Hellloo.

Hope you guys have been doing well, i’ve been doing good too. This week’s been quite quiet, especially given we’ve still recently come out of the first semester, so it’s been nice soaking up all the free time into just dawdling or doing stuff I like. Let’s talk about it.

For one, I got around to picking up some more books and syncing them up via syncthing (free sync tool for stuff across devices). I found it to be a bit of a hassle to always use the tablet to read books, and im also already using syncthing for my offline music collection, so all I really had to do was add some extra folders for other stuff I wanted.

Addmittedely, I did a lot more than just books though….

REACTION DOODLES >:).

Theyre really fun, and ive been meaning to make a folder for them on my phone anyways, but having them on a phone is a PAIN IN THE ASS.

I dunno what it is about phone folders, maybe its the way folders are organized, maybe it’s that i’m not used to the layout like I am with desktop operating systems? Whatever, IT KILLS ME TO MAKE FOLDERS ON PHONES.

Especially because gallery access is kinda wonky, though I realize that COULD be more a me problem than it is the hardware.

(I still think it could probably be better tho >:/)

Either way, syncing them to the laptop means I get to add more easy, and ive got LOTS to add. Scowering the internet for them is fun.

I specifically love this green goober a lot.

I also made a folder for notes, which is about the same reason as im syncing the reaction doodles. They should be accessible ANYWHERE.

I mean think about it, in the twenty-first century your seriously gonna look me in the eye and tell me my phone notes can’t just sync up to my laptop? That they shouldnt be using the same format for convenience?

FUCKKKKK NO.

I’m not sure what samsung notes uses as it’s file format, but it sure as hell is NOT .txt. Even if it were, there’s so much abstraction of the file and where it is that it’d be a PAIN to figure out, especially compared to if I just made synced folders for them myself and maintained them across whichever device I wanted.

Much nicer, right? I think so.

Circling back to the books though (the very LEGALLY owned and purchased may I add ;)) i’ve decided on two that have scratched an itch, and im planning on sticking to them.

Before I mention them though, I must ask. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO FIND SHIT???????????????????

Look, i’m a little bit of a dingus don’t get me wrong, maybe im just not good at finding what im looking for myself, but of the infinite books and thousands of booktubers and booktokers and whatnot I COULDNT FIND A SINGLE THING I WAS INTERESTED IN.

FOR. HOURS.

Seriously, I spent all day on thursday scowering through goodreads, jumping from reddit question to question and watching the book reviewers they recommended. It took ages, and by the end of it I didnt find a single thing that interested me.

The reviewers I came across discussed the occult, ancient roman and greek history, some japanese stories and just a TON of epics. Don’t get me wrong, all interesting in their own right, but none of them were really what I was looking for you know?

And goodreads, OH MY GOODNESS GOODREADS did you not help either. It was all either post world war 2, pre world war two, great tragedy-esc or HEAVY romance, which, again, NOTHING against them btw, some amazing books were passed by, but again nothing struck a chord.

(Im definetely coming back some of these later, like maus by art spiegelman seems fantastic, and im sure it is, im just very picky atm >:/)

Even the top 100 best rated, though I forget by what metric since it was more complex than just top 100, didnt reel it in for me. By the end of the night, which at that point I had reached, I was exhausted, and it was almost time to call it quits.

I did come accross one book though, one book that finally caught me into it’s clutches, the first thing to sink its teeth into me. I found the posthumously published book of disquiet by fernando pessoa.

Its an odd book, this one. Genuinely like nothibng I had come across in my time searching for something fun to read, even among all the great books I found. Its about this man, bernando soares, who write about himself and his life in a small town and his relationship to it. The author himself is the one who wrote it though.

The author, fernando pessoa, used many ‘heteronyms’ to write his works, basically just OC’s that he got really good at acting as :0. He’d imagine these fictional people, and write stories of them with extreme pinpoint accuracy.

And when I say extreme, I mean EXTREME, PINPOINT ACCURACY.

He imagined and acted out through his writing whole different personalities, memories, poloitical affiliations, philosophical worldviews,

people with depth both to themselves and to the ideas that they held.

He also did this A LOT, HE HAD LIKE 70 HETERONYMS UNDER HIS BELT.

And of course, bernando soares was one of them. Inspired by a man he met at a pub he’d go to, a slim man who kept to himself but who fernando saw as keenly observational, he’d write parts of this fellow into the man we now know as bernando soares.

Of course, he didnt actually publish these :v. Some randos just found his written work after his death in a truck and published and translated it for him.

COOL THOUGH RIGHT?

Everything about the story intrigues me, including fernando’s connection to bernando. He was quoted as having seen bernando as the closest heteronym to himself, not much unlike him in many ways, and it shows in this slight pervasive melancholy and introversion that the character holds in himself, not unlike the fellow that he met.

It’s fascinating, and of all the books I had come across, the most relatable.

Looking through the goodreads reviews I saw the way that they mentioned bernando, and I just couldnt help but gravitate towards it.

So now im reading it >:).

Its a fun read so far, just bernando pondering about his city, his passion, his future. Given the format of it just being a ton of short stories, I dont know how it’ll continue on from here, but I imagine SOME amount of progression in bernando’s ideas and thoughts, and i’m excited to see where they lead.

Hopefully, somewhere cool.

Unfortunately though, I do have to confess something quite important about where I found the book. I’ve been sort of deliberately avoiding mentioning that bit, but it ought to be said.

I got chatgpt to recommend it to me :/.

It PISSES me off more than it should, I was trying my very best to find a book out of my own extended search, for the satisfaction of a good catch, but by the end of that night I thought I might as well just try asking it, since I felt like I had spent up a lot of energy already.

Still, though, chatgpt or not, good book :). Honestly, I’d rather find the books that i’ll read myself, not just for the satisfaction of it but also that the fact that I’d have gotten it myself after digging, to me, signifies a greater sense of intentionality when picking up a book, and that it’s likely gonna be much more enjoyable since I picked it out given MY OWN sensibilities, but whatever. Beggars cant be choosers, and a good book is a good book.

Besides, who’s to say that’s the only book I picked up?

HEHEHEHEHEHHEEEEHE. YEEEAAAAAAAAA, WERE NOT DONE >:)

The next day, I went looking again, AND I FOUND ONE, AND A FUCKING COOL ONE TOO.

Its a recommendation from starsofeternalyouth on tiktok, a much better find and from a much cooler place.

The lady in question (I forget her name so ill just call her star for now) is an ex muslim woman who speaks about a great many things, a lot of religion, politics, day to day life, whatever she’s got to say really. I got her a while back from a video I saw circulating on r/exmuslim, an admittedely kinda shitty place cuz its 50/50 whether its actual ex muslims posting or far right freaks :’), and really liked her takes so I checked her out.

Again, star’s got A LOT of takes, a lot of which I agree with, but importantly for this discussion she’s got an IMPRESSIVE ASS collection of books. I’ve been looking for books, and I agree with her sentiments regarding a lot of shit.

So, you can see where we’re going with this :p.

The book I chose though, I chose for a particular reason.

Ever since I left islam a while back (yes big shocker given the last paragraph and the breadcrumbs from old posts but JUST GO WITH IT IM KEEPING THE STORY MOVING >:)) i’ve been quite curious on the subject of PURITY. Purity is a big deal, not only in islam but also christianity, judaism, even, of course, mattering in hinduism.

Its an important component of every religion, whether it be hygiene and simple physical cleanliness, like the example star mentions, menstruation, or the purity from others, as in the segregating of sexes, no marriage till sex, stuff like that. That goes doubly so for christanity and islam.

The latter was where my interest dragged me towards, since that’s something that’s effected me quite directly. Living in saudi arabia entailed many things, and a couple of those things included the segregation of men and women once they reach puberty in school, and the constant segregation of the two sexes in EVERY OTHER CONTEXT outside of that too. Its all encompassing.

Of course, there’s also the general attitude of the religion of abstinence from relationships with the opposite sex, even if with the intent of marriage. Its a somewhat common (and far too widespread :’)) belief back home that the two sexes just CANT be friends with each other.

Not to mention the constant the push from islam against physical touch in relationships outside of marriage, I mean you HAVE to have people around to even meet a person you’d like to marry, and arranged marriage is the ONLY valid way to sustain a long term relationship with a partner outside of meeting through the right circumstances (at least, thats what my family largely believes in).

Its A LOT, this total compartmentalization and control over the relationships and sexuality of the people that follow the religion, leading to a so called ‘purity culture’ which star argues plays a role in controlling women’s sexuality and which ultimately benefits patriarchy.

Her stance in the video i’m referring to had much more to do with the sexuality of women than the broader ideas I’ve layed out here, but hopefully you can see that there’s some overlap. That’s why I was really excited when while watching, she mentioned a book titled ‘purity and danger’. A book about, who could have guessed, purity, and it’s rule in perceiving and removing what it deems to be dangerous.

She mentioned a particular quote ‘dirt is just matter out of place’ in reference to the so-called ‘dirtiness’ of various actions, in star’s case referring to how society labels women ‘dirty’ as a rejection of the way the express their sexuality, and the maintenence of social cohesion and the values that culture operates in.

I LOVED the sound of this, and quite hate a lot of the things that this incessant purity, particularly the dumbs stuff from islam like total segregation of the sexes in the culture that I’d lived through in my childhood and adolescence, introcuced, so you BET YOUR ASS when she name dropped the book I hopped on that shit.

And here we are now. I read through the first chapter the other day, and though its HEAVY in it’s vernacular, and covers a VARIETY of other lesser known religions, I see neither of these things as negatives. The verbiage is fun to challenge myself with, and the broader application of purity, from it’s broadest sense to specific examples regarding purity in lesser known religions, helps to put the ideas into perspective.

Its not a 1 to 1 match of exactly the topics I was looking to unpack myself, but I feel that it closely aligns, and give me the tools to unpack on my own. As well as that I also just find the book really fun to read through. I’ll let you know how that one goes when its done, maybe come back to this topic with a sharpended lens.

Though, im happy to spiel about it right now, and for loads and loads. Thing is is that it inevitably brings us onto the greater topic of religiosity, given I totally just dropped the whole ex muslim almost out of nowhere.

Well, I DID consider making a dedicated post about it, but that always seemed excessive you know? It’s not that I cant or dont want to, but I just havent gotten the urge to go all out in that way you know? It’s been more of a calm acceptence on my part, and I feel like it would be odd to make such a grandiose gesture right now.

Still, it flows nicely from the previous topic, so let’s unpack it some more now :).

I officially left islam months and months back (sometime this year), though I didnt note when it happened. It was at a pretty turbelent time, things had just calmed down academically from what I recall, but its not like that has anything to do with the decision honestly. The decision’s BEEN made, and it was made far far before I ever officially went through with it.

Honestly, I’d go as far to say I never really believed in the faith.

Ever since I could remember, I’d never really bought any of it. There were so many opposing values between me and islam, after all. However, I figured it wasn’t worth the trouble of unpacking.

Ignorance, cognitive dissonance. I was a boy of strong social cohesion, and I valued my family’s perception of me. Its not like I could deal with the negative aftemath, anyways.

I saw the line, the line between belief and disbelief, and knowing which side I’d end up on if I looked into the matter further, I ignored it. It was safer that way.

Ever since middleschool, I’ve avoided religion like HELL, to the point where my parents didnt consider me arab anymore.

They still dont, at this point I dont think they ever have for many more reasons than I can condense here, but it’s not like I care like I used to.

Though I was smart enough to figure things out early, I was dumb enough to think that their opinions mattered over mine. That everybody else’s did.

And so I lived with the benefits, the benefits of my false belief. It was to the point that I’d eventually forgotten that I never believed in any of this to begin with :p.

Years fly by, and I come around to highscool. Id come off of a breakup, was insecure as hell, and entered my newest school. There I met some amazing people, but no doubt many were far more religious, and far more pushy OF that fact than my old classmates. That, alongside my growing involvement in the redpill at the time (I know, yuck >:() caused me to spiral. By the end of the 11th grade, I dont think I even recognized myself anymore.

But then something funny happened. The more time had passed on, the less I could keep up those beliefs. For all the religiosity that came with that environment, I started to wane.

I didnt really believe in all the shit the men had spouted about women, I only really internalised it in so far as I was insecure about my own place as a man. I didnt feel any sense of love for my religion, it was only ever pushed onto me as a responsibility by other men.

That dissonance between my old, real identity, and what I’d come to believe, both to appease my community and myself, began to close. Eventually, it would fully close.

It wasnt immediate, but steady, and by the first semester of next year, those ideas were basically gone. As ashamed as I was by the end of it, none of it was real. I was hurt, and stupidly I lashed out. And I was left with the aftermath.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because I thought that this would save me. I thought that life would be BETTER this way, that social conformity to both the idealized man that my father wanted from me, as well as the religiosity expected of me got me NOWHERE. It left me miserable.

But afterwards, that time away from those beliefs showed me that fact, more clearly than anything else. At least I have that consolation.

That year, I finally began the tedious process of removing the rubble from the faulty foundation that I’d built, a foundation of flaky, mishapen parts. The night wandering, the late nights staring up onto the ceiling, I had every moment to realize what I had done. It took a while to connect the dots, to see myself for what I was.

And it broke my faith.

Too much of my religious obedience has been social conformity. Too much of my understanding of it bent to its whims. Your hardly allowed to criticize the word of allah, at least in my most important circles.

I’m done. I am, and have been over this since I left islam, since the 12th grade. It’s not like I ever phones in, this was all phones in on my end from the start, it’s just that I can finally say it.

Honestly, I dont know if some of the people in my life will ever accept that, that it wasn’t ‘western agenda’, but it doesnt matter. I am this way now regardless.

Im glad to be back, I’m more whole since the rejection of religious conformity than I ever was rejecting that self of mine <3. And I wake up easier in the morning for it.

Hopefully someday my extended family will get over that fact :p. We’ll see I guess.

Anyways, that’s my story n_n. Not necessarily what you expected I’m sure but if you’ve read through this post long enough to reach this story of mine, I hope you enjoyed this peek under the curtain. Consider it a gift, for connecting with me through my work up until this point.

If your wondering about what I currently believe in, I’m largely agnostic. There’s sizeable evidence against the existence of god, and even taking in all the arguments FOR rather than against, I see no way through my current lens that it’s any of the gods the major religions of the world talk about incessently.

I may not know much, I’m only human, but I know enough to know that they’re wrong, and I’m content in the fact that God would in no way torment the majority of humanity with hell over such inconsequential beliefs. I like to believe there are more important things God WOULD consider if they were real, than worship and belief in them and ONLY them.

Like damn. Egotistical much x)?

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the read as much as I did writing it. Though it’s kind of spontaneous, a lot of my posts tend to be, right? Regardless, I cant wait to continue reading the books from fernando and exploring star’s cool recommendations, theyre full of neat things to learn from, and right now that keeps me going.

Ill call it here for tonight. As a bonus, please accept this drawing of my posable mannequin that I drew in my free time this week:

Its on a new app (sketchbook) with a new pen, I’ve been looking for an mspaint-like pen and stumbled on this, and even though it’s not exactly what I was looking for I LOVED drawing with it!

It’s really satisfying :0.

Anywho, that’s all for this week. Ladies, gentlemen, and all other lovely folk, I wish you all a great week <3.