason already mentioned above.