How are we? What’s going on!!! Surprise, surprise, it’s 2:42 am, and here I am writing away. I’ll be honest, it’s a little out of character for me because I’ve been really good the past couple of weeks, with a strict bedtime that I’m adhering to and waking up early. It’s been feeling really good, and I’m seriously considering this as my new normal. Today’s a one-off day, not too sure what’s in the air, but I woke up around 12:30am and can’t seem to fall back asleep.
So, hi. It’s been a while.
To be honest, I’ve been writing on and off just for myself, but I wanted to take a little bit of a break from sharing. I got back to Canada a few weeks ago, so the last little bit has just been super busy, and lots of stuff is going on. Also side note, many of my friends know I am somewhat of a ChatGPT hater, especially when it comes to writing. I’ve made it a personal oath to not use it for anything I write for many reasons, but the reason I’m sharing it now is that I’m definitely going to have grammar issues here, so bear with me, I’m human.
Some book updates that I never shared,
Finished Norwegian Wood by Murakami a couple of months ago. I liked it; it was a good read. My favourite book, no. Not by a long shot. Honestly, that’s all I have to say about it.
Finished How To Stay Sane in an Age of Division by Elif Shafak. I really liked this one. A message that deeply resonated with me. I think one thing that really stuck with me was the concept that if everyone around you is super similar to you, something is not right. Read the book, she explains beautifully.
Started but didn’t finish Karachi Vice: Life and Death in a Contested City by Samira Shackle. Okay, this one was awesome. I learned so much in the chunk that I did read, and her writing is so fluid.
Finished The Prophet by Khalil Jibran, but I need to read it 100 more times. Self-explanatory.
Finished A Place for Us by Fatema Farheen Mirza. Finished this one a really long time ago, but it’s so good. About a Shia American-Indian family. Amazing book, so raw and real, especially in the way that family dynamics and religion were coloured. Shout-out to Sanna for lending it to me, and also honourable mention to Hani, who’s starting it now. Also, honourable mention to my Chachi, who was the OG in recommending this book. Safe to say it’s a good one.
Reading Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. I like it, I’m not too far in, but I like it so far. Excited to see it unravel.
Reading, but I’ve kinda pushed aside A Hero’s Walk by Anita Rau Badami. Honestly, a solid book. Really unique point of view and lovely writing. Need to get back into it, but it’s hard to read as much with school. I’ll still make time though.
Really want to read and will soon: A Midnight Library by Matt Haig and Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave by Adam Alter. Both of these sound right up my alley. Also funny story about how I found the second book. I love pink, it’s pretty much my favorite color. So one day I was doing some research on sound, colour and frequencies and how they impact us. Like how higher frequencies impact our brain and which frequencies are correlated with different colors etc, that’s a tangent for another day, but then I came across this book. Apparently theres this shade of pink that actually reduces aggressive tendencies, and so in a prison that I can’t remember the name of, they painted the walls of the cells this colour so inmates would be less aggressive, and it worked. TLDR: Colour actually impacts us in way more ways than we think, and so does literally everything else. Super cool, I know.
Today I want to talk about why we read. Here are my thoughts.
Growing up, I loved reading. It was my thing, like you know how everyone has their things, yea well, reading was mine. I would spend hours and hours in my room reading Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Neil Flambe and The Land of Stories all through my young years. I started getting into books like The Mighty Miss Malone and The Help in eighth grade, and it just went on from there. I couldn’t sleep without a book. I would use my books to tune out the world and just fully immerse into a whole new one. Then high school happened, and things went in a different direction. I still read here and there, but somewhere along those lines, high school friendgroups, having a cute outfit, and crushes took the reins of life, a little too tightly. University started, more life stuff happened, but then something amazing occurred. I started reading again. Now I don’t remember which book, but I do remember being super engrossed in a book one day, walking to class in the dead of winter, and my fingers feeling like they were going to freeze off, but the book, man oh man, the book, I just couldn’t put it down.
As a self-proclaimed full-time, then part-time, then full-time again reader, I read because I teleport. Sometimes, when I’m really in a book, I am literally in it. I imagine the characters as my friends, and I feel myself in the stories like they’re my reality and to me, it feels like teleporting. And, how can you beat that?
Now, I’ll be honest, and I’m not ashamed of it, I have been a performative reader sometimes, but I am not she anymore, I hope. I remember a couple of random times in my life I said I read a book when I really didn’t to appear smarter.
Smarter. I am smart, so why did I want to appear smarter? Because somewhere along the line, my love for reading started becoming an ego thing. And ego things are the worst kind of things, trust me. I started thinking that if I read more, people would think I was smarter, and I would be upholding this self-image that I built up in my head of myself that I was so attached to. But deep down at the root of it, I think it affected me so much because in my heart of hearts, I didn’t think I was smart. From being left out of group projects in high school, to being dismissed in conversations about STEM and politics from people around me, to just being told the english equivilent to the Urdu sentence “aapke bas ki baat nahi hain”, which kinda means “don’t bother, you don’t know much about it anyways”, I think somewhere there is when I started this notion in my head that I wasn’t smart and that’s also kinda when I left reading. I think I still read, but it wasn’t asma reading, like the real teleport amazing reading, it was just meh reading.
Growing up sometimes means unlearning a lot of the patterns and behaviours we cling so closely to. I think we cling because it feels safe, but it’s not good for us. It keeps us chained to the same cycles, and we halt our own growth at the expense of being a little uncomfortable. I now think of smartness differently, associate it with different things, and embody it differently, and finally, I think I’m smart. I may not be the best at math or physics right now, but I can be. I may not know how to play the trumpet, but I can learn. I may not be great at bowling, but I can be. And I think that’s what life should be all about. Knowing that with Allah’s will, you can literally do anything as long as you try. This world is so fleeting and illusory, so don’t let anyone ever tell you that you can or can’t do something, because if you ask me, I bet you can.
So goodnight, everyone,
Talk soon!
Your friend,
asma.
asma halai's blog 