Jane Eyre's Defining Moment

From Google.

"I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad - as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They will have a worth - so I always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane - quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than  could count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: therefore I plant my foot"


Here is a woman who spent her past longing for a sense of belonging, whose only claim to self-preservation is her deep respect for herself. Here is a woman who drifted across her life rejected, unloved, unaccounted for and unheard - never held as an equal. Here is a woman who held to her principles and standards of decency above all, even if it meant leaving the life where she finally found the acceptance she longed for.

May your story live on, Jane Eyre.

Random Find

Look what I found in the paper waste disposal today!

Made my day. :)

Maaf

Most of my aversions
Stem from my dislike of my own ways.

It's so easy to judge.
To look upon others' questionability.
And perceive them as thus thereafter.

But seldom have I stepped outside my shoes.
And I have been tested by tribulations different from theirs.

Only to find, that when faced with the same dillemma,
I either
Do the right thing, for the wrong reasons.
Do the wrong thing, because it feels right.
Or do something worse, which is to do exactly what I saw as reason enough
To demote people in my perception.

Maafkan.
Maafkan seorang yang tidak ikhlas.
Yang hipokrit.
Yang suka berbangga diri.
Yang suka berangan-angan.
Yang suka memberontak semata-mata.
Yang tidak melaksanakan amanahnya.
Yang banyak hak tidak ditunaikan.

Orang ini akan berazam untuk berubah sekali lagi. Dan semestinya akan tersungkur juga nanti.

To Sally

Why, Silly Sally? Just because.

You said that we first met in the bilik study, and I was eating something. You recalled being so hungry back then, and just when I was supposed to offer you the food, I finished it.That is a subject of contention. Because I don't remember eating the first time we met.

Anyway.

We had the 'budak baru' syndrome, oh how it feels funny now. It felt so cool back then, and it sparked dislike which is as unnecessary of its inception, in the first place. The miles we covered during riadah, bringing books unread, in favour of our incessant gossiping. The hours we studied with each other, to no avail, because I kept you talking.

Oh the times we used to have, just laughing. But you have to admit, we brought out the worst in each other - in the orthodox friendship kind of way. We bitched about other people, we formed exclusive alliances. We once laughed throughout our Isyak prayers. After the affair finished, we said, "Nothing good is going to come out of us being with each other"

In that respect, maybe. But I learned a lot from the two of you. About what, I am not so sure. But learned, I did.

During form five, it was the three of us. Bounded on what, I don't remember. But I'm grateful to have you two anyways. I was unbearably conceited and penyibuk, and you were in some ways, hypocritical- as we all were. I don't know how you tolerated me back then - probably because I was always around, always in your nose, that you reconciled the reality with any notion of life there without me as a fixture. Regardless of our perpetual fights, we ended up back in each other's pockets.

But I loved you, genuinely. I smile everytime I think of you and your childish squeak. Your walk which is at least nearly as violent as mine. Your self-deprecatory honesty - at least around the two of us. The way you make people feel at ease around you. Your innumerable idiosyncrasies.

That's why, browsing around your pictures nowadays, I can't help but feel so old. Because those youthful days - those stuck-up, clueless, petty days feel like a relic of the life I forgot when I left behind. Yet when I talk to you, those days no longer feels like a separate part of my life. It's a continuum. People grow up, that's what.

Well, at least I think so. We revert to our carefree, irresponsible selves every time we speak again, and here I am thinking that the only thing that has changed is the fact that we are now thousands of miles away.

Not that it matters.

Out Of Control

Floriade Nightfest lampcages. From Amal.

If I had any judgment and skill on my own,

my consideration and plans

would all be under my control.

At night my consciousness

would not leave against my will,

and the birds of my senses

would be secured within my own cage.

I would be aware of the stages journeyed by the soul

in unconsciousness, in sleep, in times of trouble.

But since my hand is made empty

by His sovereign power to loosen and to bind,

O, I wonder,

from whom comes this self-conceit of mine?

-Rumi, translated by Kabir Helminski.